Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 3:14 pm on 30 September 1999.

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Photo of Rt Hon Jack McConnell Rt Hon Jack McConnell Labour 3:14, 30 September 1999

Overall expenditure totals will remain a matter for this Parliament. However, it is only right and proper for the individual auditing of individual councils to remain the responsibility of the Accounts Commission. Health bodies have no democratic mandate and for this reason, we propose that in future, their audit will be a matter for the Auditor General.

I would like to stress the independence of the Auditor General for Scotland. The Executive has absolutely no control or influence over his activities. As the Scotland Act 1998 specifies, the Auditor General for Scotland is also independent of the Parliament. I highlight this point because the bill provides for a Scottish commission for public audit. That body will be required to scrutinise the expenditure proposals for Audit Scotland and arrange for its audit, but the commission will not oversee the work of either the Auditor General or Audit Scotland.

In some ways, I see the final principles of the bill as the most important in that they govern the way in which the Parliament will be able to hold the Scottish Administration and other bodies to account. The bill provides for a system of accountable officers. The system is designed to ensure that ministers and office holders such as the Auditor General for Scotland and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body are accountable for the way in which they use the resources which they are authorised by the Parliament to spend.

In particular, the system places a duty on certain nominated senior officials to seek written instructions from the relevant minister or office holder if they feel that they are being asked to do something which is improper, irregular or which would represent poor value for money. They must then report those instructions to the Auditor General. A similar system exists in Westminster, but there, the idea that officials should take this kind of action exists only as a convention. We propose that that requirement is placed firmly in statute, thus giving it a robust and secure foundation.

The bill makes provision for audit and for value-for-money investigations. It grants the Auditor General and those working on his behalf statutory rights of access when carrying out audits or VFM studies. It also rationalises the audit arrangements for all those spending bodies that are within the competence of the Parliament.

I hope that we will have unanimous support in this chamber for the principle of our Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Bill. With that endorsement of our basic principles, the Audit Committee, the Finance Committee and other committees must then ensure that the detail meets the ideals that we have set out to achieve. I hope that their scrutiny will be vigorous; it will come from members of all parties represented here, and will produce an act before Christmas that will allow us to progress with a budget that is based on our own procedures, agreed here in Edinburgh, and on which our people can rely.

We must all remember, as I can assure members that I do, that the money which we as elected politicians spend comes from the hard-working families and businesses of Scotland. We must remember, every year in our budget decisions and every day as we spend the money that is allocated to the people's priorities, that it is their money. We hold it for them, we spend it on their priorities, and we must explain clearly and openly where it has gone. That is the fundamental duty of elected politicians and public officials the world over. Here in Scotland, I want a first-class system to assure those whom we represent that they will always come first.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Bill.