Officeholders - contingency bids2019)Paper... · 2019. 2. 21. · 3. This paper also provides advance notification of contingency potential bids from officeholders for 2019/20. The

SPCB(2019)Paper 11 21 February 2019

OFFICEHOLDERS - CONTINGENCY FUNDING REQUESTS Executive summary 1. This paper invites the SPCB to consider contingency fund applications from the officeholders. These are in addition to contingency fund bids already approved by the SPCB for the Children’s Commissioner (£45,278 for his temporary Grade 5) and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland (£49,596 for a new case management system) amounting to £94,874.

Officeholder Purpose Amount The Scottish Information Commissioner

Court of Session costs £31,789 (£22,048 being absorbed through savings) 9,741

The Ethical Standards Commissioner

Increase in the workload of Public Appointment Advisers £39k (£29k being absorbed through savings)

10,000

The Scottish Human Rights Commission maternity cover - 1 post 30,000

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman maternity cover - 7 posts 173,579

The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

IT cyber security - monthly patches for servers (10 months)

14,400

Standards Commission for Scotland

Court fees for Appeal to the Sheriff Principal. Opinion awaited so funding of up to £20k unlikely to be needed in 2018/19

Total 237,720 2. The officeholders Contingency Fund for 2018/19 is £300,000. There is a potential shortfall of £32,594 but as per the MOU on access to the Officeholders Contingency Fund (which provides that if there are insufficient funds in the Officeholders Contingency Fund that consideration can be given to meeting any shortfall from the SPCB’s overall budget) it would be possible to meet the shortfall from the SPCB’s overall budget. 3. This paper also provides advance notification of potential contingency bids from officeholders for 2019/20. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman has indicated that changes being made by its ICT provider, the Scottish Government, from January 2020 will result in an estimated one-off payment of £30k and increased running costs of circa £40k per annum and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life has also indicated that as a result of Microsoft’s announcement that it will stop supporting Windows 7 and Server 2008 operating systems in January 2020 that in order to remain cyber secure, it will be necessary to replace 15 devices and 1 server. The Commissioner’s budget bid for 2019/20

includes £6,450 for capital expenditure but it is unlikely that this amount will be sufficient to cover the total cost. Issues and Options 4. Individual officeholders’ budgets do not contain contingency funding. Instead, the SPCB has established a separate central Officeholders’ Contingency Fund for exceptional one-off expenditure which cannot be met from an officeholder’s approved budget for any given year. This arrangement also prevents an officeholder’s budget baseline increasing due to one-off costs in any given financial year. 5. Contingency funding may be requested for costs such as defending legal actions and for temporary staff cover for maternity absences etc.

6. Requests for contingency funding can be made at any time of the year but we would not expect an officeholder to draw down the funding until it is clear that the additional expenditure cannot be met in full or part from savings made throughout the year. This therefore explains why we normally only seek Corporate Body approval at this time of year. 7. The officeholders have kept officials informed of potential calls on the Contingency Fund throughout the year. It is normally this time of year when the officeholders know more accurately what, if any, savings they can make from their budgets and if necessary, they will submit a bid to the SPCB for approval. As highlighted in paragraph 1 we have received a number of contingency bids.

The Scottish Information Commissioner 8. The Scottish Information Commissioner is seeking contingency funding of £9,741 to meet the costs of defending Appeals to the Court of Session. Although the Commissioner is unable to recover costs for cases which are legally aided, he does pursue costs in non-legally aided cases which have been successfully defended. 9. The Commissioner has absorbed £22,048 of the total additional costs reducing the amount from £31,789 to £9,741. A copy of the Commissioner’s application is attached at Annex A.

The Ethical Standards Commissioner 10. The Ethical Standards Commissioner is a small demand led organisation which deals with complaints about the conduct of local authority councillors and members of public bodies. It also regulates how people are appointed to the boards of public bodies in Scotland. 11. In addition to the contingency funding already approved by the SPCB for an off-the-shelf case management system, the Commissioner is seeking contingency funding of £10,000 as a result of an increase in the workload and days taken to complete high risk appointment rounds by his part-time Public Appointment

Advisers. The Commissioner has, however, managed to absorb £29,100 of the total additional costs therefore reducing the amount from £39,100 to £10,000. A copy of the Commissioner’s application is attached at Annex B. Scottish Human Rights Commission 12. The Scottish Human Rights Commission is seeking contingency funding of £30,000 to meet the cost of maternity cover. A copy of the Commission’s application is attached at Annex C. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman 13. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is seeking contingency funding of £187,979. 14. £173,579 is for maternity cover costs for 7 posts and £14,400 is for cyber security to ensure they remain compliant with the Scottish Government’s Cyber Resilience Action Plan. A copy of the Ombudsman’s applications are attached at Annexes D and E. Consideration 15. All contingency funding is reported to the Finance Committee as part of the consideration of SPCB’s annual budget proposals. Resource Implications 16. The Officeholders Contingency Fund for 2018/19 is £300k. £94,874 has already been committed to the Children’s Commissioner (£45,278) and the Ethical Standards Commissioner (£49,596) leaving funding of £205,126 available. 17. The bids amount to £237,720 leaving a shortfall of £32,594 (£237,720 - £205,126). This shortfall can however be met from the SPCB’s overall budget. Governance issues 18. As these are requests for additional funding, the SPCB’s approval is required. Publication Scheme 19. This paper can be published in line with the SPCB’s disclosure policy.

Decision 20. The SPCB is invited to approve the contingency fund applications. Officeholder Services February 2019