Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you very much for that helpful opening statement.

I have to say that it is quite difficult for the committee to have confidence in the figures that the Scottish Government provides when we were given a set of figures last week and already—only this morning, in fact—they have been altered quite substantially.

In the letter that you sent to the committee this morning, the figures in the “Information, advice and advocacy” and “Carer’s Breaks” rows have been revised downwards, so the totals now range from £97.1 million to £160.9 million. Previously the range was between £114.2 million and £189.6 million. I understand the reasons that you gave in your letter for those revisions, but these projections go up to 2032 and the figures have already been changed since we were issued with the papers, only last Thursday.

The central point remains, though: how can the committee have faith in the Scottish Government’s projection of figures? We received the original financial memorandum in June 2022 and an updated one in December 2023, but they have been altered monumentally in the time that has passed since. How can we be confident that this is where we actually are and that this is the way that we will go?

Regardless of that, there are still huge differences—we are still talking about the difference between £97.1 million and £160.9 million in one area alone. Those are huge variations in cost.

I appreciate your commitment to transparency. However, the committee is keen to look at this again, because there is virtually no resemblance between the bill as it was when it was first presented to us, in 2022, and the bill as it is now. It has been monumentally changed, which is why we have to look at it, given the amount of public money that we are talking about.

The supplementary FM says:

“At this stage it is not possible to provide a position on the total cost or how the costs will be phased.”

That uncertainty is a cause for concern.

Yes, because that is quite a substantial part of the update that you have provided—your table shows that that element will cost between £97.1 million and £160.9 million a year. We are talking about needing quite a few people.

I am sorry to interrupt. That is what the legislation says, but I have raised concerns in the committee that, in the inquiries that we have been looking into, there does not seem to have been anything to restrict costs, as far as we can see.

In the Scottish Covid-19 inquiry, for example, the senior counsel, whether they were a member of the Faculty of Advocates or a solicitor, was limited to £200 an hour in fees. I do not know what the fees are for the Bayoh case, for example, but we know that it would not be £200 an hour, because the junior counsel would be a lot less expensive. That would involve 85,000 hours of legal fees just for the police. That is like everyone in Hampden being interviewed for an hour, and there would still be 30,000 people left over.

Laypeople looking at inquiries do not see any cost control. They see that things grow arms and legs. They see that that particular inquiry is costing tens of millions of pounds and that it has lasted five or six years. Other inquiries have lasted longer. Where is the justice at the end of that, from whichever perspective you are looking—from the Police Scotland perspective or from the other perspective? It seems to be a phenomenally expensive process. Can there be any possible positive outcome at the end of it, one wonders, relative to how that money could be spent elsewhere, as the police say?

To make the changes that you have just discussed, how much are we looking at?

That has exhausted questions from the committee. I have only a couple more. The first is about Anne’s law, which you touched on. You said:

“It is expected that there will be some costs for care home providers and those supporting care homes, to promote and champion Anne’s Law through staff and provider awareness sessions, formal training, updating visiting policies including the identification of the Essential Care Supporter and for printing leaflets and other administration.”

You then went on to say those would be

“absorbed within the usual costs of following current guidance around named visitor policy”

and so on. Surely, if there are additional responsibilities and training, additional costs will be involved.

Indeed, but, as Mr Mason pointed out to the previous panel, every document has to be looked at. We are trying to conduct this investigation, if you want to call it that, in a matter of weeks as well as doing all the other things that we have to do as MSPs and so on. One issue that the committee is considering is that time does not seem to be much of a factor in these inquiries. Lord Hardie talked about an inquiry that he chaired that lasted nine years, for example. The Scottish Covid-19 inquiry, which you are involved in, Mr Pugh, has already taken three and a half years, and the UK inquiry has taken four years. More than £200 million has been spent in total, with no end in sight. The Australian Covid-19 inquiry lasted a year and cost £4 million. Was what was delivered any less impactful for the people who had concerns about what happened to their loved ones?

What kind of oversight is there of fees? Do people just put in an invoice? Who checks that the invoice is correct, for example?

Ms Dunlop, since 2019,

“the Cabinet Office has run an Inquiries Unit, whose remit is for the whole of the UK, including Scotland, to help share best practice. ”

How has that impacted the sharing of best practice among on-going public inquiries?