Justice Secretary Angela Constance has hit back at claims the Scottish Government “knowingly” gave MSPs “completely inaccurate” information on the costs of new policing legislation.
Kenneth Gibson, the convener of Holyrood’s Finance Committee, challenged Ms Constance over the costs of introducing the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Bill.
Financial papers published alongside the legislation – which has been brought forward by ministers to provide “greater clarity” around police complaints and misconduct processes – stated that the annual costs could be between £520,474 and £1,414,474.
But Mr Gibson complained that “the costs of the Bill have evolved hugely actually since they were given”.
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The committee convener said costs were “going from £800,000, tripling to £2.356 million”.
Meanwhile, he said that the recurring costs were “more than quintupling” from £613,000 to £3.443 million.
Challenging the Justice Secretary, Mr Gibson said: “I think this all stems from the fact that the Government knowingly presented figures to the Finance Committee which they knew were completely inaccurate.”
Adding that the committee had been “tenacious” in its scrutiny of such matters, he said it “would have been a lot easier” if the figures had been updated prior to government officials being questioned on them in March.
Ms Constance insisted: “The government did not knowingly present information to this committee that was wrong.”
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Instead she said it had “published a financial memorandum last year, based on the best information we had at the time”.
But she stated: “If I had my time over again, the thing I would have done differently would have been to write to committee in advance of officials giving evidence, that’s for sure.”
Scottish Government official Graham Thomson had told the committee in March that the government would “look to update parts” of the financial memorandum.
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