Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2024
I speak in the debate as a member of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body.
I begin by thanking the Finance and Public Administration Committee for undertaking its inquiry. I am grateful to have the opportunity to add the SPCB’s views to the debate and to give some background on the situation.
Colleagues will, I am sure, be aware that the role of the SPCB, as set out in the Scotland Act 1998, is to
“provide the Parliament, or ensure the Parliament is provided, with the property, staff and services required”
for its purposes.
In addition to those duties, the SPCB also has a statutory duty to support independent office-holders, including ensuring that they have appropriate governance structures, as well as providing their budgetary requirements.
In 2003, there were two office-holders—the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman and the Scottish Information Commissioner—and their running costs for 2003-04 amounted to £1.3 million. The SPCB now supports seven office-holders, it will shortly support an eighth office-holder, and it funds the devolved Scottish functions of the Electoral Commission. For 2024-25, the office-holders’ budgets, which form part of the SPCB’s overall budget, amount to £18.2 million, which is quite a significant increase.
Supporting office-holders has become very time consuming for the SPCB. In addition to providing and agreeing annual funding for the office-holders, the corporate body sets their terms and conditions of appointment, undertakes open recruitment exercises for a number of the office-holders, appoints acting office-holders and accountable officers, approves determinations for staff, advisers and so on, and comments on draft strategic plans.
To ensure that we undertake our role properly, we have put in place a number of governance arrangements. Those include putting in place an annual evaluation process that involves an independent assessor assessing the office-holders and preparing a report for us; issuing a suite of strategic engagement documents that support the efficient administration of the relationship between the office-holders and the corporate body; putting in place a written agreement with the Conveners Group that sets out our respective roles; and establishing a shared services agenda.