Hansard

If the overexcitable Liberal Democrat members check carefully, they will find that we on this side of the chamber are busy implementing the Conservative manifesto.

The oral evidence that the Finance Committee took on part 2 was very interesting. As Mr Whitton said, a parade of organisations came forward to suggest either that they be removed from schedule 3 or that part 2 be amended or deleted. However, there was a shining exception to all that. One organisation was even more enthusiastic about these powers than the Scottish Government: the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities very much welcomed the proposals. Of course, neither COSLA nor its member organisations will be subject to those powers, and I was disappointed but not entirely surprised that the organisation showed little enthusiasm for my suggestion that schedule 3 be expanded to include local authorities and ensure that its members could benefit from the provisions that it finds so desirable. It appears that the Government, too, does not share my view.

The status of the various parliamentary commissioners and ombudsmen has already been touched on. It is important that we protect the independence of those organisations, but that is not the same as saying that no reform to them can ever be considered. The current arrangements for parliamentary commissioners and ombudsmen arose in a piecemeal fashion, as the Finance Committee of the second parliamentary session recognised. Reform should not be ruled out. The key point is that it is properly for Parliament and not the Government to drive that aspect of the reform agenda.

The independence of the organisation or group being scrutinised is an important principle that we need to retain, and be seen to retain, but that operational independence cannot and should not mean that we absolve ourselves of responsibility for considering the appropriateness of the current arrangements. Independence is not the same as a lack of accountability and, ultimately, as a democratically elected Parliament, we should not shy away from asking questions of organisations merely because we have designed into their operation a degree of separation from Parliament or Government.

Related issues arise on the audit bodies, and the Government's proposals for the role of the SPCB will need careful thought. In particular, the SPCB is audited by Audit Scotland, and that might give additional complexity to the question whether the SPCB should have a role in the initiation of the powers in part 2. As members are aware, along with four other MSPs, I am a member of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit, although I do not intend to speak on behalf of that organisation today. Later in the debate we might hear about some of the more technical points. That is a distinct issue, although it is related to the points about the parliamentary commissioners and ombudsmen.

The broader point is about the ambition of the bill. It was heartening that all members of the committee agreed that it does not go far enough. When the Finance Committee first took evidence on the bill, we were told:

"the bill is not primarily a cost-saving exercise".—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 1 September 2009; c 1394.]

The question should be, "Why not?" Everyone is aware of the scale of the financial challenge that will confront the Scottish Government during the next few years. Reforming public services will be the only way to protect them, and to deliver more, or the same, with less resource. So the ambition of the bill, or perhaps the lack of it, represents the missed opportunity that Parliament and Government can and should address at later stages.

We have heard today, and it was also mentioned in the cabinet secretary's letter to the convener of the Finance Committee, that the bill will generate recurrent savings of £40 million by 2013. That is a fraction more than 1 per cent of the likely reduction in the Scottish budget that has been forecast by independent commentators. So when the cabinet secretary says that we must go further and faster, he is right—we need to go very much further. As it currently stands, the efficiency and reform programme is helpful, but it barely scratches the surface of what is required to tackle the spending reduction that will be required to pay off the United Kingdom's national debt. If the bill were any more timid, it would be a minister in Gordon Brown's Cabinet. It is time that the Scottish Government moved up a gear to instigate wider-ranging public sector reform.

Members will have seen the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations submission. The SCVO was right to say that public sector spending cuts change the bill's context. The bill would be more effective at achieving public service reform if, for example, it encouraged greater use of the voluntary sector in the delivery and design of public service. Public sector reform could mean greater diversity in the provision and design of public services across the country to allow innovation in service design and greater personalisation of services to users. The opportunity to move to a more flexible provision of services and away from a one-size-fits-all approach could benefit service users. The Government does not have to be the provider of all services, even if it is the funder or the enabler. Indeed, the Government should probably be the provider only if there are no better alternatives. The Government needs to tackle the broader part of the public services reform agenda.

As we have seen, at the core of part 1 is a variety of fairly modest reductions in the number of existing bodies. The target of a reduction of 25 per cent in the number of quangos is aimed more at getting headlines than achieving results, because it does not mean the same reduction in the budgets or head counts of non-departmental public bodies. A reduction in the reach of NDPBs is not much in evidence in the bill.

Creative Scotland has not been mentioned much so far, although it is broadly welcomed by members. My colleagues will talk about it later today, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that creative Scotland is in the bill simply because it is an available legislative opportunity. When the Creative Scotland Bill fell in 2008, it was only because some Opposition members did not understand that a bill cannot carry on if we vote for the general principles but against the financial resolution. It would be unfortunate if the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Bill meant that creative Scotland ended up in the long grass once again.

We support the general principles of the bill because we support public service reform. We will use stages 2 and 3 of the bill process to improve the bill and to encourage the Government to increase the pace of public service reform.