Audit Committee, 07 Nov 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Official Report 240KB pdf

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“Scottish Executive: supporting new initiatives” and “Leadership development”

Item 5 is for members to consider the Scottish Executive's follow-up response to the committee's first report of 2006, "Supporting New Initiatives and Leadership Development". Members will have before them the letter from Sir John Elvidge, on which I invite comments. I suggest that we need only note the Executive's response. We have a comment from Susan Deacon saying that the department is going to hold a further forum meeting and that it would be good if the committee could be updated after that meeting. That makes sense to me because it would show the committee's continued interest.

We should welcome the acknowledgement of the problems posed by discursive responses and of the requirement for civil service comments that leave

"no doubt as to the Executive's position".

Plain English and the clear expression of facts are essential for good government and that should be the common goal of all committees and the Government departments involved. I certainly welcome the clarification of the gobbledegook that we got before.

That is to the point. As there are no other comments, does the committee agree to note the report?

Members indicated agreement.

We will let the department know that we would like to have an update after the forum meeting. We will include the Official Report of today's meeting so that the department is aware of Andrew Welsh's comments about the absence of gobbledegook, with which we all concur.