Official Report 311KB pdf
We move straight to the third item on our agenda, which is consideration of a paper on the Audit Scotland report "Maintaining Scotland's roads". More than one member of the committee has expressed interest in this issue. The Audit Scotland report is a major piece of work that adds to our consideration of the problem. The paper suggests that we may wish to consider taking evidence from Audit Scotland and from the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, so that we can hear its response to the Audit Scotland report. I expect that members will be minded to take such evidence. Do we agree to timetable that in?
When we spoke previously to Audit Scotland or the Accounts Commission, we were told about a pilot in five local authorities. I assume that that is not yet at an advanced stage, but we could ask about it. Members will recall that the pilot involved a more in-depth quality assurance approach.
I do not mind our asking about that, as long as it does not take up too much time in the meeting, the main focus of which will be the issue of roads.
My question relates specifically to roads and to what has been done in some authorities.
If the pilot relates directly to roads, I would be happy for you to ask about it. I thought that you wanted to broaden out the discussion to cover all aspects of local government.
No—just roads.
I am concerned that we should avoid duplicating any work that the Audit Committee has already done on this issue. It has been mentioned that this morning the Audit Committee took evidence on the report from the Auditor General for Scotland. I am keen for the Local Government and Transport Committee to discuss the report, but there is no point in our doing so if the Audit Committee has already done it.
We will timetable a session, but before we confirm definitely that we will hear directly from Audit Scotland, we will examine the range of analysis that the Audit Committee has undertaken. If it appears that the committee has covered all the bases, we can simply use the Official Report of its meeting. However, if there are further areas on which members would like to question Audit Scotland, there may be merit in inviting it to give evidence. Irrespective of whether we deem it necessary to do that, we can invite SCOTS to appear before us to respond to the report.
I agree that we should proceed as the convener has set out, but I want to be absolutely clear about the parameters of our investigation. If we are to take evidence from Audit Scotland and SCOTS, it might not be a bad idea for us to involve road user groups such as the Automobile Association and the Road Haulage Association, to find out about their perspective on the realities on the road. If we do not know what the parameters of the investigation are, it is difficult for us to decide whether we should widen it out that much.
I suggest that at this stage we limit evidence taking to the organisations that I have mentioned. We are not commissioning a major report on the issue. We are trying to ascertain how Audit Scotland analyses the situation and what the SCOTS engineers think about the report.
Can we leave the matter open? Once we have taken evidence from Audit Scotland and SCOTS, we may decide that the investigation will require more work than we initially thought was necessary.
We heard from the AA before we heard from SCOTS, so the AA's analysis of the state of non-trunk roads in Scotland is on the record.
Iain Smith asked about the evidence that was taken by the Audit Committee. Could we have a very short paper—about one side of A4—listing some of the points that were made at the meeting?
I am sure that it would be possible to arrange that.
Such a paper would be helpful.
We agree the recommendation in paper LGT/S2/04/24/5. We will move into private session to consider agenda item 4.
Meeting continued in private until 17:23.
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Budget Process 2005-06