Meeting of the Parliament 02 November 2022
During my time in the Parliament, which now stretches to 16 years, I have never seen a financial memorandum that is so lacking in that regard. As Audit Scotland points out, a number of costs associated with the bill are yet to be assessed, including those relating to national care boards, transition costs, pensions, VAT and capital investment and maintenance costs. Those costs are surely extremely important and are of considerable concern to stakeholders.
The Fraser of Allander Institute has suggested that groups that tried to estimate the costs had to persistently question civil servants to find out the additional costs—those beyond the core costs that are mentioned in the financial memorandum. Virtually every stakeholder is asking those key questions, and I would have thought that that would be of considerable concern to the Scottish Government. I suggest that it is entirely the wrong way round to have a situation in which it is not possible to scrutinise enough of the bill. That is why COSLA, councils, trade unions and front-line staff in the public and private sectors are getting angry. They simply do not have the answers that they need.
Let me turn to the evidence that Ralph Roberts presented on behalf of NHS chief executives. He rightly cited the Scottish Government’s very welcome focus on improving social care, on developing better quality and consistency when it comes to data and on ensuring that some of the intense workforce pressures on the NHS are addressed. However, when he was asked about the extent of the restructuring, which is on a scale that is equivalent to major reforms such as the centralisation of the police force and college regionalisation, he was much more sceptical. He said that what is proposed by the Scottish Government is not supported by NHS chief executives at this time, when they are having to deal with other pressures and when all spare capacity is already being taken up. Mr Roberts suggested that we should consider other ways of tackling the issues at stake before this leviathan new structure is even contemplated, given that so many costs are unaccounted for.
People are asking whether the bill is necessary to deliver the desired ambitions, not just because of the current economic challenges but because of the extensive disruption that is likely to take place through structural change.
I have every support for the motion in the name of Craig Hoy.
15:52