Hansard

Alasdair Morgan is absolutely right. We must improve members' awareness of the budget to help them to perform their role more effectively. That can be done by training and by improving the layout of information, for example. We must also find more effective ways of making the budget accessible to members of the general public. Local councils have taken some interesting initiatives in that regard, providing information about budget options and where the money goes. Perhaps the Finance Committee could consider that in relation to increasing our public accessibility and accountability.

It was helpful that the Minister for Finance and Local Government participated in public meetings throughout Scotland and took the opportunity to hear the voices of local communities from outside the central belt. It is important that not only committees are involved in that work but that ministers get out and about to explain what they are up to.

The report contains 14 recommendations and encompasses the recommendations of other committees, which were considered by the Finance Committee. The committee recommends that proposals are drawn up for mechanisms to ensure that spending by non-departmental public bodies, such as health boards, local government and other NDPBs, is in line with Executive priorities and programmes. Although that is easy to say, it is hard to do—we should aspire to that.

The committee heard evidence about the lack of transparency in expenditure on health and local government. There is no doubt that we must examine that, particularly given the fact that health and local government are the two largest areas of expenditure in the budget. Lack of transparency is detrimental to ensuring high levels of accountability to the taxpayers of Scotland. Measures such as those recommended by the committee will enhance the accountability of Scottish agencies to the Scottish Parliament and I hope that they will reassure the public that they are getting value for money.

The committee also recommended that the electronic provision of information should be expedited in order to allow interested parties to drill down from the top level funding figures that are shown in the budget documents to local expenditure on local programmes. During stage 1, the committee heard first-hand evidence that suggested that initiative, which was reinforced by evidence that we heard in Kirkcudbright.

The committee concurred with the premise that it is difficult for individuals to relate weighty budget documentation to their own affairs and local communities. It is up to us to do something about that. The committee believes that we might not assist people if we were to provide further detail in large documents—in fact, it might be detrimental if we were to do so. Accordingly, the committee believes that the electronic provision of such information would aid the retrieval and handling of information and would make it readily accessible throughout Scotland.

The subject committees' reports to the Finance Committee raised numerous matters. The Rural Development Committee noted its desire to be advised of methods by which an estimate might be made of the amount and impact of expenditure on rural areas by Executive departments. If the Finance Committee's recommendation on the electronic provision of information about local expenditure on local programmes were to be implemented, the record level of spending in rural areas by the Executive would become more apparent.

The committee's consideration of the budget highlighted concerns about underspending by departments. The committee identified some of those concerns in its stage 2 report, primarily because the level of underspend is on a par with the total spending plans in the draft budget for social justice, exceeds the spending plans for justice and rural affairs and represents more than four times the spending plans for sport and culture. Therefore, the committee was pleased to receive advice from the Executive that a process of quarterly reports back to ministers has been implemented. I hope that that will reduce the possibility of continuing underspending on such a scale. The measure that the Executive is taking should assist the monitoring of the degree of underspend, with a view to identifying reasons for spending allocated moneys and, if necessary, revising the way in which policy objectives and priorities are delivered.

I have already made the point that presentation of the budget documentation has been a concern of the committee since its inception. I think that all members recognise that significant improvements have been made, albeit that other modifications are required to enhance the usefulness of the documentation. As presentation of the information contained in the documentation develops, the committee will be able to devote more time and resources to scrutiny of the Executive's proposals. As we near the finalisation of the budget process in the Parliament's second budget, the Finance Committee is better placed to use the skills that it has developed through its previous inquiries.

There remains much scope for the committee to take the degree of scrutiny of the Executive's spending proposals to a higher level and, with that, to give the people of Scotland the reassurance that they want that their taxes are being spent effectively and judiciously.

Every member of the Parliament is aware of the findings of the recent Scottish social attitudes survey; it is incumbent on us all to work to reverse the negative perceptions of many Scots of the political process. I believe that the Finance Committee has a considerable role to play in that process and in the whole framework of financial scrutiny.

The initial FIAG report highlighted that there is a lot of virgin territory in which scrutiny and accountability can be developed. Within the scope of its constitution, the Parliament will be able to take that work forward. We are beginning to go down that route, but there is a considerable way to go. Members of the Finance Committee are entrusted with overseeing expenditure plans. We will continue to monitor them, but we will also want to monitor the way in which things are done so that we can secure real improvements.

I will conclude by saying some words about the future work of the Finance Committee. Next year, the committee will seek to judge departmental performance against the priorities that have been set by the Executive. We will consider the extent to which the spending plans reflect what the Executive has said that it will do. However, the committee will be able to measure whether public expenditure achieves its goals and how effectively departments perform only if priorities are clearly identified. The committee has been pleased that the Executive has shown itself to be genuinely enthusiastic to switch the focus of attention from what is spent to what is gained for that expenditure.

We are also pleased that the Minister for Finance and Public Services is promoting a move to priority-based budgeting among his departmental colleagues as a first step towards measuring outputs and outcomes in relation to spending. We hope that the departments will accept that that move is a necessary tool in performance management, not an additional burden. That move will improve the process for everybody. The minister can be commended for his effort and commitment on that subject. We can make good progress.

For our part, we accept that that process will take some time to come to fruition. It will not come in a single step, but as part of an evolving process. We are trying to move forward. We are getting the process right and we are beginning to get it more and more right. As the process develops, I hope that the Finance Committee will play an increasingly important role in the way in which the Parliament operates. I am delighted to commend the motion.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the 13th Report, 2001 of the Finance Committee on Stage 2 of the 2002-03 Budget Process (SP Paper 468) and notes the recommendations made by the Committee.