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One interesting thing about office-holders is that we have received reports from committees on their office-holder responsibilities and it looks as though the committees’ collective view is that they do not have time to scrutinise the office-holders effectively. In fact, the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has even suggested that the Finance and Public Administration Committee should undertake scrutiny of the ombudsman. How do you feel about the level of scrutiny, given that, for example, the £2 million relating to the Electoral Commission was not identified?

I might come to that in a wee second. However, I am concerned about the £1,820 tuition fee. To me, it seems nonsensical—as does the fact that ministers have not taken a pay rise for 18 years—that it has remained the same for 18 years. How is that helping universities? Surely, if Scottish universities are getting the same amount of money and it declines year on year due to inflation, that incentivises them not to take Scottish students. That cannot be right. You said that that is under review, but there is no evidence that it is changing.

I do not even recall being offered it, to be honest, so apologies on that front. Maybe members will take up that offer. We will discuss it afterwards.

One of the projects is changes to the Business Bulletin, with a forecast cost of £378,000. That is almost starting to move into upgraded website territory in terms of money. Why would you spend £378,000 on changing the Business Bulletin?

Thank you very much for that. All colleagues wish to ask questions, the first of whom is Craig Hoy.

Good morning, and welcome to the second meeting in 2025 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from Michelle Thomson.

The first item on our agenda is an evidence-taking session on the Scottish budget 2025-26 from two panels of witnesses. First, we will hear from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body on its budget bid, and then we will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.

I welcome our first panel of witnesses. Jackson Carlaw MSP, member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, is joined by Scottish Parliament officials David McGill, clerk and chief executive, and Sara Glass, director of finance and resilience. I intend to allow around 75 minutes for the session.

I invite Mr Carlaw to make a short opening statement.

Craig Hoy’s question prompted me to recall that, in 2000, John Swinney turned down a £21,000 salary increase when he was the leader of the Opposition only for there to be a double-page spread in a newspaper a week later about how his office was spending £3,000 on furniture and computers. He effectively got no credit for turning down that salary increase and was then slagged off for buying equipment for his office. That kind of hair-shirt approach does not necessarily go down particularly well or get appreciated.

Regarding salaries, are you aware yet whether ministers have refused a pay rise for the 18th—or the 17th or whatever—year in a row, or have they, this year, finally decided to accept a pay rise? What, if anything, does that mean for the corporate body?

Obviously, with a relatively fixed budget, if you are spending on A, you cannot spend on B. There is a concern in local government and other areas that they are not getting as much as they would otherwise receive, because money is being spent on areas that are reserved to Westminster, for good or for ill. There is a feeling that perhaps the Parliament should focus on its devolved responsibilities. If people are unhappy with Westminster policies, they have an opportunity to vote one way or the other at an election.

On the issue of welfare, which you just touched on, the Scottish Fiscal Commission has, understandably, expressed concern that social security spending continues to rise steadily. Next year, it will be £1,334 million higher than if welfare payments remained at UK levels. When one removes social security spending, the overall funding in real terms is going down by 0.3 per cent—in a moment, I will touch on one or two areas where that is happening. In the following year, social security spending is expected to rise to £1,608 million. Given that the Scottish ministers will not change tax rates, and although fiscal drag will impact all but the two lowest bands, how can that be funded without cuts to existing services?

Were you to use CPI, as happens in relation to benefit increases, that might make life a lot easier for everybody.

That is very interesting. I am not one of them, so I am particularly interested in that.

With regard to staff numbers and keeping the complement the same, my understanding is that there was a significant uplift in staff numbers at that time because of our having to adapt to post-Brexit arrangements. Are we still wading through those or have they been resolved? If so, do we still need the same number of staff to deal with that issue?

One of the recommendations that we made in our report last year was that the SPCB should

“focus on optimising value for money in its budgetary decisions and delivery. As part of next year’s budget bid, we would therefore like to see additional information on how the SPCB makes the most effective use of its funds, including setting out where savings have been identified and how projects have been prioritised”.

However, as the Presiding Officer said in her letter to us, the annual report does not specifically identify savings or set out how projects have been prioritised. Why not?