Public Audit Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Official Report 318KB pdf

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Decision on Taking Business in Private

I convene the Public Audit Committee’s seventh meeting in 2010, to which I welcome members, Audit Scotland colleagues and any members of the public or press who are here. I remind everyone to switch off all electronic devices, so that they do not interfere with the recording equipment.

Before we consider the agenda, I will take the opportunity to comment on the 10th anniversary of Audit Scotland, which was one of the first institutions to be created following the Scottish Parliament’s establishment. The contribution that Audit Scotland and its staff have made to Scottish public life is remarkable.

It is a credit to the organisation that, whenever anything controversial that relates to money crops up in the public sector, the first port of call for politicians of all parties is to call for Audit Scotland to conduct an inquiry. Recently, people who are not politicians have referred themselves or others to Audit Scotland. People have the confidence to do that because everyone values Audit Scotland’s integrity and the quality of its work. They know that the issues will receive fair, objective and thorough scrutiny.

At times, it must be difficult for you, Auditor General, and your staff to stay above the party-political fray, particularly when we politicians try to score points by involving people from outside the political arena, such as Audit Scotland. To your credit, you do that task exceptionally well. The quality of your work is valued by members of not only the committee but the Parliament and by everyone in the public and private sectors.

Since I became the committee’s convener, I have realised even more the significance and the high standards of Audit Scotland’s work. All committee members have valued the reports that you have produced and their depth, clarity and impact. That can be seen in how the media report not just the committee’s work but what you do as an organisation.

Audit Scotland has had 10 years of success and of making a high-level contribution to the quality of life in Scotland. I hope that recommendations by Audit Scotland and its staff—whether on education, health or the environment—have led to improvements in how we use our public resources and in how we deliver our services.

As an aside, it is a happy coincidence that Audit Scotland has just been included in The Sunday Times’s list of the 75 best places to work in the United Kingdom’s public sector, so I congratulate it on that.

On behalf of the committee and all members of the Scottish Parliament, I congratulate Audit Scotland on a remarkable success story.

Members: Hear, hear.

Thank you very much indeed for your extremely generous remarks, convener. As I have said to the committee before, all the work that comes before you is down to the hard work of Audit Scotland, and it will be a real pleasure to relay your kind remarks to the staff—that will give them a real fillip. For me, Caroline Gardner and her colleagues, it was a privilege to start from a clean sheet of paper 10 years ago. Working with the committee, we have realised a vision for the role that public audit and scrutiny can play in a modern democracy. It is a great tribute to the committee that it has given us the support that we need to perform our role effectively. As I have said on many occasions, we can take the work only so far. We can do our best to present good, robust analysis and the key findings in our reports, but devolution has helped enormously in that the missing link has been provided by the committee, which receives our reports and, when appropriate, asks questions of accountable officers, chief executives and occasionally ministers to conclude the process of holding to account. That helps enormously. It means that, out there in the public sector, people take our work seriously because they recognise the accountability process that is associated with it. I therefore thank the committee for its support.

It is interesting that there is such a wide interest in our work outside Scotland. The committee will recall that we get lots of visitors from other countries, and a limited amount of our work is involved in developing institutions of government and audit in other countries. That is down to the model that was designed by the Scottish Parliament at the outset, which has been a great success. The robust democratic scrutiny system that came with devolution is one of the successes of the Scottish Parliament and, ultimately, although it may not be talked about terribly much, it is valued by the people of Scotland. It ensures that, when things go significantly off the rails, something can be done. Also, when things are going well, that is recorded, although such things tend not to come before the committee.

Thank you for your kind remarks. We look forward to relaying them to the staff, who will appreciate them.

Thank you. We now turn to the formal agenda. Are we agreed to take item 4 in private?

Members indicated agreement.