Item 4 is a brief explanation of and discussion on Audit Scotland's study programme for 2005-06. I understand that Caroline Gardner will brief the committee.
The 2005-06 study programme presents the committee with its first opportunity to consider our forward work programme as a whole. Members may recall that, back in the summer, we consulted the committee on the items that we were considering for inclusion in the programme. After a wide-ranging consultation exercise with all our stakeholders, the Auditor General and the Accounts Commission have approved the joint programme, which will take Audit Scotland through to about the end of 2006.
Which area or department will be covered in the pilot integrated overview report of the Scottish Executive, which is due to start in spring 2005 and finish in winter 2005? Has an area been selected for that first piece of work?
The intention is that all the integrated overview reports will move beyond the department to look at the integrated policy approach. We are still considering options, but transport is a front-runner. Transport seems to be important enough for us to be able to say something useful on it and it also seems to be on a scale that a pilot could get to grips with.
A number of the studies that are mentioned in the paper will be very interesting and useful. As I recall, the earlier paper on Audit Scotland's planned future work programme placed great emphasis on considering ways in which service users might be involved in order to find out more about their experiences. Can we get an update on where you have got to on that?
We want that theme to run through each of the elements that make up the study programme, rather than its being a study in its own right. When the committee was discussing the prisons report, you might have noticed that prisoners were included in the focus groups. The work on colorectal cancer that will come through soon places a good deal of weight on focus groups and interviews with patients with colorectal cancer about their experiences of using services. We want a direct view of how it feels to be on the receiving end of a service as well as of the responsible body's view of how it is aiming to achieve service-user and public engagement with service delivery and development.
I am pleased to see that the "How government works in Scotland" study is to be updated. I realise that the list is not exclusive, but you highlight financial management and performance management. Will you also consider human resource management and some of the people and culture issues that are involved?
That strand of work is to allow us to take a horizontal look across some of the issues that affect all public bodies. We have plans to examine leadership development, which is a key aspect of what Susan Deacon described. The future elements of that programme will keep developing and reflecting the issues that seem to be most important, as well as reflecting what we learn from the more detailed drill-down studies and overview reports.
I have a final question. You have a study on the efficiency and effectiveness of initiative funding. I am slightly concerned that the use of the term "initiative funding" might suggest something different from your descriptor of the project, which strikes me as being much more about getting behind how innovation is fostered and supported. The phrase "initiative funding" has become jargon and is almost a loaded phrase. I suppose I am just making an observation about the name.
We are still consulting on the report and what it might cover. You are right that the title is causing some confusion; people have very different interpretations of what it might mean. As with any of our studies, getting the starting point right is the key to success, so watch this space. That is as much as I can say just now.
I have a general question. One of the themes that recur during all Audit Committee investigations into various reports is the inability to drill down into Scottish Executive money that is allocated to policy areas that are delivered by local government. We have consistently been unable to get good-quality information that would help us to take a view on whether the outcomes are being delivered at the grass roots. Has there been any consideration of how we might address that or does that take us into policy, in which case Audit Scotland does not take a view? The subject has come up during every study that we have been involved in recently. We have been unable to get good-quality information to evaluate whether money is spent well and directed at the relevant areas.
I will attempt to answer that first, but Bob Black might want to add to it.
Caroline Gardner has covered the point perfectly adequately. It is important to bear in mind the provisions whereby the Accounts Commission, through best-value reporting, reports to Scottish ministers. Through that process—for example, during preparation of the local government overview report—it would be perfectly appropriate for the committee to take evidence from the appropriate accountable officer, probably from the Finance and Central Services Department, on the performance of local authorities in the aggregate. That includes how well the money is used and how satisfied the Executive is that funds are being used to deliver value for money in the intended areas. There is a subtle but important distinction between the holding to account of individual democratically elected local authorities for the use of resources, and the holding to account of the rest of the Executive.
That is a mechanism that we have not used, at least in my time on the committee.
I beg your pardon?
I do not think that we have used that mechanism.
Of course, the best-value legislation is a relatively new development.
So that gives us an opportunity.
There is a new opportunity and an expectation that the overview reporting that is produced by Audit Scotland in the name of the Accounts Commission will, increasingly, consider performance issues as well as financial management issues.
To pick up on Susan Deacon's point about the efficiency and effectiveness of initiative funding, how will Executive departments work with one other to deliver initiatives on the ground? We all have experiences of initiatives to which all the partners are signed up, but when they come to Edinburgh they all have to go in through different doors and if one individual gets a no, the whole thing comes down like a house of cards. Is that the type of thing that you will examine, rather than a specific area?
I need to say, as a caveat, that we are still consulting on the scope of what we might do, but we are interested in what the Executive aims to achieve by funding services in such a way, how easy or otherwise it is for the organisations on the receiving end to make applications, how clearly the Executive monitors the achievement of its objectives, and the proportionality of the process of applying for funding and reporting back what has been done, relative to the amounts of money that are involved.
Will the delivery aspects feed in to the work that you do on the community planning process?
Absolutely.
I do not have a question. I just want to say thank you to Audit Scotland, which covers a massive range of topics and subject areas. In a few short years, you have certainly saved Scottish taxpayers a large amount of money—I do not know whether you measure that—and you have shed light on Scottish public services, which was simply not possible under the Westminster Government. You have also encouraged efficiency of resource management and service delivery so, on behalf of us all, I wish you success in your work.
Hear, hear.
Enjoy that.
I have a brief final comment to make, but I think I should wait until the blushes have died down a little.
That is certainly a fair reflection of our intention, but it is important to say that it is not always possible to focus on outcomes as much as we would like. The prison service report is not a bad example of that, because the information is not available as a starting point. That is increasingly where we place our attention, but the dilemma that we face is that if that information is not available, we end up with a pretty dull report, which says that people need better information to evaluate the impact of what they do. We sometimes step back down the chain and say, "This is the best report that we have been able to produce in terms of inputs, process and outputs." Outcomes are often more difficult; we are making a gradual push in that direction, but we cannot solve the problem quickly.
To return to the point that George Lyon made earlier, it is also fair to say that we intend increasingly to take the service-user perspective into account in our studies wherever possible. It is an important discipline for us to keep in mind the key question whether an activity makes a difference for citizens and users of services. We use focus groups and study groups occasionally, when we can.
It falls to me to thank Caroline Gardner and Audit Scotland for presenting its forward work programme. It is fair to say that the programme meets with the general approval and support of the committee, given the way in which the work is developing, and I ask the committee to note the report.
Meeting suspended until 11:31 and thereafter continued in private until 12:23.
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