Chamber and committees

Good morning. On the changes to the Radio Scotland schedule, which I have raised previously in the committee and with the BBC, I welcome the assurances about the importance that Radio Scotland places on emerging Scottish artists and on maintaining the number of hours. On the issue of listening to the voice of the audience, it is fair to say—it has been raised with me—that the presenters and shows are much valued by their listeners. I know that the BBC will keep under review how the schedule changes develop and pan out.

I want to ask about the fact that the BBC funds local democracy reporters. We talked at the start about the importance that the BBC places on local news and the events in the north-east and the Highlands, for example in relation to the recent weather. Those reporters are funded by the BBC but employed by local or regional news organisations. The purpose of the scheme

“is to provide impartial coverage of the regular business and workings of local authorities in the UK, and other relevant democratic institutions”.

There are 165 reporters across the UK; I do not know how many of them are in Scotland. As you said at the start, the BBC is our most trusted news source. How can we ensure that BBC Scotland has enough locally based journalists to maintain that high standard of accuracy for Scottish audiences?

We recently had STV here talking about its cuts to regional news. It has specialist news programmes for STV North and regional variations. STV is looking to cut the number of journalists that it has and has claimed that it will provide more content with fewer journalists—I struggle to see how that will be the case. When it comes to the BBC’s journalist base and the local democracy reporters, how will you maintain the level of local news coverage?

To go back to the convener’s opening questions, I think that similar issues were identified in the Water Industry Commission for Scotland, which led to a Government review and changes. At the same time, there have obviously been serious issues at Historic Environment Scotland.

I asked the culture secretary when he was last here discussing it what assurances we have that such cultural and financial issues are not happening in other parts of the culture sector, and he said that there are no such issues in other parts of the sector. I appreciate that you have 200 public bodies to look at, but what confidence can we have that these issues are not replicated in other parts of the culture sector specifically?

Thank you.

Auditor General, you talked about “unacceptable weaknesses in … governance” at HES. I think that sometimes when the word “unacceptable” is used—not by Audit Scotland but in the political sphere—it does not really mean anything. Governments will say that a situation is unacceptable, but then accept the situation. I am not criticising you here.

You have talked about unacceptable weaknesses and the desire for HES to move on from its current arrangements in relation to the accountable officer as soon as possible. We have had a situation, as you have said, with invoices for farewell dinners, non-compliance with foreign travel policy, poor monitoring of expenditure, and 400 credit cards being issued to staff, with almost £2 million spent on those credit cards.

What powers do you and the Scottish Government have to turn an unacceptable situation into an acceptable one? Obviously, the desire is for HES to get its own house in order, but ultimately, what powers do you and the Scottish Government have to ensure that we get those changes?

You mentioned the reasons that the Scottish Government has given for not appointing a substitute accountable officer. Obviously, you will have had conversations and correspondence with the Scottish Government and HES on that issue. Mr Kerr asked Mr Robertson in a parliamentary question whether the Scottish Government

“will publish the correspondence it received from Audit Scotland regarding the reported governance failures of Historic Environment Scotland”

and Mr Robertson replied:

“The Scottish Government did not receive any direct correspondence from Audit Scotland”.

I do not know whether that means that he has received indirect correspondence. He went on to say:

“Further correspondence from Audit Scotland on the Section 22 report may have been received directly by Historic Environment Scotland.”—[Written Answers, 15 January 2026; S6W-42703.]

Are you able to publish the correspondence that you have had with the Scottish Government or HES, so that we can understand the reasons that you have just cited for their taking particular positions?

Thank you.

Good morning to the witnesses. I agree with what you said earlier about local news being the most trusted news, and the fact that it has never been more important, in particular in a time of misinformation online. It is also important to our democracy; we have a Scottish Parliament election coming up shortly, and local news is really important in that respect.

You just mentioned, in response to the convener’s example, that you anticipated that stories affecting the north-east would still be on the national news programme. One of the issues that has been raised is that, while there are clearly major concerns about the impact that any proposals on access to STV North would have on the north of Scotland, if there was a move to a national programme out of Glasgow, there would be a dilution of news for other areas of Scotland. There would be an impact on Glasgow and the west and Edinburgh and the east. To what extent have you considered those issues alongside the axing of STV North?

When we had STV news here, I found it hard to understand the claim that a significant reduction in the number of journalists who work in the organisation, and a dilution of regional news, would result in more content. That has now been repeated: Ofcom believes that there will be fewer journalists but more content. I could not understand that statement when STV news made it and, given that Ofcom appears to agree with it, I am interested to know how having fewer journalists results in more content.

I am interested to hear your analysis of what would happen if more journalists were cut. At what point would that mean that less news would be produced? Has there been any investigation of that?

On the process, you said that you are not waving things through, but you also talked about the need to compromise. Why compromise when STV is a profitable business? It is investing in entertainment and drama and, as we have just heard, in a new radio station. Why is there a need to compromise on the issue?