“Improving public sector efficiency”
Yes. The Finance Committee is holding an inquiry into the efficient delivery of public services, and it would be useful for it to consider that matter. Does Audit Scotland have any comments to make on that? Willie Coffey has raised an important point.
The convener asked whether we should hold the report open. I think that we should, because that issue runs through the report. There are a number of paragraphs on how staff are recruited and how their costs are covered. Holding the report open until we receive a further response would be worth while.
I understand that the current inquiry is part of a budget strategy phase, with the outcome possibly before the summer recess.
That concludes the public part of the meeting. Agenda item 4 is consideration of the committee’s approach to evidence taking on the Auditor General for Scotland’s report entitled “Review of orthopaedic services”, and item 5 is consideration of a draft report on the Auditor General’s report entitled “Overview of mental health services”. We have agreed to take those items and item 6 in private.
The appointment of consultants on the basis of previous good performance is good practice that we would wish to encourage and see developed throughout the public sector. My recollection is that that approach was not taken in relation to consultancy services in particular: we did not really look at past performance and make judgments on that basis. We have now noted that, but I am not entirely clear that there is a commitment to go down that route in future.
We completely agree with Willie Coffey’s point. We did not suggest that two or more people should do the validating; rather, we suggested that there should be a clear audit trail underlying the statement of assurance that the efficiencies had been made. The audit trail should show that that information is in place and that the reported results are robust. We are not confident that such a process is consistently in place yet.
We could refer what we have to the Finance Committee and tell it that we are waiting for further information. That would at least enable it to consider what we have at the moment if it wishes to do so. Do members agree?
Item 3 is consideration of a response from the accountable officer. It is fairly woolly, but it is nevertheless a response. Do members have comments? I am interested in a couple of points, although they should not delay our taking a decision now. The answer to question 5 gives the cost of using temporary staff for a fairly minor post, whereas the concerns that have been articulated in the past year or two have been about more senior posts. I am interested to know the equivalent costs for more senior posts and how often those posts are filled in that way. We will write back to ask for that information.
The response contains an interesting revelation about the mechanism for appointing temporary staff—the accountable officer says that that must be done through competition. That is in stark contrast to the evidence that we have heard in several inquiries about the appointment of permanent staff, which we have been led to believe involves little competition—in fact, people are hand-picked from the ranks of the senior civil service and slotted into positions without open competition and without the ranking of candidates against price and quality criteria. It might be useful to ask why the arrangements for filling temporary positions, which one assumes are less important, are more rigorous than those for filling permanent positions, which is all done by a nod and a wink.
Yes. Members have a letter before them that confirms that very point. It mentions an appointment being made in the new organisational structure for transport issues in Scotland rather than the job being put out to competition. Murdo Fraser has made a useful point. Should we hold the report open until we get information about that, or should we note the report and wait and see what other information comes back to us?
Okay. Do we know what the timescale is for the Finance Committee’s inquiry?