Finance Committee, 22 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Official Report 330KB pdf

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Scottish Parliament Building Project

Good morning, colleagues. I welcome members, the press and the public to the 20th meeting in 2004 of the Finance Committee. As usual, I remind members to switch off all pagers and mobile phones. We have received apologies from Kate Maclean; I am expecting Gordon Jackson to attend as a committee substitute for the Labour Party. Margo MacDonald is in attendance, although she has popped out for a second. Agenda item 1 was to have been an opportunity for Gordon Jackson to declare any relevant interests. However, as he is not here yet, I will ask him to do so when he joins us and before he asks any questions.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of the latest monthly report from the Presiding Officer on the Holyrood building project. We have before us our usual array of witnesses from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the Holyrood progress group. They are: Paul Grice, the clerk and chief executive of the Scottish Parliament; Robert Brown MSP, who is a member of the SPCB; John Home Robertson MSP, who is convener of the Holyrood progress group; and Sarah Davidson, who is project director of the Holyrood project team. Members have the latest monthly report, which was issued yesterday, and a letter from the Presiding Officer dated 9 June, which follows up points that the committee raised previously. As usual, I give Robert Brown the opportunity to make an opening statement.

The Presiding Officer says in his letter:

"Progress on site this month has been intensive and impressive."

Indeed, for some months there has been a sense of moving forward at a steady and increasingly effective pace. This might seem paradoxical after all the difficulties that there have been, but in many respects the on-site organisation of what has been a highly complex project has been extremely good. On behalf of the SPCB as the parliamentary authority, in what should be our last report of this kind, I repeat George Reid's thanks to our professional team and to the Holyrood progress group, which has, with great diligence, carried out on behalf of the Parliament what I can only describe as a thankless task. In particular, I thank Sarah Davidson, who, as the committee knows, is about to leave us. She has been in the eye of the storm for quite some time and she has carried out her duties with considerable aplomb.

Given the committee's financial scrutiny role, I imagine that it is primarily concerned about the ability to finish the job within the current budget. Of course, there will be no absolute finality until the last account is settled, but the domain of the unexpected is shrinking rapidly as the building nears completion and as accounts are submitted. The use of acceleration moneys has been modest and within the proposed amounts, and the movement into construction commitment is pretty much as anticipated.

I hope that the committee will regard the two-monthly reporting schedule that the Presiding Officer proposes for the period after the recess as a suitable arrangement. The Holyrood progress group and the SPCB will, of course, continue to meet during the recess. It is important for the committee to be aware that, as with any new building, minor snagging will continue for some time after completion. Such snagging is forecast, but that does not imply that there will be any unanticipated hassle or unforeseen problems. In particular, work to finish the landscaping will continue for some time after completion—that work includes, among other things, planting at appropriate seasonal times.

The committee will no doubt want to probe a number of aspects of the report, but I conclude by saying that, much as I have enjoyed the sessions in which we have appeared at the committee, I am not unhappy that they will conclude with the anticipated completion of the project. The Holyrood project has dominated the life of the Parliament, but shortly it will be up to the people of Scotland, whose democratic forum the Parliament is, to judge and assess the result. Increasingly, the impression is that they will not be disappointed.

I suggest to members that we leave questions about the future reporting arrangements to the end and deal first with this month's key points, particularly migration, which is an issue that the committee wanted to take forward. I kick off by asking the panel about point 2 in the report, on the movement from the risk and programme reserve into construction commitment. Last time we took evidence, you talked about a limited number of major projects having a continuing aspect of risk—from memory, I think that you indicated that there was continuing risk in relation to five major projects. Has that threshold moved? Is the number of projects that have a risk factor decreasing?

Are you talking about the construction contracts?

Yes.

Our understanding of the Parliament's financial exposure is that there is significantly less risk. The cost consultants have had fairly detailed discussions with the principal contractors—the large contracts clearly pose more financial risk—and those discussions have brought them to a deeper understanding of what the final overall cost of the contracts is likely to be. At the Holyrood progress group's most recent meeting, it was reported that the costs are within the sums that were anticipated last time the budget was reviewed. Although sums will continue to be drawn down against individual packages on a monthly basis as valuations are agreed, there is much less uncertainty about the remaining risk than there was before.

Are there any completion issues that will affect other completion issues? The light well was obviously a barrier to the continuation of work. Are you saying that that problem has been overcome and that there are no similar problems?

The specific issue that you raise has been discussed with the cost consultants. Even the areas in which people may have been held up are understood and accounted for in the existing moneys—the overall completion date is not affected. We are quite relaxed about the matter.

Presumably, the number of people employed on construction-specific aspects of the project will be run down and an increasing number of people will be involved with maintenance and service issues.

Precisely.

Do you have an indication of the rate of rundown of construction-related staff?

I know that at the moment the number of men on site is hovering at around 1,000. That figure will probably run down to about 200 in August, when the bulk of the snagging work will take place, prior to members and the public using the building. We hope that that work will tail off fairly significantly in September, but I do not have figures with me that indicate what the precise ratio of construction-related staff to staff involved with maintenance and service issues will be.

Presumably, the cranes that are on site will move off site soon.

That is right. Either one or two mobile cranes are on site at the moment. One is continuing to work in the Canongate light well area, where scaffolding has still to come off the final tower, and it will be the last crane to go. That will happen within the planned programme.

I have a question about snagging. Can you comment on problems with water entering certain of the roof areas, as I have noticed on a number of occasions when visiting the site? When I was last there, there appeared to be leaks and water on the concrete stairs that lead up to members' accommodation. I know that there have always been fears that the roof in that area, which has a lot of angles, will create many potential difficulties with water. Can you confirm that there have been problems of the kind that I have described? Are they included in the snagging to which you refer?

Any water ingress at this point will be dealt with as part of snagging. In one or two areas around the site, water has come in, especially when there have been heavy rainstorms. However, the problems have not been particularly serious and adjustments to roofs have not been required. It is expected that all the problems will be picked up by the time of occupation in August. I am not aware of anything that is likely to be an on-going problem.

Given that we heard that water might be a problem, it is a little disconcerting to discover that even before the building is opened some difficulties with water are being experienced.

I am not aware of anything that is a serious on-going problem. Currently, all the problems that fall into the category to which you refer are being treated as snagging items. If more severe problems are identified, they will be looked into and followed up with the relevant contractors.

Can you give us a clearer picture of the effects of the recent fire? I note that nine large concrete panels were damaged. How serious was the damage? Will the panels have to be replaced, or can they be fixed?

The damage was spalling to the surface of the concrete. Although the fire was quite small, damage was done to an extensive area because the substance that was burning created intense heat. We are awaiting a full report, but we know for certain from the structural engineers that there is no structural damage. I am sure that in the long run the Parliament will want to consider whether to replace the panels. We are awaiting advice on how a cosmetic job could be done, which would involve laser-treating and painting the surface. Until the first winter in the building has passed, we will not know the extent to which the repair might be affected by frost, for example. Replacement of the panels would be a major logistical exercise, but that does not mean that it could not be done. The corporate body may want to consider the issue next year, once we have more information about how good the repair was and everyone has had a chance to see what it looks like.

What would be the likely cost of replacing nine huge concrete panels?

We have not yet received an assessment of the total cost. However, we know that any cost should be covered fully by the insurance policy.

My question is about the work that will remain to be done after we have all moved in. Yesterday, reports in the media seemed to indicate that work will still be on-going at the time of the official opening, which gave the impression of the Queen arriving in a hard hat. Presumably, that is not the situation. Has there been a further delay in the final work—the landscaping and so on—or have you anticipated for some time that that work will take a bit longer than the time required for migration?

There has been no further delay. Clearly, there is an appropriate time for planting of trees. Since we decided on the end date and focused on achieving it, everyone on the team has been determined to see the project through to completion by that date. Some works are taking a little longer than we would have liked, but the plan is to have the building ready for occupation. We are on target to do that, allowing for the snagging that is inevitable in any project of this nature. As much as possible of the landscaping work will be done within the time available. It is a tall order, but we are making good progress. Thank goodness that the weather is fairly good.

Do you have an idea of when the landscaping will be complete? Might it not be complete until next year, given the times that are appropriate for planting?

Planting of trees will take place in November. The trees will be planted at the end of the landscape tails, where the landscaping meets Queen's Drive and the park. The planting should be the last part of the landscaping to be completed. It will probably take a full season for the trees to become established, but all the works should be done by the end of November this year.

With any new building, there is a period during which it is necessary to look out for problems such as water coming in—that is in no way unique to this building. For how long do you anticipate that minor snagging will continue? When will we be able to say that it is done and dusted?

The work will probably proceed in phases. There will be an intense period of snagging from the beginning of August, when staff move in, ahead of the main occupation of the building by members and the public. I am certain that snagging will still be on-going in September and October. We should bear it in mind that until we start to use the building in the fullest sense—with members of the public, members of Parliament, staff and contractors—we will not pick up some snags. We are not talking just about occasional water ingress, but about the basic use of the building. In the first month or two, there will be an intense period of snagging. For the first 12 months, there are retentions against the principal contract. It is quite normal for there to be some snags in a building, but I hope that many fewer will be uncovered months after occupation. Snagging will be concentrated in the first couple of months. Although we anticipate that it will continue for some time thereafter, it should do so at a much lower level.

What sums are involved in the retentions?

Three per cent of the total. Unusually, that sum will be held for all contractors for a year from practical completion of the building, rather than completion of their work. There is a significant incentive from August and September 2004 through to 2005 for contractors to remedy any defects that may emerge.

I have three brief questions. The first relates to the occupation certificate and health and safety. The letter from the Presiding Officer states:

"Arrangements are already well advanced for making sure that the requirements of both building control and the fire inspector are met by the required dates."

When are the required dates for the occupation certificate and health and safety? Does the certificate cover the entire building, and was it always anticipated that it would do so?

It is important to recognise that we are not dealing with an external building certificate in the usual sense, because of the building's Crown status. The certificate is produced by our specialists. Paul Grice will provide the committee with details.

The date for which we need the occupation certificate is the beginning of August, when staff will move in. The certificate is expected to cover the whole site, but it is quite likely that at the beginning of August works will be taking place in the odd area. I understand that normally such areas are exempted from the provisions of occupation certificates. If work needs to be done on a stair or a walk, that area will be exempted, the inspector will return a week later and, if the area is clear, we can proceed. However, the target for the principal occupation certificate is the beginning of August, to allow staff to move in.

My second question is about snagging defects and completion of works. I am totally uninterested in the timing of the planting of trees, but as a potential occupant of the chamber I am interested in the completion of works there. The letter states:

"The current programme was planned on the basis of post-fixing some timber louvered screens at lower levels at the rear of the Chamber and on Tower 4. This will probably be carried out either in the October or December recess and should have no impact on building users."

My understanding was that the chamber was the most dramatic feature of the building, so it seems slightly odd that, five months after occupation, it will not be completed. When did the fact that the chamber would not be completed until five months after occupation enter the programme, or am I reading the letter inaccurately?

The wording is slightly misleading. The work will be carried out in an area below the chamber—below the public foyer. That has been in the programme since February and the last revision. There are two points to make: first, it was thought much easier not to put on the screens as part of the current programme of work; and, secondly, there was the question whether the staff occupants would want the louvered screens in that area because of the light levels. Leaving the screens off gives the staff an opportunity to see what the area is like before committing to additional screening from the public areas.

Snagging is inevitable, but I want clarification about the completion of trade packages, although you might want to give us the details of that in writing. It would be helpful if you could indicate how many of the trade packages were envisaged to be completed by the occupation date in the original programme and how many trade packages are now anticipated to be completed by the occupation date. The current programme will reflect the slippage in trade packages, but what was the anticipated position one year or six months ago? As I recall, there were about 90 trade packages.

It would probably be easier to provide that clarification in writing. The second part of the question is comparatively easy, although I will have to go away and check how many trade packages will be completed by the occupation date. It is easier to say how many of them will be on-going at that time. We also have to ask whether "completed" means that the contractors are no longer working on site or whether we have signed off a final certificate for the packages. It is harder to comment on a point in the original programme, but we can probably say how much of the work will still be live from the programme in which we envisaged completion this summer. Practically, there should not be too many packages going on other than the snagging work.

It would be helpful to clarify that. I take your point—I am looking for a completion date not for the final haggling over the minutiae of payment, but for the packages that will involve live work on site.

Will any proportion of the snagging be work that is newly started? Will that work include the start of any new initiatives?

It should not. The management team has carefully distinguished between snagging and anything that people decide, once they have moved into the building, that they would like to have differently for whatever reason—that is not snagging. If anything emerged that required new work, it would be dealt with separately.

Do you expect any elements of snagging to have a negative impact on migration to the new building?

No, we hope not. The migration people are working closely with the project team to understand where contractors will be working. A permit-to-work system will be operated so that people who are doing snagging work do not crash into areas where people are unpacking their boxes. Snagging should follow the business of moving in as much as possible.

About a year ago, we asked for and got a schedule of cost movement on trade packages. That seems to have fallen into disuse. I understand that to a certain extent, given that we are now in a steadier state and the costs are firming up. However, I would like a commitment that a final version of that schedule will be produced at the end of the project.

That is the intention.

I add one question to those raised by Wendy Alexander. Can we have an explanation of the differences between what was anticipated—at the start of the summer, for example—and the current situation? I do not just want a list of differences; I would like some analysis of why there should be slippage.

I am interested in the timing of the project. Reporting on the project has been bedevilled by the fact that nobody has wanted to tell us terrible news if there was any. I am not suggesting that there is terrible news to tell us now, but perhaps we could have known about the timing of certain work earlier. We know when trees have to be planted—unlike Wendy Alexander, I am terribly interested in that sort of thing—because that is already set out for us. One would think that there would be a plan and a timescale for landscaping, so it is difficult to see why that work should be taking longer than anticipated, as John Home Robertson said. What parts of the programme are still to be completed, particularly the landscaping, and why are those parts taking longer? Do you have any remedies for that?

Finally, can somebody tell me about the toilets? Nobody has mentioned the toilets and yet I see that hundreds of thousands of people will be trooping through the building. Is it correct that the public will start coming into the building before the Queen opens it officially?

Of course there is a plan for all remaining works; landscaping is just another package and no different in that respect. We receive a fortnightly progress update through the Holyrood progress group. A lot of people are working on a lot of packages at the same time and sometimes there is slippage as they get on with the job. That is then fed back in, reprogrammed and considered.

The point was made earlier that our top priority is to get the building ready for occupation. The landscaping plays an important role, but it does not affect the functionality of the building. It was always envisaged—we have been clear about this in the past—that the landscaping out into the park, which is materially different from the landscaping around the Canongate area, would be the last work to be completed. It will be finished as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of jeopardising the completion of the building. Discussions about completion are going on pretty much daily between the principal package contractor and Bovis Lend Lease. The Holyrood progress group will continue to take a close interest in that, which is why it will meet throughout the summer to keep progressing those works.

Plans concerning visitors have not changed. The toilet fit-out is extremely advanced; it is part of the overall Mivan package—

I am interested in quantity, not quality.

The quantity has been fixed for a long time—there are a reasonable number of toilets. As have I explained previously, we have been working extremely closely with other main attractions down in that area, most notably Holyrood palace and Our Dynamic Earth—all the evidence is that people who visit that end of the Royal Mile, especially those who come on tour buses, will be interested in visiting the Parliament building and we will be doing a lot of joint work with those organisations so that people who come to the area have a good visitor experience that includes the Parliament. That is the avenue that we are pursuing.

Do you mean that they will have to go to the toilet in Our Dynamic Earth?

If someone visits three buildings, they do not necessarily need to go to the toilet in every building.

Not everyone will.

Some people might wish to do that and I do not want to imply that there are no toilets in the Parliament; of course there are. However, it makes a lot of sense to work with other attractions in the area. We have great co-operation with Holyrood palace and Our Dynamic Earth and we will continue to develop that co-operation through survey work. However, we will not know the results until people start arriving. Much of our strategy has been about having a plan to start out with. We have to be flexible and adaptable to meet the needs of visitors and that is exactly the approach that we are adopting.

We are doing that to some degree with the catering facilities, about which we have spoken before.

We are not making a new point—there will be exactly the same number of toilets as planned last time anybody asked.

That is the concern—that there are not enough of them.

You assert that, but we will just have to wait and see how we go.

When the building comes into use by MSPs on 8 September, will it also be in use by members of the public? I want to be abundantly clear about that.

Yes. There are two key target dates. One is 8 September, which is the first day of business—that is a hugely important day for us all. The second is 9 October, when the Queen comes to open the Parliament formally. Those are the two dates towards which we are working.

Members of the public who would normally be able to enter the Parliament will be able to observe parliamentary sessions and committee meetings from 8 September.

The public will be able to observe parliamentary sessions from 8 September and any other parliamentary business in that week. If committee meetings take place in that week, we expect the public to be able to attend those as normal and we expect them to have access to all the building's other facilities. The building will have a considerably greater public area and more space for public exhibition.

Will catering and other services be operational?

Yes.

I am sorry that I was not present at the beginning of the meeting; another matter detained me. However, I can state that I am not lavatorially obsessed, as other members appear to be, so I will ask about another subject that arises from the section on migration and occupation in the Presiding Officer's report. I will ask about the plans that are in place for the smooth management of visitors.

I thank Paul Grice and the staff who were kind enough to give up some of their free time to show the Highland branch of the Saltire Society around the site on 12 June. That was much appreciated. Many of the 40 or so people who saw the site arrived as sceptics and left as enthusiasts, which was perhaps encouraging.

I will ask about visitor management because a serious problem looms on the horizon. I identified it to the previous Presiding Officer to no avail, sadly. The problem is dealing with the number of expected visitors. The report says that 700,000 visitors are expected every year. I thought that the figure was 750,000; 50,000 is obviously de minimis.

The serious point is that the visitor gallery was supposed to seat 250—that was Lord Steel's undertaking as Presiding Officer. I understand that that figure has now gone down. Will the witnesses confirm how many seats will be available for the public? I have the figure of 130, but I hope that I am wrong. If 130 seats are available for the public, that contrasts with the average attendance at the General Assembly Hall at peak times such as First Minister's question time of two to three times 130.

Yesterday, I spoke to one security staff member who was distinctly unenthusiastic about being the person who will have to tell visitors—many of whom will have come from far and wide to see their Parliament—that there is no room at the inn, so to speak. Before it is too late, I raise the issue again. I have discussed it with Mr Grice privately and I have raised it through the official channels with the current and preceding Presiding Officers—to no avail with the preceding Presiding Officer, as I said. If the witnesses agree with me that our Parliament has too few seats for the public, is it too late to add seats at the back? If it is not too late to do that, I hope that each of the 129 members of the Scottish Parliament will sponsor a seat, to prevent the costs from increasing.

The matter is fairly serious. I would not want to tell 200 people a day that there is no room for them to watch proceedings in their own Parliament. I am surprised that Lord Steel did not deal with the issue when it was raised with him some years ago. However, it is not too late to deal with it—it is never too late in politics. I am interested in hearing each panel member's views.

I think that we will hear the views of one panel member—Robert Brown.

I will kick off. I am sorry that Fergus Ewing sees fit to cast aspersions on the previous Presiding Officer. The building plans on the matter that he raises have pretty much been there from the beginning, subject to the changes in the chamber's size that the corporate body made when it took over. In the gallery, 225 seats will be available, together with seats for the media. I admit that that figure is not as big as the figure in the Assembly Hall, but it is significantly bigger than the number of seats in Westminster.

It is much bigger than the figure in Westminster.

Are those 225 seats for the public?

I am talking about the public. It is a substantial—

Are those seats for the general public as opposed to the distinguished public?

I ask Fergus Ewing to let the witness answer.

The seats are for the public, which gives potential for substantial attendance, to which is added the considerable amount of space in the committee rooms. The matter relates to a slightly different issue from the 700,000 expected visitors, because the building will have a series of facilities other than just the chamber. It is wrong to say that only 150 seats will be available. There will be 225 spaces, plus spaces for the media. I ask Paul Grice to elaborate.

I am happy to pick that up and I am grateful to Fergus Ewing for having raised some of the matters with me. I think that 225 seats are available for the public and that 277 is the total number of seats when the media and the guest gallery are included. That figure is substantial but is not as big as the current number.

Fergus Ewing raises an important general point about visitors. We expect upwards of 700,000 visitors in the first year and we expect that figure to tail off thereafter only slightly. That will be an enormous issue for us in the last few months. We must consider the Parliament's total capacity, which includes the chamber, the committee rooms and an enormous public area in which major screens will be placed to allow people to see proceedings. We are considering tours of the Parliament and visitor management. We are engaging proactively through VisitScotland with tour companies and we are working with the neighbouring organisations.

Visitor management is an enormous challenge for us. The best professional advice that we have had is that much of that involves managing expectations, so that people expect to book a ticket if they want to sit in on First Minister's question time. If someone turns up early in the morning or wants to see a committee meeting, they will have more chance of obtaining a ticket on spec. We will consider matters such as queue management—dealing with people who are waiting to go in.

The picture is complex and we are examining the matter. We have taken the best professional advice that we can and we will manage the issue proactively—that is the secret. It is good that demand to enter may be greater than can be accommodated, but how we tackle that is extremely important. The gallery's capacity is one constraining factor. Some time ago, the corporate body expanded the gallery as much as it could within the building's footprint, but other constraints also exist.

I do not decry the point that Margo MacDonald makes. Toilets and catering facilities are constraints. We have aimed to work within them and to find where we can work with, say, other organisations. I am confident that we will do that well. Dealing with the expected number of people will be a phenomenal challenge. We do not have to deal with such a number at the moment. The whole parliamentary organisation will have to be able to deal with that as well as continue to deliver the service to members that it currently provides. That will be one of the biggest challenges after we have overcome migration to the new building.

I know that Paul Grice is making much effort. I have had the opportunity to discuss with him in private some matters and they are all right as far as they go, but I think that I am right in saying that Lord Steel gave an undertaking that 250 seats would be available for the public and that that will not be the figure. That is a matter of record, but I stand to be corrected by Mr Brown if he wants to contradict me—it is just a matter of looking out the press release.

I will raise again the point that I made in principle. There will be a massive excess of demand over supply and a large number of people will be disappointed when they come to see our Parliament. That is a bad thing and I would like us to do anything that we can to prevent that. I would have thought that we would all want to do that. Perhaps some people would expect me to want that less than some of the witnesses, but that is not the case. I do not want to spend the next five years in another imbroglio over a Parliament that has not been built with enough room for the public to watch proceedings.

Each panel member will know that I have made representations on such issues to the Presiding Officer. Has it been ruled out that extra seating will be provided, perhaps at the back of the chamber, which seems to have room? Could that area not be used to provide seating for distinguished guests, so that the existing seats for them could be released for the general public? Has alteration to the seating arrangements for visitors been ruled out, or does some flexibility remain to address the general concern, which I have raised only because it is a real concern?

I am delighted to hear that Fergus Ewing has become an enthusiast for the Holyrood Parliament building—that seemed to be what he was saying earlier.

During the four years in which I have been a member of the Holyrood progress group—and before that—the group's responsibility has been to complete the building as designed. If at any stage we had proposed major changes that would have added to the project's cost and timescale, there would have been difficulties. I understand from what I have read on the subject that way back at the earliest design stage an assessment was made that 225 seats would be adequate, based on experience in other Parliaments. The gallery will certainly be substantially bigger than the public gallery in the House of Commons, which I think has 157 places.

We are two or three months away from completion, migration and starting work in the new building. With respect to Fergus Ewing, to start redesigning the layout of the chamber now to alter the size of the public gallery would give rise to costs and delays—there is no doubt about that. We will have a substantial public gallery that should be more than adequate, according to the analysis that was made at the early design stage. Time will tell. I have no idea whether it might be possible to change the layout in the future, but if there turns out to be a problem, it will no doubt be possible for our successors to review the situation. However, it would be silly to start redesigning the gallery at this stage.

I echo that. The figure of 700,000 visitors was arrived at on the basis of survey reports and assessments by experts; nevertheless, the figure is only a prediction. We do not know how many of those visitors will want to go into the chamber, attend a committee meeting, have a cup of tea or go to the toilet.

No doubt it would not be impossible to make alterations to the layout. Nothing has been ruled out in that context. However, as John Home Robertson rightly says, the objective is to get into the building, assess how we are doing and do our best effectively to manage the visitor flows, which will be a far bigger issue than the chamber audience will be. I have no doubt that all sorts of changes will have to be made once we have seen how that works in practice.

The prediction is that 2,000 people will visit the building every day—

In the first year.

That is approximately ten times the capacity. I did not suggest, as John Home Robertson implied, that the layout be changed; I suggested that seats be installed at the back of the chamber. I was pleased that Robert Brown, at least, did not appear to rule that out. In all seriousness, I hope that the matter will be considered now, rather than after we move into the building.

From experience in another Parliament, I can say that not everyone who visits the Parliament building will want to go into the public gallery. It would be sensible to wait and see. If there is pressure on space in the gallery, it might be possible to consider ways of tweaking it, but anything that would require an extension to the scale of the building would be another story altogether.

I will put Fergus Ewing's mind at rest. If an overflow is needed, visitors will be able to go to Our Dynamic Earth or somewhere else.

On important public occasions, it is not unheard of for a screen to be put up to enable folk to watch what is happening from another room. The building will have big committee rooms, so I am sure that with a little ingenuity and technology—perhaps yet to be discovered—we will be able to cope with the numbers of visitors who come to the Parliament after the first year, when the novelty value has worn off.

Margo MacDonald makes an extremely good point. I understand that screens will be in place at various points in the building. To be honest, it would not necessarily be a bad thing if there were to be demand to get into the building and the chamber because there was a sense of excitement about Scotland's democratic forum.

We can never manage such things precisely; no doubt there will be times when the gallery is not full and times when there is a bit of a demand for places. For what it is worth, I think that attendance at First Minister's question time has fallen off in recent months. No doubt attendance will increase when the new building is open—

Whoever the new leader of the Opposition is.

However, the visitor numbers are only predictions at this stage.

Of course, there will be different types of visitors, including citizens of this country, people from the United Kingdom outside Scotland and people from abroad, who will have different expectations. In addition, there will not be an even pattern of visits throughout the year. Fergus Ewing's sums strike me as being about right in one context but, ironically, a lot more people will visit during the summer recess when there is no parliamentary business, and visits to the gallery will be less of an issue at such times.

I echo Margo MacDonald's point about screens. People will be able to watch the business of the Parliament on the large screen that we have built in the public foyer. The situation will be complex, because on some days committee meetings or other events will be the major attraction. We must also bear in mind the fact that a visitor will not spend the whole day sitting in the public gallery; there will be ticketing arrangements and a turnover of visitors, which will also increase capacity. There is a lot that we can and will do.

As Robert Brown said, we should not rule out anything. We need to keep an open mind and be prepared to change and to adapt to circumstances, because however careful the planning has been—I assure members that it has been meticulous—there are bound to be unexpected circumstances and we must keep our minds open to suggestions about how we might improve the service that we deliver to the public. We have a good plan to get us started and it would be sensible to get that plan in place, while keeping our minds open to any need to adapt as we learn from our experience.

I make two brief points. First, I am definitely not lavatorially obsessed, but I follow up Margo MacDonald's point. When I raised the matter of tendering for the provision of toilet facilities, Sarah Davidson provided me with a fairly full explanation, for which I was grateful. However, I remember that I also drew the committee's attention to the fact that the cost of the toilets had escalated to three times the original estimate. I think that at that time John Home Robertson mentioned that an investigation was going on into why the cost of the toilets had tripled. Can he tell us whether there has been any progress on that?

The Holyrood progress group received an interesting paper that went into some detail about the evolution of those costs. I do not have a copy with me, but we found the paper quite alarming.

The final paragraph of the letter that I sent to the convener on 6 May summarises the paper to which John Home Robertson referred. The paper provided a breakdown of the escalation in the costs throughout that package, but it did not answer all the questions, because obviously there was a big escalation in time-related costs. As I think that I said at the time, the auditors have been examining that package as part of their on-going work and we expect to receive their comments on the matter in due course.

My second point is more general. We know that Sarah Davidson has been under a huge amount of pressure and I am sure that she is looking forward to a rewarding break, away from all of it. Have all the necessary steps been taken to enable a deputy to take over who will have full knowledge of everything that has been going on? I assume that that is the case.

I should deal with that. The short answer is yes. The new head of the Holyrood project team will be Paul Curran, who has been the senior project manager for the past four years and has deep experience of the project. Obviously, Sarah Davidson's departure will pretty much coincide with the completion of the building and there would have been a restructuring at that stage in any event. We do not need to keep on the same project team, just as is the case for the Holyrood progress group, which will wind up at the end of September or beginning of October. Paul Curran will head up a follow-on Holyrood project team—if I can call it that—the principal function of which will be to deal with matters such as the settlement of claims or defects. He will lead a strong core of professionals and a much smaller administrative team. The Presiding Officer mentioned in his letter that we will also keep on some senior expert advisers who will advise me and Paul Curran. The new Holyrood project team will be part of the technology and facilities management directorate, where it will be able to link into the implementation team and to facilities management and information technology—that is exactly where it should be. The restructuring would have happened in any event, but that is the position and the new arrangement will kick in in a week or two from now.

Constituents who have difficulty gaining access to the public gallery in the chamber or elsewhere will be welcome to watch the proceedings on the large, extravagant, wide-screen televisions that will be installed in every MSP's office.

Margo MacDonald mentioned access to committee rooms. How many seats for the public will there be altogether in the building, including seats in committee rooms? I imagine that the number increases substantially if we include those seats.

There are approximately 70 seats each in the two large committee rooms and about half that number in each of the four smaller rooms: that is about 280 in total, which more than doubles the overall capacity.

Given the expected visitor numbers and the fact that the majority of visitors will not spend a long time either in committee rooms or in the galleries, I would have thought that many people will be at the public entrance where the shop and cafe will be. A large number of people will be in one part of the building and will not go through to take part in the democratic process. How will that be managed? What security measures will be in place? Will you appear before the committee again to outline additional expenditure for different facilities in that area?

We have examined that closely, too, and we have brought in people with practical experience of managing major tourist attractions. It is all about visitor flows. There is a lot for people to do in that area. There will be an exhibition about the Parliament and, as Jeremy Purvis says, there will be a substantial television screen. Many people will be happy just to observe what is going on in the chamber. Many people might not even come into the building, as they might just be interested in coming to look around the outside of the building—that is quite common.

The public foyer area is large, so it has a large capacity; there is a shop and a cafe in it. A substantial number of visitors will be schoolchildren who are on pre-arranged visits—there is a purpose-built classroom in the new Parliament.

There is considerable capacity in a range of areas and it is important to understand the complexity of the arrangements. This is not about thousands of people going straight to the debating chamber, although we expect that it will be a major attraction for people. There is a plan in place and we have restructured our visitor services team to deal with the situation.

There is a major reception area as people come in past security. It is hard to explain without diagrams, but I assure the committee that we have looked at the arrangements carefully. We have looked at what are called the pinch points and thought about how we will deal with those. We certainly do not intend at this point to invest in new structures; we want to deal with what we have and manage that as best we can.

We will consider things external to the building, such as signs to tell people how long they might have to queue and information for people who have pre-booked tickets. We have learned a great deal from people who have run major attractions elsewhere; we have picked up lots of good ideas about how to manage queues and manage people who come in. That can be done. We will not be the first organisation that has had to cope with what Fergus Ewing calls an excess of demand over supply—the key point is how we do it.

Will those be ready by 8 September?

Yes. The target date is the first day of public business, which is 8 September.

Members could have an important role to play. Many people will be pleased to meet a member of Parliament, so we have that great resource. Some thought could be given to how members might help in managing the enormous expectation. I would be happy to consider further any ideas that members have—they have a lot of experience of dealing with members of the public. If people cannot get into the chamber but they get to meet a member of Parliament, that would be tremendous for many of them. Quite seriously, that is our experience from open days. I have met members of the public at our open days and they have been genuinely pleased to meet members of Parliament; that is part of why they come. We should look to exploit that resource as far as is consistent with members conducting their daily parliamentary business.

Margo MacDonald should be one of the tour guides.

I have looked my wee hat out.

There are entrances on both sides. Has any thought been given—I do not mean to be negative—

No.

I do not mean to be negative. I am flagging the issue up, as I have done before. I would have thought that having all those visitors would affect maintenance costs. With such a large number of people traipsing through the place, the carpets might not last as long as has been planned. Somebody should look ahead and say, "If we have that traffic through the Parliament, there will be greater wear and tear. Greater wear and tear means that more people will be needed to service the Parliament, and that will be done at greater cost."

Paul Grice said that the building is a resource, but I am not sure that it is a resource—it is perhaps a resource for democracy, but it costs money and the Finance Committee is the committee that talks about how much it costs.

If the people of Scotland wear out the carpets, I can see that only as being a good thing.

Such issues have all been taken into account. We have had survey work on visitor numbers for more than a year; the latest figures are an update to a previous survey. Margo MacDonald will know that in the major public areas the flooring is Caithness stone, which is well known for its durability. The cleaning plans and planned maintenance will have to take footfall into account, as there is no denying that it is a key issue; it has been factored into all the maintenance and cleaning contracts. We will have to see how it goes. Another key point is that flexibility is built into the contracts as some areas may require more cleaning and maintenance than others. However, the building is made of extremely durable materials, such as oak, sycamore, granite and Caithness slab, which are designed to cope with a high footfall. By and large, we have avoided carpets, for the reasons that Margo MacDonald mentions. The floor materials in particular are very durable and I would expect them to last for a very long time.

If the roof does not leak, I am sure that the Caithness stone will be perfect, but if it leaks, you should think about the compensation claims.

If the roof leaks, we will have to fix the leak.

I start by congratulating the people present on nearly reaching the conclusion of the project, which I imagine has been a harrowing project for all of them—their application to it is to be commended. We must put on record the fact that, without George Reid, we could have been waiting for another year—perhaps if he had become Presiding Officer a year earlier we would have been in the building by now.

Paul Grice mentioned that some people will only look at the outside of the building. I assure him that, for the first three months that the new building is open, it will be like Hampden Park years ago—tens of thousands of people will come to see the spectacle. People will turn out in huge numbers. I do not care what agency Paul Grice goes to, we will never get the true figure for the number of people who will turn out. The building has received publicity—albeit negative publicity—for four or five years, so people will want to see what their money is buying. People will be astounded by the turnout of the public to try to get into the place—put a turnstile in place and the building will be paid for in jig time.

My question is: where is our national bard in this place? Does Robert Burns feature?

Among other places, there are appropriate quotes from our national bard on the Canongate wall.

Are they low-profile or high-profile?

They could not be more public.

At the edge of the Parliament that backs on to the Canongate, coming down from Queensberry House, there is what is called the Canongate wall—I think that it is a remarkable piece of architecture and design. There are quotes on it and Robert Burns features prominently.

Margo MacDonald and I were victims of the lifts. As far as I can remember, there was no ventilation in the lift. Can Margo MacDonald remember there being any?

No.

Eight of us were in a lift that is designed to take 21 people—if 21 people had been in there for 20 minutes or half an hour, some of them could have expired. Will you please look into ventilation in the lifts? I will be using the stairs.

Honestly, I was not responsible for that—although I know various people who might have been tempted, knowing who was in the lift. No, I am sorry.

I will obviously look into that.

I will not go back in that lift unless there is a man in a boiler suit with a spanner standing beside it.

On the positive front, you did a helpful piece of snagging for us.

I hope that the quotation from Robert Burns that is displayed in the Parliament will be:

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!"

That might be a good start.

I think that that is the quote.

Oh, that I had such influence over other parts of the project.

I will ask about a practical matter that I have raised privately with the chief executive. At a recent meeting in Fort William, I discovered that three primary schools plan to join together to send the pupils down to Edinburgh in a large coach or, possibly, two coaches. Their thinking is to make a day of it for all the kids from a far-flung community in Scotland so that they can see our Parliament. If that thinking is replicated throughout Scotland, as I suspect it might be, so much the better.

The practical point is that, despite our being five years into the project, Historic Scotland has not yet agreed where coaches will be able to drop off visitors. Historic Scotland is not exactly known for being one of the world's sprinters, but even by its standards—I will not mention Castle Tioram—this seems to be a dismal, albeit not entirely unexpected, tale of woe. From my recce of the landscaping and various places around the site perimeter, it seems to me that we are spoilt for choice as to where a coach halt could be provided. Will the chief executive clarify the current situation and state whether permission for such a facility has been granted?

Members and non-members might doubt the seriousness of the matter, but I am sure that we all want to ensure the health of children who visit the Parliament. Given that they might alight from the bus in a state of high excitement, they should not have to cross busy roads but should be able to get into their Parliament with a maximum of ease. Having raised the issue with the chief executive last week, I wonder whether he can now give us good news. Has Historic Scotland granted permission for this fairly simple matter?

Not yet, is the answer.

By way of background, let me explain that we expect that many visitors will arrive by coach, so the issue is significant. Originally, we considered using Horse Wynd, but that has proved not to be possible on the basis of police advice. A short-term solution might be to use the turning circle in front of Our Dynamic Earth. I am hopeful that we can get agreement to do that during our first six months of operation, which is Our Dynamic Earth's quieter period. The longer-term solution has to be to use the Queen's Drive spur or somewhere in the vicinity of the park. As Fergus Ewing said, that area seems well set up for such things.

I am due to meet Historic Scotland's chief executive in the next few days and hope for a sympathetic hearing. I have written to the agency about the matter, but we have not yet discussed it so I cannot give any further news so far. I very much hope that Historic Scotland will work with us to find a long-term solution for a pick-up and drop-off point—there is ample parking provision on Regent Road—so that schoolchildren and other coach visitors can be dropped off in close proximity to the Parliament. An area around the Queen's Drive spur would seem ideal, but that area is owned and managed by Historic Scotland. We will pursue the matter with Historic Scotland in the next few days.

I am pleased with that answer, which was not entirely unexpected.

If the chief executive's view is that the answer is to use Queen's Drive, it seems to me that, instead of talking about that as something for the long term, the problem should be sorted out before the Parliament opens. Other members will, I hope, agree that Historic Scotland should consent to that. Indeed, I can think of no reason why such a relatively simple and straightforward matter should be the subject of any delay. If the committee agrees, we should perhaps convey to Historic Scotland a clear sense of our desire to get the matter sorted out before the Parliament opens rather than let the issue linger on and perhaps raise complications. After all, it may not be convenient for Our Dynamic Earth to allow us to use its turning circle. I very much hope that Historic Scotland will not continue dragging its feet and delaying the matter. The committee will no doubt want to wish the chief executive good speed on his mission, which we hope will be successful.

I am sure that the committee supports the chief executive's efforts to secure a rational and sensible solution.

Before drawing this evidence-taking session to a close, I want to ask two specific questions. First, given that a key aspect of the building's design was to ensure high levels of disabled access, will disabled access be provided for during the teething period of the initial months? Secondly, will visitors be given access to the chamber when it is not in use? Visitors are not allowed on to the floor of the chamber that we use in our interim accommodation. Can I be assured that visitors to the new building at Holyrood will be allowed on to the chamber floor when it is not being used by parliamentarians?

I will answer your second question and Sarah Davidson will deal with the point about disabled access.

We are looking afresh at the whole regime. Obviously, some visitors will come to the gallery just to have a look at the chamber, but there will also be people on guided tours and people with members of Parliament. We aim to have in place a set of arrangements and guidelines for each of those groups. On the one hand, the key thing is to let people come and experience their Parliament but, on the other hand, we need to ensure that the voting and other equipment works when members next come to use it. A balance always needs to be struck. I can assure you that we will issue guidelines, which are currently in the process of production.

The clear plan is that by 8 September, when the public will start to use the building, everything should be complete so there should be no particular issue with disabled access. We are aware that on-going snagging in certain areas has the potential to raise hazards that might pose a problem for people whose mobility is impaired, but a regime is in place whereby the Parliament's health and safety manager will monitor that to ensure that there is no impact on people who use the building. Those matters are all well in hand.

Finally, on future reporting arrangements, the progress report suggests that

"we would expect to report progress in resolving any financial disputes to the Committee in the context of the financial monitoring report."

Will you say a little more about the format that is anticipated for that?

I have already given some thought on how that system should be put together. The process of settling final accounts will probably start in earnest from next month. Although our cost consultants have been in continual discussion with package contractors, only about £26 million of work has been finally signed off at project team level. Over the coming months, that figure will ramp up considerably. As that happens and as works are completed on site, all the remaining allocations of risk to individual packages will be made and the sums that are currently in construction commitment will become firm. In other words, moneys in construction commitment are anticipated sums and only when the Parliament has given its final signature do they become the final cost for any given package.

As it might be helpful to the committee to be able to track how that is happening, we will provide the committee with a running tally of accounts that are being settled. We will do that initially every two months and latterly every quarter. We will also provide a breakdown of what proportion of the total commitment has been concluded and what is still to be concluded. Our hope and anticipation are that, by the end of 2004, the vast majority will have been moved into concluded work and the final total figure will become fairly certain. However, that will all depend on how easily and how quickly accounts are settled.

As the current progress report indicates, the committee will receive the first of those reports in September. Once the committee has seen that, I am sure that my successors will be happy to pick up any comments that the committee has about the format and about the information that is provided.

Am I right in thinking that the Auditor General's report on the Holyrood project is now available?

No. It is not finished, although a draft of the report is being circulated. I understand that the Auditor General intends to publish the report shortly.

Am I correct in my understanding that you have already seen a copy of that draft?

As is normal, I have.

Are you happy with its contents so far?

I imagine that I will discuss that matter with the Audit Committee in due course.

Under the heading "Other post-completion matters", the Presiding Officer's progress report states that the Holyrood progress group will hold its last meeting on 29 September and will be formally wound up on the date of the official opening. The Presiding Officer goes on to state:

"The SPCB is therefore pleased that David Manson, Andrew Wright and John Gibbons have agreed to remain available to us"—

that is, the SPCB—

"and to the HPT in an advisory capacity after the building is complete."

Can Paul Grice say whether those people will be members of a committee that will perhaps have Paul Curran at its head? Further, can he say whether that committee will deal with issues that could perhaps be summarised, albeit crudely, as loss and expense? If so, will an expert in the process of adjudication be appointed to the committee?

I want to raise a second, wider issue. To be fair, it is one that I have not raised previously with Paul Grice—indeed, the question may be one for Robert Brown. After the publication of the Spencely report, the SPCB realised that the HPG would shed some of its day-to-day burden of handling the work load that had been generated by the project, albeit that it had been doing so in an advisory capacity.

Is any similar arrangement envisaged for the handling of post-completion matters? Will we see the formation of some kind of advisory or liaison body between the committee that George Reid describes in his letter and the SPCB? I am thinking of a body that would be analogous to the Holyrood progress group. In particular, I am referring to the question whether legal action should or should not be pursued.

If consideration is to be given to such a body, could the Finance Committee receive a report on the matter? If so, perhaps that report could be received at the next meeting at which we are to hear from the corporate body on the subject. As the meeting will be held after the summer recess, I assume that it will take place in the new building.

Yes. If I may, I will take the opportunity to explain in a little more detail what the Presiding Officer was driving at in the last paragraph of his letter. Paul Curran will head up the team that forms part of the executive chain of command that flows through me. We need expertise of the type to which Fergus Ewing referred. The advice that I have received, which I intend to follow, is that, rather than ask a claims expert to sit on the advisory group, we should bring that person into Paul Curran's team.

In the sense that the advisory group's job is to advise and to be available to advise Paul Curran and the corporate body, I see it as sitting off to the side. It is important that the advice that goes forward to the corporate body comes up through the properly accountable line that has me at its head. I imagine that some significant value-for-money issues will arise. We will need claims expertise and the right place for that to be located is in Paul Curran's team. The people mentioned by the Presiding Officer in his letter are included because they are all members of the Holyrood progress group.

I also intend to appoint Dave Ferguson, our senior audit adviser, to the advisory group because of the welcome experience that he brings to these matters. In this forum, I will not go down the road to which Ted Brocklebank's questions led, although I accept that audit issues are involved. It will be extremely beneficial to have Dave Ferguson on a group that is available to give advice—as necessary—to me and Paul Curran and to Robert Brown and his colleagues on the corporate body.

The corporate body has had a first look at the proposal and it will want to see how the link with its members develops. Of course, Robert Brown is the portfolio member, so to speak, and therefore he looks after all financial and audit matters. The expectation is that Robert Brown will take a particularly close interest in the new arrangements as the link person. Apart from being a lawyer, he brings with him a great experience of this forum, which gives him possibly the most detailed knowledge of the building of all the corporate body members.

That is the liaison system that the corporate body has come up with. Although I do not want to overstate the matter, it is important to stress that when the corporate body gets advice, it comes up from Paul Curran and through me. The advisory group will be in place to offer commentary on the advice that the corporate body is given, to help us to get things right and to be available to the corporate body if it wishes to discuss any issues that are less than straightforward.

The advisory group will not be as formal as the Holyrood progress group: it is not a creation of the Parliament, which, in effect, the Holyrood progress group is. It is a group of experts who advise and help us to get the strategy right and take proper judgments on individual claims. That is an outline of the system that we intend to set up. Indeed, I hope that the first meeting of the group will take place in the next week or so. We will get the group up and running even before the building is finished.

As Paul Grice touched on, it is not the job of the corporate body to manage all the work, nor is it our job to be involved in the details of claims and so forth. At the same time, we are keen to ensure that there is a bearing down. Among other things, we want to ensure that claims are not settled unnecessarily for the sake of a quiet life.

We need to keep a close handle on matters so that the corporate body is involved in any significant policy decisions before the decisions are made. The intention behind the arrangements that we have set in place is to recognise the slightly different functions of the non-professional elected corporate body members and the professional team that is responsible to us. The proper way to tackle things is for the corporate body to get the right mix. We need to be suitably informed and knowledgeable and, at the same time, try not to second guess the people who have the expertise that we do not have.

I am broadly satisfied with both answers, for which I thank Robert Brown and Paul Grice. I was relieved to hear Robert Brown say that there is no question that any claims would be settled for "the sake of a quiet life". Some members have taken a particular interest in aspects of the project and, obviously, the SPCB has had the job of being financially responsible for the project. It will now have—it cannot shed—financial responsibility for dealing with any claims and legal actions that arise from the process. Frankly, I would be astonished if a number of claims are not made.

The point that I want to put to Robert Brown is made without any rancour, implication or innuendo. Is there not an inherent conflict of interest in the SPCB undertaking the role of judging, so to speak, in the completion phase the decisions that it made in the construction phase? In other words, in deciding whether to sue company A, B or C, is the SPCB not making a judgment on the commissioning of work that it commissioned in the first place? I could talk about specific cases at this point, but it would be wrong to do so and I will therefore talk generally. Is there not a risk of at least an inherent conflict of interest? If so, does that not raise the case for the idea—which I simply moot at this stage for the purposes of discussion—of the procedure being supplemented in some way to ensure that the SPCB, for its own sake, is not accused of conflict of interest?

Finally, in making those decisions, the SPCB will of necessity be unable to explain fully the basis for its decisions because, almost certainly, to do so would involve the disclosure of legal advice, which it does not do. To protect the SPCB against charges of bias, influence and so forth, should not consideration be given to the need for an element of independence in addition to the technical advice of its technical advisers? Surely that is needed to take forward the process and, from my point of view, to ensure that certain claims are most certainly pursued?

The corporate body is a statutory creation that was established to manage the affairs of the Parliament on behalf of the Parliament. It is, of course, subject to instructions from the Parliament—should it seek to give such instructions—on the way in which the SPCB manages its affairs. For example, the establishment of the Holyrood progress group was the result of a parliamentary decision. As a result of that decision, a number of issues arose, which I think were managed at the time. I think that the arrangement has worked out well; certainly, it has worked out better than I anticipated at the time. There has been a good spirit between the members of the corporate body and the progress group.

There is no conflict of interest in the sense that Fergus Ewing suggests. The decision-making process is no different to that of any private firm that commissions a project, for example—many decisions are made during the term of a contract. In our case, we did not have detailed involvement in most of the decisions because they were taken at a level below that of the corporate body.

Obviously, the corporate body acts on the advice that comes to us through Paul Grice and his officials. As Paul said, it is a developing process around which sit the audit arrangements of the Auditor General for Scotland and the Audit Committee. I would have thought that there were enough pressures, checks and counter-checks in all those arrangements to enable the process to go forward satisfactorily.

Much of the work will be professional and technical; I suspect that it will not involve SPCB members at all. It is difficult to anticipate where we might have to give a steer on certain decisions, but we will ensure that reporting mechanisms are in place so that major issues are brought to us for a decision. That will be similar to the way in which the Finance Committee has been keeping an eye on financial issues to do with the SPCB.

At the end of the day, it will be for the Parliament to decide what it wants to do. However, I am not sure that any other arrangement would be any more satisfactory. We have lived with the project from day one and we know the strategic decisions that have been made. I do not think that that will cause any particular difficulties as matters progress. However, if Fergus Ewing has any particular concerns—I know that he has taken a detailed interest—and if he wants to talk to us or write to us, we will be happy to consider any points that he raises.

I am anxious to bring this evidence session to a close, but I will take a brief question from Margo MacDonald.

Fergus Ewing's question highlights the fact that the corporate body is insufficiently accountable. As has been asked before, how can a member ask questions about the corporate body? Rather than establish another body to monitor what the corporate body is doing, members who have particular concerns should be able to ask questions. Our procedures are lacking in that respect. It might help everybody if the Procedures Committee were to take up this issue as a case study. Fergus is asking for assurance that correct decisions are being taken. Whom do we ask about that?

The answer to that question lies in the reports that are made to the Finance Committee. If a process is in place to ensure that this committee receives regular reports, it will be open to members of the committee to pursue any issues that arise. Other MSPs can come along to our meetings—as you have done this morning, Margo—to ask precisely the questions that they want to ask. A mechanism is therefore already in place.

I agree that a mechanism is in place, but a belt-and-braces solution might be better. Members sometimes feel frustrated because they know that time could be saved by short-circuiting that mechanism and asking questions directly. However, it is difficult to get answers quickly.

There is a facility for parliamentary questions, although I accept that written replies can be limited. We should also consider the relationship between the Finance Committee and the Audit Committee. We are at a final stage and are looking backwards as well as continuing to move forwards, so we should consider the most effective way in which those two committees can relate to each other.

We are talking about reports every two months, and the corporate body will be charged with managing the matter. If other people want to be elected on to that body, I do not suppose that that would create too much hassle, but I think that we should be left to get on with things.

There is hassle, let me tell you.

I thank the witnesses for coming along today. I particularly thank Sarah Davidson and John Home Robertson, who I suspect are unlikely to come before the committee again if we are moving on to consider financial monitoring. The Finance Committee has performed its scrutiny function, although I know that that is not always comfortable for the people being scrutinised. I thank you for your forbearance.

Thank you, convener. You have done your job and we are trying to do ours. I would like to say that Sarah Davidson has done her job very well indeed. She has been a very good servant to the Parliament.