The Public Audit Committee looks at reports published by the Auditor General for Scotland to examine whether public money is being spent efficiently and effectively.

On 8 January 2026, the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission published Delayed discharges: A symptom of the challenges facing health and social care.

The report says:

"A delayed discharge is when someone remains in hospital despite being medically ready to leave. During the month of October 2024, Public Health Scotland reported the highest number (2,030) of people experiencing a delayed discharge at the monthly census point. The number of delayed patients has decreased slightly since the peak levels in October 2024, but numbers remain well above pre-pandemic levels and are rising again. In 2024/25, people delayed from being discharged spent 720,119 clinically unnecessary days in hospital. While the full costs to the health and social care system are likely to be much higher, we estimate the cost of hospital days alone to be over £440 million a year".

Read the report on Audit Scotland's website

On 8 January 2026, the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission published Community health and social care: Performance 2025.

The report says:

"Integration Authorities (IAs) and Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) need to ensure that they have good quality information to fully understand their performance, support effective decision-making, benchmark against others and provide transparent public performance reporting. However, there is a lack of comprehensive and consistent national performance information about community health and social care demand, workload, quality of care and outcomes".

Read the report on Audit Scotland's website

It was agreed the Committee would consider both reports together.