Chamber and committees

I am intrigued by the direction of travel. On 8 March, Emma Congreve of the Fraser of Allander Institute said:

“when it comes to the big decisions being made on the budget and on the spending review, things are still very compressed and a little bit too siloed”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 8 March 2022; c 19.]

On 9 November, when we heard from Professor Jim Mitchell of the University of Edinburgh, Stephen Boyle said:

“It is not clear whether”

Government has

“yet moved on from what appears to be quite a risk-averse approach in harnessing innovation and learning from failures.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 9 November 2021; c 28.]

In the context of the collective working that we discussed, how do you respond to that? I realise that that latter comment was made before you came into post, but how can we move on and take an approach that is not high risk but—how can I put this—at least less risk averse and more innovative?

“Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2021-25”, published on 25 March, aims to

“promote Open Government values of openness, accountability, transparency and involving people”.

In response to another question earlier, you said that you did not take a defensive position. However, as you will be aware, the committee wrote to your predecessor, Leslie Evans, on 9 March expressing its disappointment that she had failed to engage with the committee regarding its invitation to give evidence. I think that it would be fair to say that your response to that was quite a defensive position. I think that that view is shared by all members of the committee. For example, you said:

“as civil servants, we must always appear on behalf of or to represent the views of our Ministers, and not in a personal capacity, always consistent with the Civil Service Code”.

However, the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government in relation to the handling of committee business notes that:

“A committee may invite officials alone (i.e. not accompanying a Minister) to attend a meeting for the purpose of giving oral evidence on any relevant matter which is within the official’s area of expertise and for which the Scottish Government has general responsibility”.

Do you accept that latter comment? In hindsight, do you not feel that it would have been better if Leslie Evans had come along and given evidence? That would not have been on what was discussed at committee last year; rather, given her many years of experience, we could have reflected on some of her successes in the job and had some pointers about where the civil service could go in the future.

I call a five-minute break so that members can get coffee and so on before Professor Roy steps up to the plate.

You talked a lot about instability, as did Dr Lombardi. For example, we had questions about the huge changes that we have seen just since the last forecast. Data is the fundamental building block of producing forecasts and, in previous years, the commission has expressed frustration over data limitations. What more could the Scottish Parliament, the UK Parliament and outside bodies do to provide you with the data that you require in order to do your job to the absolute peak of efficiency and effectiveness that you would like?

I am not going to ask you to detail a process now, because you have just given me a commitment. I understand that there is a process whereby you have several days to look at a question, then a manager has several days to look at it and so on. I believe that that process can be truncated. We all have situations in which our constituents contact us directly on issues that do not involve ministers but which deal, for example, with local authorities. We try to deal with those issues on the same day. I am not suggesting that that is a possibility for your office, given the constraints that you have at this point, but there must be a way of expediting responses.

I will say one more thing, about written questions. For many years, from when I was first elected in 1999, I would ask written questions and I would get an answer to them. Now I am sent to some website—a link to this or a link to that—or am told that, if I want, I can look at a table that is sitting in the Scottish Parliament information centre. If I wanted to look at a table that was sitting in SPICe, I would be down in SPICe looking at that table. When people ask questions, they ask them for a specific purpose. If I asked the question in the chamber, I would not be told to go and look at a table in SPICe; I would be given an answer of some sort.

All I am saying is that those things have to be considered much more, just as we have discovered and considered broader issues including diversity, openness and transparency. They are very important issues; there are 129 MSPs and I am sure that they have all been in that position.

What areas would you develop and prioritise?

We have almost exhausted our questions, although Daniel Johnson and I still have some.

Permanent secretary, we have discussed myriad issues this morning, including maintenance and improvement of ethics, openness and transparency, diversity, structure, improving data collection and retention, culture and behaviour, record keeping, outcomes, policy decisions, the relationship with Westminster and giving of evidence to committees.

However, we have not touched on a practical issue that exercises all members of the Scottish Parliament, which is ministerial responses to correspondence. Many MSPs, across the party divides, have expressed great frustration about the time that is taken to respond to letters on matters that are of extreme importance to our constituents, as you can imagine.

We realise that you have had staff issues in recent years because of Covid and so on, but the situation was not great before the pandemic. I have spoken to civil servants who deal with correspondence and I understand that a rigid process has to be undergone before a letter goes to a minister for sign-off. I appreciate that there can be a delay at that point.

What can be done to expedite the process? Also, what can be done to ensure that the response to a letter to a minister relates to the question that is asked? Sometimes I have waited six to eight weeks for a response, only to then be too embarrassed—frankly—to send it to the constituent.

Another issue is that when I send an urgent letter to a minister, it does not seem to be treated differently from a letter that might not be time stressed.

Also, I have recently had to chase up the ministerial correspondence unit on issues that I considered to be of major significance—not to an individual constituent, but more broadly to my constituency—when I have not even received an acknowledgment after six weeks. I note that Liz Smith is nodding fiercely at that comment. What can be done to deal with that very practical and pragmatic issue, which affects all of us?

Good morning, and welcome to the 14th meeting of the Finance and Public Administration Committee in 2022. Under agenda item 1, does the committee agree to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

The next item is evidence on two nominations for appointment to the Scottish Fiscal Commission. As members will be aware, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy wrote to the committee recently, nominating Dr Domenico Lombardi as commissioner and Professor Graeme Roy as a new chair of the commission.

Members have received copies of the nominees’ application forms and CVs, along with the person specifications for each role. We will take evidence first from Dr Lombardi, and then from Professor Roy. We have up to 60 minutes for this item.

I welcome Dr Domenico Lombardi, who has been nominated as commissioner. We will move straight to questions. Dr Lombardi, you have a very impressive CV, as one would expect. You obviously have a lot of experience internationally. Will you tell us a wee bit more about yourself—about you as a person, as opposed to your work—and about why you want to become a commissioner of the Scottish Fiscal Commission?

Thank you. That is very helpful. How familiar are you with the Scottish economy and the balance between reserved and devolved powers?