Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580
- 583)
FRIDAY 20 MARCH 2009
Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym, Professor James Foreman-Peck
and Dr Gillian Bristow
Q580 Lord Moser:
Chairman, on this slightly more marginal point, but not really
on the data quality/availability: as your papers have been extremely
helpful in going into a great deal of statistical detail, is there
anything we should be worrying about from a Wales point of view
in terms of the data you are playing with both on the actual distribution
of public expenditure, what comes to Wales, the effects thereof,
the tax revenues, and indeed the sort of data one might need for
the sort of indicators that we are talking about? It would be
helpful to know what you think we should be worrying about on
data.
Professor Foreman-Peck: It is quite difficult
to work out what is going on, or I find it difficult working out
what is going on. It would be nice, and I think in the public
interest—
Q581 Lord Moser:
Can you expand the three words "what is going on"?
Professor Foreman-Peck: The calculations that
I have done—and I have learnt a lot from Eurfyl in doing
them—are based on the Treasury public expenditure statistical
analysis that comes out every year. They do not correspond exactly,
and it is very hard to make them correspond exactly with devolved
budgets it would be helpful if it was possible to get, in the
calculations we have done, equivalents to devolved budgets in
England, so that we can see how comparable expenditure goes. For
example, a difficulty we have in working out why Scotland has
managed to by-pass the Formula seems to be a consequence of inadequate
statistical data, and that may be the reason of course.
Lord Moser: Chairman, may I, across you,
ask our expert adviser, who has made heroic attempts to solve
this problem, his answer to what we have just heard, because you
have tried in this table.
Q582 Chairman:
I am told by our Specialist Adviser that we have been relying
principally, so far, on PESA data and on such other data as we
can obtain from the Treasury, which has recently, and without
publicly—recently assisted the territorial offices in Scotland
and Wales Offices in including some figures back into Scotland
and Wales on this annual report. It is not exactly the sort of
place one would normally look to find Treasury data about public
expenditure across devolved parts of the UK, which, on a snapshot
basis for the specific year that they cover go a bit further,
and I would hope give some clearer idea about the relationship
between UK Government spending and spending by the devolved administrations.
Part of our concern generally remains, that the data we want are
not published yet and remain unpublished in any one place, and
the Treasury so far has not disclosed the sort of data we require.
Dr ap Gwilym: Chairman, it is
interesting: recently I wanted to know what the block grant to
Wales had been for each year since 1999-2000 for part of my exercise.
I went to the back of the Wales Office annual reports, because
they set out data for four or five years at a time. You do not
have a full run of ten years, so I asked the statistical department
of the civil service here, who were very helpful by the way, whether
they had that time series, and they could not produce it for me;
so I still do not have a time series for something as elementary
as the Welsh block grant from 1999-2000 up to the current year.
Q583 Lord Moser:
That must be available. It simply must be available!
Dr ap Gwilym: All I can report back is my failure
to get that information. The civil servants have been very helpful
in other areas, I must say, so I am not being critical of them,
but I was unable to get that information. In terms of PESA, something
as elementary—you can sound a bit of a wonk on this, but
if you look at table 9.17 it shows the expenditure in Scotland,
in Wales and Northern Ireland, split down in the case of Wales
by the Welsh Assembly Government expenditure, UK direct expenditure
in Wales, things like social protection and local authority spending—it
is very helpful. It would be rather helpful if one had the equivalent
numbers for England. I am not sure why we cannot. You would have
data for the four countries. Part of my thesis has often been
that now we have got some devolution—a little bit like in
the private sector where you have inter-firm comparisons, you
could start having inter-country comparisons with the UK, even
more if you look at policy differences and policy outcomes over
a period of five or ten years. It is complex, I know. You might
say that Scotland has done rather well with that policy in that
area; but that means you have a fuller set of data. In fairness
to the Government, probably since 1997—though I stand to
be corrected—they have produced the statement of funding
policy and set out all the comparables in the back of that document.
The only thing is that there I do wonder, because some of the
factors are quite bizarre. One of the examples I gave you was
that Wales enjoys a Barnett consequential for the money the United
Kingdom Government pays towards decommissioning nuclear power
stations in the Former Soviet Union. You think: "Why is Wales
getting a Barnett consequential for that?" I am not wanting
to turn away gifts, but there is a whole series of these, and
those are more clear-cut ones. In the larger spending areas of
course you are not sure. If those comparability factors are faulty—they
appear to be faulty—are the other comparability factors
fair and correct or not? We do not know.
Lord Moser: It may be very helpful—maybe
it will be recorded—if we could know from Wales where your
particular defects of data are felt. Maybe it will be covered
in the record.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed
for coming. It has been very helpful. Part of the fascination
about this particular Committee is that it is a learning process
for those of us who are on it. I have to say you have advanced
the learning process very considerably this morning. Thank you
very much for coming.
|
