Public Audit Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Official Report 560KB pdf

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Scottish Government Progress Report

Agenda item 4 is the Scottish Government progress report, which we get twice a session on issues that we have flagged up to the Government and on which we would like to see some progress. I have some comments on the evaluation of keep well, which arose out of our work around cardiology and health inequalities. In particular, the Information Services Division submission was quite worrying, in the sense that ISD said that it was involved with the keep well project early on but had little success in ensuring that

“complete and consistent data were collected”

and that it then withdrew from the project once it went beyond the pilot, a situation that ISD describes as “disappointing”. Perhaps even more significantly, later in the ISD submission, it draws attention to the difficulty of accessing data from

“GP systems”,

which

“if left unresolved could potentially undermine the integration of health and social care.”

Although this is just in relation to a progress report, ISD seems to have quite serious concerns. I wonder whether we should draw those concerns to the attention of the Health and Sport Committee, which will be dealing with the integration of health and social care.

The fact that we are unable to evaluate keep well is a problem. A lot of money goes into the project and it is more than just disappointing, as they say, that we are not able to evaluate it. The question is, what do we do? What is the measurement? How can we measure keep well? There seems to be a feel-good factor—yes, we think that it is doing something good. If the project is axed simply because there is no measurement, that could have a negative impact on the people who are benefiting from it. It is a no-win situation, and I am straying a little bit, but how can a public project be justified if it cannot be evaluated?

That is a constant theme of Colin Beattie’s and, to be fair, of the committee, as the Auditor General for Scotland highlighted in her letter to the committee on the progress report.

Take the second paragraph of that letter:

“many of my and my predecessor’s reports to the Public Audit Committee have highlighted gaps in the availability and quality of data.”

To be honest, every report that comes in front of the committee is about the gaps in, the availability of and the quality of data.

I seek guidance as to who in the Government the committee can call in to demand that, after 14 years of the Parliament, we get proper facts, figures, data and comparative data. We have been asking for that for 14 years and every report that we get in 2013 still says that there is not enough data and that the quality of data is not good. We are a small country of 5 million people. Is there not somebody in the Government or the civil service who can crack the whip and bring some accuracy?

We have just agreed to invite the permanent secretary to come to the committee. That might be an opportunity to discuss the matter, as it seems to be a problem that cuts across all departments and portfolios.

Could we question the permanent secretary on the report?

With the committee’s agreement and as long as we indicate to him that that is our intention, that would be a reasonable thing to do.

That would be helpful.

It is not all doom and gloom. There is a positive message on page 3 of the report, where Derek Feeley says that evaluation of the keep well programme is under way and we will find out in the summer of 2014 what its impact has been.

The convener commented on ISD’s concerns. We would want to alert our colleagues on the Health and Sport Committee to those concerns. Members will notice Ian Crichton’s comment in the second-last paragraph on page 5 of the paper about the fact that ISD will have a major role to play in assisting us with monitoring the integration of health and social care. It is a good time to alert our colleagues in the Health and Sport Committee to our concerns about the consistency and quality of data gathering and how we can improve the contribution that ISD makes for us.

We are agreeing two actions. The first is to write to the Health and Sport Committee to draw its attention to ISD’s concerns, particularly with regard to the impact that poor data gathering or difficulties with data gathering might have on health and social care integration. The second is that, when we invite Sir Peter Housden, we indicate to him that we would like to talk about the quality of data gathering across the Scottish Government as well as the infrastructure projects. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.