Thank you, convener. I will bring Christine McLaughlin in on some of the detail, if I may.
Your first question was: would it be better or simpler to bring them all into one? We have thought about that but, as you say, there are a number of statutory aspects with which we should not interfere. When I have received the main reports that I am expecting to receive in the next few weeks, I propose to review the whole.
I will say quite frankly to the committee that, although I expect what we receive to be sufficient in its coverage, if I feel that something is missing from what has been done, I will ask for it to be followed up. We will work on the basis that what has been commissioned is sufficient but, if it appears not to be or if the committee was at any point to raise questions that we thought would not be adequately covered by what we have done, I am not resistant to the idea that we might need to extend the scope a little. However, to stop at this point and decommission what is already being done would do much more harm than good. That is my broad answer to your first question.
I am anxious not to repeat unnecessarily what is in my letter to the committee, so I will step very quickly through the main components. However, I am happy to take further questions as we go.
The first investigation is the external review by Grant Thornton of
“NHS Tayside’s financial governance, reserves and use of deferred expenditure, and the Board’s response to the initial independent review into the allocation of e-Health monies”,
and that is due on 15 May, which is next week. That will be shared with the committee and decisions about any further action will be informed by the findings of the review. That is a pretty broad-based review by Grant Thornton into what Tayside has done and is doing.
The second investigation is the
“formal inquiry under section 28(1)(a) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005”
by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. The timing of that is for the regulator and I understand from Christine McLaughlin that it has written further to the committee. In one sense, any follow up action will be a matter for OSCR, but if OSCR makes recommendations that go beyond Tayside, we will want to take them pretty seriously. We are already considering better separation between the oversight of endowment funds and the responsibilities of non-executives on the board, so I am quite happy to place on the record that that is firmly in our view.
Thirdly, and as we say in our letter,
“Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie will continue as the Chair of the Assurance Advisory Group”
and report to me by 15 October. I am not waiting for that to arrive before I do the other things that will come out of Grant Thornton and OSCR.
I also have returns from the chairs of all the national health service boards on their use of endowment funds. OSCR will respond to me initially on that by the end of May, but I do not expect that to be the final response and I am happy to give the committee more detail on those responses should it wish. I will probably do that in writing rather than try to go through them line by line today but, again, I am happy to take it as the committee prefers.
NHS National Services Scotland commissioned work by its internal auditors, KPMG, and that has reported. I was due to meet the chair and the chief executive of NSS last week to discuss that but—as the committee knows, I think—my mother passed away and that meeting had to be cancelled, so I will be meeting them shortly. Again, I will be happy to report to the committee in more detail once I have had the opportunity to discuss that with them.
The Scottish Government’s director of internal audit is due to report to us on 4 June on her review of actions taken by Scottish Government e-health and health finance. I thought that we needed to have a separate look at that and the adequacy of what we had done.
Those are the main things that are in train at the moment and, as I say, I am happy for Christine McLaughlin to go into more detail should that be helpful. Christine, have I missed anything?