This presentation was made by Elaine Gunn, Ireland & Mairi Spowage, United Kingdom, at the 9th Annual Meeting of the OECD network of Parliamentary Budget Officials and Independent Fiscal Institutions held in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 6-7 April 2017.

1. OECD Network
Edinburgh 6-7 April 2017
ScotlandIreland

2. Issues
• Foundations / establishment
• Functions and work programme
• Roles and relationships / engagement

3. Ireland update: Foundations
• Context : 2015 OECD review & 2016 General Election – reform impetus
• Path to establishment: leadership and staffing
- approval of Director post November 2016-March 2017
- Open recruitment process May to July 2017
- Transition period 2017-18 – 10-15 staff envisaged
- Transition team of 7 in place by September (in-house, secondment at Deputy Director level)
• Path to establishment: status and structure
- specialised, operationally independent unit within Parliamentary Service
- Parliamentary Service founding legislation will be renewed in 2018 – statutory basis to be explored
- Two broad work streams: macro-economic and fiscal / sectoral expenditure and results

4. Scotland update: Foundations
• Context : 2012 Scotland Act, established as a non-statutory body in 2014. Established as a statutory body
through the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016, following Scotland Act 2016.
• Path to establishment: leadership and staffing
- Transition team in place by Summer 2016 (8 staff)
- Open recruitment process October to December 2016
- 17 of 19 posts filled on permanent or secondment basis
• Path to establishment: status and structure
- Non-Ministerial Department from 1st April 2017
- Responsible for forecasts of devolved taxes and social security payments, and for forecasts of Scottish GDP

5. Questions: Foundations
Context: Existing landscape varies
- Ireland – existing IFI
- Scotland – sub-national IFI producing forecasts in the context of an existing UK IFI
• What are the key areas to add value to the existing landscape?
– Independence
- What are the key reasons for and the extent to which independence is necessary? What does
independence look like for an IFI?
- For example, what are the implications of the Parliamentary Budget Office being a unit within the
parliamentary administration?
– Establishing value, credibility and durability
- How to develop
- the role of a Parliamentary Budget Office where there is already a statutory Independent Fiscal
Institution?
- the role of a sub-national IFI with a different role, supporting a different parliament, than the
national IFI?
- Low-hanging fruit

6. Scotland update: Functions & work programme
• Path to establishment: capacity and service delivery
- Production of official forecasts for
- Scottish GDP
- Income Tax
- Devolved Taxes
- Devolved demand-led social security payments
- Supporting the Finance and Constitution Committee
- Producing official forecasts with regard to the Government’s policy, and may not have regards to
alternative policies.

7. Ireland update: Functions & work programme
• Path to establishment: capacity and service delivery
- Supporting the Budgetary Oversight Committee and Sectoral Committees
- Economic and budgetary analysis and briefing, including taxation, expenditure and performance
- Advice and training for Committees and members
- Costing services (technical capacity and information asymmetry)
- Priorities for service delivery – quick wins and building credibility

8. Questions: Functions and work programme
• Information provision
- How should the information provided by the PBO or the SFC complement that provided by the Government (and
other IFIs) in budget documents?
- What role can the PBO or the SFC have in improving transparency?
• Costing of policy proposals
- What role should a Parliamentary Budget Office have in costing policy proposals? What are the resource
implications, opportunity costs and other risks?

9. Scotland update: roles and relationships
• Path to establishment: Framework for parliamentary engagement
- Finance and Constitution Committee
- SFC regularly give evidence at Committee
- Relationship with Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe)
• Rules of engagement with the Executive
- Engagement with the Scottish Government is set out in a statutory protocol
- Relationships with Revenue Scotland, the OBR, HMRC and other data providers

10. Ireland update: roles and relationships
• Path to establishment: Framework for parliamentary engagement
- Role of Sectoral Committees and Budgetary Oversight Committee
- PBO relationship with Committees
- Relationship with Library & Research Service
• Rules of engagement with the Executive
- Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure, line Departments
- Relationships with IFAC, CSO, other agencies

11. Questions : roles and relationships
• Context: Differing levels of engagement in budgetary scrutiny
– Ireland: No strong tradition of budgetary scrutiny within the Parliament
– Scotland: Move from scrutiny of spending budget to scrutinising the use of tax raising powers
- What are the key risks with regards to engagement?
- How do we develop Member's knowledge and skills to enable them to perform their scrutiny functions
effectively?
- How can benefits of the PBO or the SFC be articulated and demonstrated to members?
- What role do parliamentary information services play in this?