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I asked specific questions about how the requirements have been quantified, because the budget bid, at £112.161 million, is very specific. If additional staff will be required, either to look at net zero or Brexit, or to enable committee scrutiny by strengthening committees, it would be helpful to know what has been decided with regard to staff numbers and the additional budget that would be required for those staff.

Good morning, and welcome to the Finance and Public Administration Committee’s 15th meeting in 2021. I thank Daniel Johnson for chairing the pre-meeting briefing.

We are meeting remotely today, and we have a single item on our agenda, which involves taking evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish budget for 2022-23. First, we will hear from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on its budget bid and then we will take evidence on the budget from Kate Forbes, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses. Jackson Carlaw MSP, the SPCB lead on governance issues, is joined by three Scottish parliamentary officials: David McGill, chief executive; Michelle Hegarty, deputy chief executive; and Sara Glass, group head of financial governance.

We have around an hour for this discussion and should direct questions to Mr Carlaw in the first instance. If he would prefer for an official to respond to a question, I ask that he make that clear to our broadcasting team who operate the microphones.

I remind members that broadcasting will also operate their microphones and that they should allow a few moments before speaking to ensure that they are heard. I plan to bring members in to speak in the order that we discussed previously but, if anyone would like to come in to follow up another member’s question, for instance, they should type R into the chat function.

I will begin the questions. Paragraph 9 of the SPCB’s submission says:

“greater scrutiny capacity within the existing committee structure was needed to address the substantial increase in committee workloads arising from the impact of Brexit.”

The following paragraph goes on to say that

“additional staffing investment in respect of Brexit-related scrutiny”

has

“been provided over the preceding three years”.

What is the level of that investment and what are the continuing cost implications?

Towards the end of the session, I was going to ask a range of questions on the KPMG and Fraser of Allander Institute productivity dashboard, so Liz Smith has saved the committee from hearing those questions.

We move on to questions from John Mason.

That takes us up to a complement of 625. Is that correct?

The reason why I am asking is so that people can put the bid into perspective. It is always good to have numbers.

Paragraph 12 notes that, in session 6, MSP staff cost provision increased from £93,000 to £133,200. Jackson Carlaw has advised us that that figure is now going up to £139,200. For comparison, this year, members of the Westminster Parliament have a provision of £177,500. What use has been made of the increase from £93,000 to £133,000? I realise that the current financial year is not yet complete, but there must be some indication as to what the uptake has been.

I open up the session to colleagues’ questions.

I am happy to agree to that, Mr Carlaw.

You said that the spending review would evolve to meet coming needs. Having questioned the SFC last week on the £764 million figure, I understand that it is, likely, a conservative estimate. Notwithstanding the fact that finding that money would lift out of poverty some people who, I hope, would no longer require such benefits, surely the number 1 priority should be to grow the Scottish economy faster than the UK economy, if we are not to end up reducing spending in other areas of the budget.

The purpose of devolved taxation is to allow Scotland to benefit from the powers—albeit that they are limited powers—to grow our economy faster than the UK economy and to allow additional funding to be available to Scotland. It is to try to squeeze a quart into a pint pot by having to find another £764 million from—[Inaudible.]

Following on from that, I note that in your statement on 9 December you said:

“Although the budget lays the groundwork for a green economic recovery from Covid-19, we must be clear that the UK Government’s spending review has hindered rather than helped us on that mission.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2021; c 70.]

Can you expand on that a little bit?

Moreover, on page 11 of its briefing to the committee, SPICE says that

“Four of the eleven portfolios fall in both cash”

and

“real terms”.

One of the portfolios is net zero, energy and transport. If the priorities are to try to boost the economy and to take on the challenge of the climate emergency, why are net zero, energy and transport and finance and the economy two of the four portfolios whose funding, according to SPICe, is falling?

Thank you—it is just for the record.