Professor John McHale:

Deputy Donnelly asked some very important questions. Mr. Michael Tutty mentioned earlier that we do not get the SPU early. We only get the macroeconomic forecasts because our function is limited at that point to endorsing or not endorsing those macroeconomic forecasts so that is all we see. We get a spreadsheet and we get a detailed presentation from the Department of Finance which is the same presentation that members get. It has been stated we are in a privileged position and see the SPU in advance but we see it at the same time as everybody else. Deputy Donnelly should not get hung up on the timing of access to the SPU and getting it a bit earlier. The Deputy mentioned page 4 of our submission and the focus should be on the content of the SPU rather than on getting that content early. Members of the committee will then have a period of time before the budget is passed to really scrutinise and potentially influence what will happen in the budget.

There still seems to be an awful lot of time involved. In those weeks before the SPU, a plan is being set out but the decisions are not really being made at that point. The emphasis should be on the content rather than the timing. There is a process and a budgetary cycle which cannot all happen at the same time. The Deputy is almost trying to get away from that with the big-bang-budget approach of detailed plans and forecasts early in the year to avoid information overload so members can absorb the information they need. The Deputy makes a very good point about that but to have time to really influence the budget requires a staged process. Trying to come up with one master document would seem to be difficult in that regard.

The Deputy is right that the details of the division of labour between the budget office and the various Departments would have to be worked out. The model would probably involve a lot of the work still being done by the Departments and the worry is that the model is very under-resourced. It should be a strong, independent body with a very strong reputation. There are international models and the Office for Budget Responsibility, OBR, in the UK is a very good example, about which the committee will be hearing soon. It requires strong leadership, potentially international leadership, and it has to be well-resourced, with access to expertise including secondments. It also requires very strong access to information. Attention must be paid to the foundation of the office because the way it is established will have a huge effect on what kind of office it will be. I worry that there is too little ambition being shown at the moment to put it in place on a very solid foundation.