“Overview of the NHS in Scotland’s performance 2008/09”
Item 2 is consideration of the section 23 report, “Overview of the NHS in Scotland’s performance 2008/09”. We have received correspondence from the accountable officer, which has been circulated to members.
Are there any other comments on Dr Woods’s response?
Dr Woods says that the figures
Those are two reasonable points, which we can follow up with Dr Woods.
Anne McLaughlin has made an important point. How many times have we been told in letters or in oral evidence, by people who are supposed to be running the national health service with some kind of strategic overview, “We do not hold that information centrally”? If they do not hold information centrally, how can they have a strategic overview? How can they make decisions about the health service? How can they allocate resources? I find it astonishing that with such a huge bureaucracy, which Murdo Fraser and his comrades will no doubt be having a look at—
Comrades?
How can the people in the huge bureaucracy down at Victoria Quay, or wherever it is now, who sit around purporting to direct the health service, have any oversight of it without such statistics? Anne McLaughlin’s point is a good one, which we should pursue.
I will need to ask my comrades in the Liberal Democrats how they intend to deal with the matter.
We will wait for the further information that we have agreed to request.
The question whether data are held centrally or locally has been a recurring issue in this committee and others for a long time, stretching back to the beginning of the Parliament. Members seem to be giving the message that sometimes we would like to know about the data in a national Scottish context. There is merit in asking for that from time to time. We will not get that context for every detail that we ask for in this committee and others, but we would like some indicators. For example, when we discussed antidepressant prescribing in a previous meeting, we were interested in the Scottish picture, but it was not readily available. It would be useful in some cases, but I am not certain which committee would be the one to point the way towards gathering those kinds of statistics for the other committees. It is something to think about.
We previously agreed that we would invite the accountable officer to the committee to speak about that. It would be useful to pursue the matter with him, because a number of members have raised similar concerns. If members agree, we can invite Dr Woods to the committee.
On the whole report?
Yes, and that issue would be a significant part of it.
I know that this would not have been included in the Auditor General’s report, but the letter from Dr Woods to the committee states:
We can write to Dr Woods ahead of his evidence session to flag that issue up to him. He can respond in writing ahead of coming to the committee or address the point when he attends the meeting.
I just want to point out that although we do not have centrally held figures for the number of young people who are admitted to A and E because of alcohol, we have such figures for young people who are admitted to hospital overnight.
Okay. We will pursue the correspondence as we have agreed, and invite Dr Woods to the committee to give evidence.
“Commonwealth Games 2014: Progress report on planning for the delivery of the XXth Games”
Item 3 is consideration of the section 23 report, “Commonwealth Games 2014: Progress report on planning for the delivery of the XXth Games”. Correspondence from the accountable officer has been circulated to members, and we will deal with it section by section. The first section is headed “Pension Arrangements”. Do members have any comments on it?
It is reassuring to know that the company has a maximum amount that it will spend. We are told that
I am intrigued. I am led to believe that the chief executive is a member of the Strathclyde Pension Fund, in which I declare an interest as a beneficiary through my previous employment. I do not understand why he is a member of that local authority fund rather than the pension arrangement that is outlined here. I would be interested to know the reasons for that and its implications. It appears that the company is making some provision and accounting for it. Does anyone from Audit Scotland want to comment on that, or are you reasonably happy with it?
We are reasonably happy with the response. We have not looked at the pension fund in detail.
Okay. There is nothing else to say on that. “Road Map” is the next heading, which refers to page 17 of the business plan, which has been circulated. Do members have any thoughts or comments to make on that? I think that it is just a matter of record more than anything for the committee to comment on.
Yes.
The third heading is “Athletes’ Village”. My recollection is that, at the time, there were issues to do with the development of the village that the company could not comment on because the tendering process was at a significant stage. I do not know whether there are any issues arising from the conclusion of that process. Has anyone from Audit Scotland looked at what has come out of the tendering process?
We have not looked at anything else since we published the report. We will look at the Commonwealth games again in a second report next year.
Okay. Willie—sorry, Bill Kidd.
I thought I was back at school—that is what everybody called me.
We could clarify that.
I do not know whether the planned costs of the games included the cost of that further development taking place.
It would be worth clarifying that. I am puzzling over whether we would clarify it with the organising committee or with Glasgow City Council. We will leave Jane Williams to determine who to ask whether the overall costings of the project are dependent on the final property development phase going ahead.
In her subsequent letter, which is dated 6 May, Liz Hunter wrote:
Can Audit Scotland throw any light on that?
We understand that the original bid to the Commonwealth Games Federation had to be in 2007 prices, to ensure that it was comparable against the bids of all the countries that were bidding. Updates on those costs against the budget at 2007 prices need to be maintained, as does updating for inflation—so there need to be two different comparable budgets.
Okay, as long as we have a budget that is in cash terms, which is the one that people like us—I do not mean you lot in Audit Scotland—understand, because it is a bit more realistic.
How can people make comparisons if the bid is at 2007 prices but the reality is that the cost will be in cash prices? If inflation is running at different levels in the countries that are bidding, how can comparisons be made?
I understand that if inflation in each country is stripped out and the 2007 prices are kept, there is more comparability. In some economies inflation might be running at 25 per cent, whereas in others it might be running at 2 per cent, so people would not be comparing like with like.
So people are comparing what is actually delivered and pricing it accordingly.
There is a benchmark, so that the final costings can be compared with a clear statement of the initial cost on those prices.
I am looking at the tables on pages 21 and 22 of Glasgow 2014’s “Annual Business Plan 2010/11”. Table 1 shows the 2007 benchmark prices and table 2 shows the budget at projected outturn prices with the inflationary element across the board. We would be interested if any budget lines stood out, beyond the inflationary amount, which would suggest cost overruns and so on. There do not appear to be such issues, but that remains to be seen.
I will attempt to answer that and Tricia Meldrum can correct me if I am wrong. There are two contingencies. There is a contingency fund of £60 million—in 2007 prices—in table 1 on page 21, and there is a special contingency of £20 million that is to be used only in exceptional circumstances. No spend is forecast against the £20 million because it is to be used only as a last resort.
Thank you.
Does anyone from Audit Scotland have any comment to make on the response on inflation?
I do not think so, convener.
Okay. Are there any comments on the sections headed “OC-Generated Income” and “Ticketing”?
Can somebody remind me why we asked the organising committee about projected ticket sales? Is it because we were concerned that it was overestimating the number of tickets that will be sold? We asked a number of questions about that. The response tells us what the projections are based on, but it does not reassure me, because it admits that Glasgow is smaller than Manchester. We did ask the organising committee to compare Glasgow with Manchester. If our motivation for asking the question was the concern that I mentioned—I think that it was—I am not sure that the question has been answered.
As I remember it, the committee was sceptical about whether the ticket sales projections were realistic given the population and catchment area of Glasgow and the likely spend. I am not sure that the answer that we have received fully reassures us.
We should also bear in mind the point that it is not just the actual population of the defined area of the venue that is important but the socioeconomic profile and the willingness and ability of people in the area to spend money on events such as the games. My understanding is that the area on the periphery of Manchester probably contains more people with significantly more disposable income. That must impact on the potential ticket sales.
The organising committee states that in its response. It acknowledges that there is a “lower average income” in Glasgow and a lower population, but it does not state how it came to the conclusions that it reached. It mentions non-revenue seats, seat kills and so on, but those would be the same anywhere. I just cannot see anything in the response that makes me think, “Yes—that’s how they came to that conclusion.” Obviously, if there is going to be a problem and the organising committee is going to have to attract more ticket sales, the earlier it gets on to that, the better.
We can certainly try to clarify that. Are there any comments on the remainder of the letter?
An alarm should sound on the broadcasting issue. It is not clear whether we are getting a deal with the BBC to broadcast the games. We already have a deal in place with Australia. That is great—it is to be welcomed—but I do not understand what the problem or issue is with the BBC. Did we get any clarification of what the difficulties are and when we might get a resolution? Does anybody know?
Our understanding is that hopefully something would be agreed by next year. That is fairly in line with typical timescales for agreeing these deals. The BBC has only recently agreed the deal to screen the Delhi games, which are happening this year, so things can happen a wee bit later. The Australian deal was concluded quite early in the process. It is still obviously a concern.
It is concerning that the letter states:
It says in the organising committee’s business plan:
We should also ask about the differing approach to covering Manchester compared with Glasgow. I do not know what the differing approach is or whether it is to do with scale. I would like to understand a wee bit more about the broadcasting issue and whether there is a plan for free-to-air broadcasting or internet media broadcasting. How the games are broadcast to the public around the world is bound to be of interest.
The business plan has been presented to us. The letter of 6 May comments on the spend profile, including inflation. Are there any comments on that?
I have a general comment on the games partnership structure, which is shown on page 7 of the business plan. Accountability, which is illustrated on that page, seems to go round in circles. Does the organising committee report to any parliamentary committee other than the Public Audit Committee?
It does not report to us. The only reason why we are looking at the business plan is that Audit Scotland has produced a report.
Which committee deals with sport in the Parliament? Is it lifelong learning or the jumping up and down committee, or whatever it is called?
It could be a couple of committees. The Health and Sport Committee would have an interest from the sports perspective and the Local Government and Communities Committee would probably have some degree of interest because of the involvement of Glasgow City Council.
I am talking about a committee not just having an interest in it but regular oversight of it. We have four more years until the games. Things could go drastically wrong in the planning. All the people listed on page 7 of the business plan are Government or council people. There is no regular parliamentary scrutiny, is there?
We will have the opportunity to look at this again next year once the Auditor General produces his next report. He will be reviewing progress.
So, this committee will review regularly the proposed expenditure right up until 2014.
Depending on what the Auditor General and Audit Scotland do, the committee might have the opportunity to do that, but we do not have the right to commission work on any issue at our own hand.
You know my view on that. It is astonishing that a committee of the Parliament does not have the right to do that. I do not know why the hell we are here as an elected Parliament unless we have some degree of responsibility. I mean no disrespect to the Auditor General; he is very good, and produces a lot of reports. However, we ought at some point to be able to examine our remit so that we can commission reports from the Auditor General, or else there is no reason for us to be sitting here.
That is part of a bigger debate, on which a number of members have commented. As far as this is concerned, we are constrained by whatever the Auditor General and Audit Scotland decide to do. There will be a further report for us to comment on.
I have a second, and even more general, question on the issue. In the past when I have asked about some issues, the Auditor General has said that he cannot report until after the expenditure has been incurred. In this case, very creditably, we are considering the expenditure at an early stage, before the vast majority of it has been incurred. Is that a change in policy? Can we do the same in other cases? If there is a major infrastructure project, for example, can we examine it at an early stage rather than waiting until the money is committed?
I invite the Auditor General to comment.
Those things are a matter of judgment. Generally speaking, audit is a retrospective process, as the committee is aware. I would report to the committee only on expenditure that has already been incurred and audited, so that we have reliable financial numbers.
Nevertheless, while accepting that constraint and qualification, we should welcome and encourage the initiative that the Auditor General has taken. Rather than crying over spilled milk and saying that it is terrible after the event, when hundreds of millions of pounds could have been saved, it is much better to get in at an early stage and say, “Unless you change this, you will spend—and waste—a huge amount unnecessarily.” It is good that the Auditor General is doing that.
Okay. I see that members have no further comments on the letter of 6 May.