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The transparency that you have delivered means that we are not going to spend huge amounts of time, as we would have done otherwise, asking why amounts went here or there. You have provided detailed explanations for many of them. There are, however, one or two areas that still cause concern, so I am going to ask you something that I have asked in the past.

An additional £44 million has been provided for police pensions to help to fund the gap between the budget that was provided at the start of the year and current forecasts of costs. Last year, I asked something very similar to what I am going to ask you now. The amount is demand-led but, surely, given that you know at the beginning of the year how many police officers are likely to retire, there should not be divergence of £44 million from the initial sum—although you could give or take £1 million here or there. How much is now paid in police pensions? That would give a better picture of what the percentage differential might actually be.

Yes.

With regard to using reserves, we have heard that Creative Scotland also did that. Is it now the Scottish Government’s position that, as we go forward, we will be looking across the public sector to see where reserves can be utilised to try to optimise spend in the next year?

I have just one more question, which goes back to the issue of reserves. As we know, Scottish Government reserves represent about 1.1 per cent of the budget. At local government level, it is recommended that about 3 per cent of annual expenditure be held in reserve, although many councils have less than that and some, such as Shetland Islands Council, have more, for historical reasons. I was intrigued when it was revealed in recent weeks that Creative Scotland appeared to have a reserve of £17 million against a £66 million Government award that had been reduced by £6.6 million. That means that about a quarter of its annual award is kept in reserve. I am not sure what the £6 million would represent for Forestry and Land Scotland, say, but does the Scottish Government have any guidelines on what the level of reserves should be?

What we are talking about is those reserves being dipped into, as appears to have happened with Creative Scotland and Forestry and Land Scotland. If that has been going on, surely there has to be a set of guidelines—I am sure that there is. It would be interesting to hear your view on what level of reserves should be held. If the Scottish Government reserves represent 1.1 per cent of the budget, why does Creative Scotland hold reserves of 25 per cent of its award? What are we looking at here? There has to be consistency across the public sector.

I thank the minister and his officials for their evidence. We will publish a short report to the Parliament, setting out our decision on the draft regulations, in due course.

That concludes the public part of today’s meeting. The next item on our agenda, which we will discuss in private, is consideration of our work programme. We now move into private session.

Good morning, and welcome to the 28th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have apologies from the deputy convener, Michael Marra. His substitute today is the former committee stalwart Daniel Johnson, whom I welcome back.

The first item on our agenda is to take evidence on the financial memorandum to the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill from the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity. I intend to allow up to 75 minutes for this evidence session. The minister is joined by Scottish Government officials. Ginny Gardner is head of the circular economy unit; Janet McVea is head of the zero waste unit; Alexander Quayle is team leader, recycling; and Gareth Heavisides is circular economy team leader. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting and invite the minister to make a short opening statement.

They cannot take those decisions if they do not have the resources to implement them, regardless of what they may wish to do. They are saying to us, “Look, we actually want to do what the Government suggests, but you cannae squeeze a quart into a pint pot.” The bottom line is that the resources are not being made available. Will the Scottish Government fully fund the bill? That is the issue in a nutshell.

Yes. As I mentioned, if those transfers are to be regular occurrences, they should probably be baselined into those portfolios in the first place.

On the technical adjustments, I know that there will not be any issue with the actual amount that we are able to spend in each portfolio, but the guide states:

“it is likely that the IFRS16 figures will be baselined into the 2024-25 budget, meaning that a direct comparison to starting budgets is not possible.”

One of the issues that the committee is concerned about is that, when we have our Punch and Judy show at stage 1 and stage 3 of the budget, people talk about different figures. Obviously, we on the SNP benches will denounce the evil Conservative Government for slashing our budgets, and the Conservatives will stand up to talk about how incredibly generous that same Government is and say that it has been lavishing us with ever greater record sums. Would it not be easier if figures were put together for the outturns, as we have asked for, to enable us all to sing from the same hymn sheet, at least on the figures that we are arguing over?

Another issue that came up in my questioning of Dundee City Council was that of co-design not just between local authorities and the Scottish Government but “with the market” as well. How would that work?

That would be very helpful. Local authorities would look forward to that, provided that it is additionality.

To go back to the financial memorandum, local authorities are still expressing concern about it. For example, Charlie Devine of Dundee City Council said:

“we need a lot more information … The financial memorandum is really helpful, because it gives us much more scope for where to think but, at the moment, it is not the finished article that we could give to Parliament to consider.”

Kirsty McGuire backed that up by saying:

“There is too much uncertainty, and there is not enough detail behind things at the moment.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 October 2023; c 11, 12.]

When it comes to scrutinising framework bills, we try to work with what we have in front of us, which is the financial memorandum, as do local authorities. You are not the only minister to come before us with a framework bill, but the problem that we have is that we see the can being kicked down the road a bit. Co-design and secondary legislation look great on paper, but if a local authority is looking to invest in recycling facilities, for example, it needs to know when to do that, what it is going to recycle, what will be included and what will not be included. If it is going to have to enforce legislation, it needs to be able to plan ahead for how it will fund that. The difficulty that local authorities have is that the financial memorandum does not appear to enable them to do that. For example, Kirsty McGuire said:

“Quite a bit of that is missing from the costs that we are looking at.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 24 October 2023; c 13.]

Another aspect is how much local authorities will have to spend to communicate those changes to the people in their areas.