Seòmar agus comataidhean

I know that it has been a long session so far, minister, but, just to finish off, I want to refer to a couple of points that you have made in the evidence that you have given us.

In your responses to Ross Greer and me, you referred to the £88.4 million that Zero Waste Scotland estimates that the cost will be to enable all 32 Scottish local authorities to align with the existing code of practice. With regard to paragraph 48 of the financial memorandum, the deputy convener asked witnesses at our meeting on 24 October whether they were aware of any discussions between colleagues in their local authorities and either Zero Waste Scotland or the Scottish Government about where that figure had come from and whether that detail had been set out. Charlie Devine of Dundee City Council and Kirsty McGuire of South Lanarkshire Council both said, “No”. Although the figure has been set out, our local authority colleagues do not seem to understand where it has come from. Can you explain how Zero Waste Scotland came up with the figure, given the fact that it does not appear to have engaged with local authority colleagues in producing it?

Okay—thank you.

Finally, minister, you said in response to Michelle Thomson that you would be happy to provide an updated financial memorandum. I wrote that down word for word. Do you now believe that, following this evidence session, you should go away and update the financial memorandum as it has been presented to us?

Thank you for the clarification, and I thank you and your colleagues for the evidence that you have given today. It has been very helpful for the committee’s deliberations. We will look at the matter further and deliberate in private session in order to produce a report.

In the meantime, we will take a short break to allow a changeover of witnesses.

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?

It is all about best estimates, is it not?

Have your local authorities received funding? It is interesting that 17 out of the 32 local authorities have received a total of £53 million. Obviously, local authorities are different sizes and so on. Has your local authority received funding, or is that something that you are in discussion with Scottish ministers about? I see Kirsty McGuire shaking her head.

The Scottish Government seems determined to make this work. It says that the Scottish ministers will be enabled to impose statutory recycling targets on local authorities, with financial penalties if targets are not met. In Wales, a local authority can be levied with a fine of £200 per tonne of waste by which it falls short of the target amount. It is clear that there will be pressures on local authorities.

The financial memorandum talks in detail about savings from paper cups going to landfill and this, that and the other. You have all said that any additional costs should be met fully by the Scottish Government, but what is the net outcome from the bill for each of your local authorities?

Mr Devine, you were quite hesitant about talking about pounds, shillings and pence at the beginning of this question session, but where are we in terms of the parameters for a city such as Dundee to deliver what is in the financial memorandum? Would that cost the city an extra £500,000, £1 million or £2 million? Obviously, we have to look at that. The whole point of financial memorandums is to give best estimates so that we can look at the impact on the public purse. Where is Dundee on that? I will ask your colleagues the same question.

Okay. Thank you very much.

That concludes the public part of the committee’s work today. We will move into private session to consider our work programme. We will have a wee break until 5 to 11 to enable our witnesses and the official report to leave.