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No.

That takes us into an interesting space. Ministers are rightly held accountable, as we are every day in the Parliament and elsewhere, for delivery bodies in the public sector, but that does not reflect on the SPCB-supported bodies to the same extent.

Depending on the nature of the body, the relationship can be arm’s length. We do not tell the public bodies exactly what they should do daily. We appoint the body’s board, which then appoints the executives; we give it the budget; and we put in place the framework document that explains the relationship, as we have talked about in evidence. It then gets on with it.

That is the correct approach, because, for good reasons, we would not want ministers to be involved in every last detail of every single public body. It is always a challenge to manage, but it is important to recognise that there are various checks and balances in the system for how the bodies operate vis-à-vis ministers. Ministers are not the accountable officers for the finances and so on; by and large, that role sits with the chief executives of those bodies.

There are sponsor teams in the Government that have the responsibility for engaging with the public bodies, and they have an important role to play in scrutinising compliance. Performance issues can be raised, and performance is obviously the subject of regular discussion in Government. There are several areas where that is quite high profile and therefore talked about frequently in Government. However, the operational aspect is, by and large, still carried out by the delivery body.

We also have Audit Scotland, the Auditor General for Scotland and others that are engaged in the essential work that they do to keep track of how public bodies perform at various levels. There is also parliamentary scrutiny, whereby ministers are held to account in the chamber and, indeed, in committees, which also have the opportunity to bring in chief execs and chairs from public bodies.

There are various levels at which scrutiny operates, but it is important to understand the distinction from the day-to-day operation of those delivery bodies.

Yes, I think that they do. Of course, every case will be different. The reports will come to ministers who will, by and large, be very engaged with the public body and have a good understanding of what that body is working on. The report gives ministers and officials a sense check as to whether the public body is pointing in the right direction, with the right priorities and focus. The information will then be a matter of public record, which allows those in the wider ecosystem to see and understand what the body is doing.

The Parliament, by way of its committees, has a hugely important role in that regard. It is not up to Government to decide how many committees there should be or what their workload should be. Committees have the scope to call in a broad range of public bodies and question them as part of any inquiry that they are undertaking—

If your argument is that we need more committees or committees sitting for longer, that is clearly up to the Parliament—it is not an issue for the Government.

Again, if they are Parliament bodies, it will not be for the Government to be involved in the process.

Job titles would be exceedingly long, which is probably not an advantage—many are far too long already—because we would have to try to cover a whole range of topics in them. For example, I am the minister for public finance, public service reform, pensions, the Accountant in Bankruptcy, planning and a whole bunch of stuff that I have forgotten—officials will remind me when I leave here—that I engage with daily.

If you look on the Government website and click on a minister’s name, you will see a whole page of things that they are responsible for. That is clear and transparent. However, putting all that into job titles would quickly become a bit ridiculous, so we just need to be a wee bit careful about that.

Good afternoon, convener and committee. The draft order provides for amendments to schedules 10 and 10A to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013.

Schedule 10 is amended to ensure that group relief is available in instances of non-partition demergers. The effect is that group relief will be available in company reconstructions where ultimate ownership of relevant land or property has not changed.

Schedule 10A is amended to clarify the point at which the relevant five-year development period commences in respect of sub-sale development relief. That is important, as relief may be withdrawn where significant development does not take place within that period. The amendment provides clarity for relevant stakeholders, making it clear that the relevant period commences from the effective date of the sub-sale transaction.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission considered the financial impact of those amendments in its December 2024 forecasts and deemed them to have an “immaterial” and “negligible” impact, respectively. The draft order was developed following engagement with stakeholders as part of the Aggregates Tax and Devolved Taxes Administration (Scotland) Bill process. Members will recall that the amendments were considered by the committee at stage 2 of the bill process. Although the amendments were deemed out of scope at stage 3, the Scottish Government nevertheless recognises the need for the changes to be made.

I welcome the contributions from stakeholders in developing the contents of the draft order, and I look forward to taking questions.

I am happy for you to write to me, and we will respond with regard to the timeline for resolution. Clearly, the review that is coming on LBTT will catch those and other issues—it is intended to sweep those up. I understand the point that you are making, and I commit to giving more certainty on the timescales for resolution of those issues.

Over the time for which the ADS measures have been in place, a number of issues have arisen that were not foreseen when we brought in the legislation. Changes had to be made because of specific complicated circumstances that occurred, which gave rise to a need for clarity or changes in the provisions.

With the specific measures that we are considering today, we have not had any examples of people saying that there has been a problem with the transactions that they are seeking to take forward or have taken forward, but there has been a call from stakeholders that we clarify the law, just to be absolutely sure that investors and others are clear on it.

This is very much a tidying-up exercise, which obviously happens with all legislation. I do not know whether we would have taken a different approach. Clearly, if other examples were to arise whereby stakeholders felt that there was a need for clarification or a tidying-up of technical points, as can happen with any legislation, we would seek to respond to those.