Meeting of the Parliament 27 September 2023
I am pleased to contribute to the debate on behalf of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. As Jackson Carlaw pointed out, should the Parliament pass the bill, the patient safety commissioner will join seven other commissioners that the Parliament has established since 1999, with more being proposed. The Finance and Public Administration Committee has a responsibility to scrutinise the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body’s budget each year, an increasing proportion of which supports the functioning of commissioners. The set-up costs for the patient safety commissioner are expected to be around £150,000 this and next financial year, with annual running costs thereafter estimated to be around £645,000 at this year’s prices.
As Tess White pointed out in relation to her amendment 22, those costs will add to the £16.6 million that the SPCB required for the seven existing commissioners in 2023-24. That is an 8.1 per cent increase on the previous year, and, as Jackson Carlaw pointed out, the total budget for officeholders is 8.1 per cent of the SPCB’s budget. It alarmed the committee that this year, one commissioner was hiring 7.4 additional members of staff on an average salary of £57,000 at a time when front-line services were under real pressure.
The Finance and Public Administration Committee did not receive any submissions to our call for views on the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill, but, in view of the number of commissioners, both current and planned, we wrote to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee asking it to explore with the Scottish Government the financial impact of establishing the body on the SPCB’s officeholder responsibilities. We are also keen to know whether a more strategic approach to the establishment and resourcing of future potential officeholders might be considered in the future. We otherwise expressed no views as to the merits of the patient safety commissioner, and thank the lead committee for acknowledging our concerns in its stage 1 report.
We note that, in her response, the minister said:
“While it would not be right for me to make funding commitments now, based on hypothetical developments in the future, I can commit that the Scottish Government will engage constructively with the SPCB to ensure that all parliamentary commissioners are funded appropriately, including the Patient Safety Commissioner.”
Although that may be welcome, it somewhat misses the point. As the SPCB told us during budget scrutiny,
“we could be looking at having 14 commissioners”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 10 January 2023; c 20.]
That is based on current proposals for Government and members bills, as well as recent consultations.
The SPCB said:
“the process is complicated, but we are moving into a period in which it is becoming regarded as a casual thing to suggest and implement the establishment of another commissioner, despite its being an expensive extension to our public sector.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 10 January 2023; c 20.]
Indeed, at the most recent convener’s group meeting, I commented on the plethora of organisations that we already have in the public sector and how crowded it is.
The patient safety commissioner is of particular concern to the Finance and Public Administration Committee in the context of our work on the sustainability of Scotland’s finances now and in the years to come, as well as the Government’s public service reform programme. It also raises important questions about how, collectively, the roles and governance of commissioners function alongside the roles and accountability of public bodies and the Government. The committee considers that it is now time for a more strategic approach to establishing and financing commissioners.