Finance Committee, 15 Nov 2004

Meeting date: Monday, November 15, 2004

Official Report 284KB pdf

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Item in Private

I open formally the afternoon session of our meeting. Members will be aware that the Deputy Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has been delayed, but we expect that he will arrive at about a quarter to 3. I propose that we shift the agenda items around. I would like us first to deal briefly with item 5 on the revised agenda, which is a proposal to take an item in private. We will then consider subordinate legislation and the budget process from a technical point of view. When the minister arrives, we can address specific questions on the budget process to him. Richard Dennis and his colleagues will be able to deal with technical issues. That may involve some blurring of items 2 and 3 on agenda, but that is the position in the absence of the minister.

We would like the committee to agree to take in private at our next meeting consideration of an interim report on the financial memorandum to the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill. At the end of last week, Alasdair Morgan and I met the clerk and agreed that particular difficulties were attached to commissioning research into this issue. We believed that it might not be possible to obtain such research within a reasonable timescale and that the committee was in danger of doing something that the Executive should perhaps be required to do. We intend to submit an interim report to the committee at our next meeting and to seek the committee's advice on how to proceed. That is why I am asking members to agree to take an item in private at that meeting. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.