Audit Committee, 18 Mar 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 18, 2003

Official Report 134KB pdf

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“How government works in Scotland”

Agenda item 5 is on the Executive's response to the committee's report on "How government works in Scotland", which was published on 30 January. I seek members' comments on the response. The Executive claims that the diversity of NDPBs makes generic protocols and guidance "very difficult" and therefore not possible. I ask Mr Black how far that view can be justified. Will the other measures that are being applied, such as guidance and memoranda, be sufficient?

There is substance in the Executive's point. I hope that the "How government works in Scotland" report highlighted the complexity and variation of arrangements for service delivery that exist throughout the public sector in Scotland. We must acknowledge that the ways in which performance is reported and bodies are held to account vary in the public sector because of the enormous variation in the type of body involved.

I will follow on from that point. I do not want to go too much into the position of Scottish Enterprise, which is topical, but that situation makes clear the need for financial and democratic accountability. People must at least know what is going on. I do not make a judgment on the issue, but it is important that there are clear lines of financial accountability for NDPBs that have significant budgets. To my mind, the process must be tightened up.

I am delighted to see in paragraph 9 of the response an acceptance of our point that there must be full training for board members. In the work of the committee and the Auditor General, we have come across situations in which board members are simply dragged along to vote and do not know what is going on. We must ensure that executive and non-executive board members in public bodies that spend money from the public purse are mutually responsible. The Executive is to be congratulated on that point, but in a future report I would like more clarity on how it intends to deliver such training. The Executive should not simply say that the training should happen and then leave the matter to the bodies concerned. The committee's work has uncovered an important subject.

I should also have said that the response on cross-cutting issues, which uses drug and alcohol action teams as an example, is rather disappointing—I find it superficial, shallow and general. The issue is not only about making progress, but about making progress that members of the Parliament, the media and the public can see clearly. For the past four years, I have been the convener of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on drug misuse, which is still trying to find out how money is spent on treatment, prevention and rehabilitation because it is difficult to track the money through the system. The system must be transparent; it is no use resorting to Executive jargon, which is what is contained in the four lines in the response. We want to know what is happening and that response is unsatisfactory.

Those comments will be noted. Like many other items, this one is on-going and will be passed to our successor committee through the Official Report of meetings and our legacy paper.

I am a member of the Finance Committee, which has also been considering cross-cutting and budgeting issues. Its successor committee will roll forward that programme again. Perhaps we can suggest that the successor Audit Committee work closely with the next Finance Committee in that area.

I am sure that the successor Audit Committee will do so—I certainly hope that it will. Our continuing business items show that the Audit Committee has been, up to its last minute, an active and effective committee. We hope that that will continue to be the case with the successor Audit Committee in the next session of Parliament.

This is the last meeting of the Audit Committee this session, so before we go into private session I put on the record my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the committee's work during the past four years. We have covered a massive amount of ground and achieved positive results in many important activities that affect the people of Scotland. The Audit Committee can be proud of the foundation stones that it has laid. For example, the introduction of priority-based dispatch for ambulance services in Scotland followed our recommendation that the case for such a system be evaluated. A new requirement for accountable officers to ensure that risks are explicitly identified and assessed and that systems are put in place to manage them followed an Audit Committee recommendation that arose from its consideration of the AGS report on the new Scottish Parliament building.

The introduction of a new protocol for escalating intervention by Executive staff when a national health service board starts to experience financial difficulties followed our recommendation that Executive monitoring systems be strengthened, which arose from our inquiry into the report on financial problems in the NHS in Tayside. We also produced a fundamental and wide-ranging review of governance and accountability in the further education sector, which was carried out in response to the committee's inquiry into the Moray College situation. We have produced strong and substantial reports, which were founded on the detailed work that Audit Scotland and the Auditor General did on the public's behalf.

Hear, hear.

Absolutely.

I thank Audit Scotland and the Auditor General and I highlight the contribution that the committee's positive working relationship with Audit Scotland has made. It has been to everyone's benefit that we worked together for the common cause of getting best value for the public, bringing to light difficulties and ensuring that best value and best practice were spread as widely as possible.

I thank all the Parliament staff, including information technology, official report and security staff, but I thank especially our clerks, without whom the Audit Committee's work would not have been so successful. The clerks were at the heart of everything that we achieved during the past four years.

I also thank the witnesses, because we can only try to seek out the truth on the public's behalf; we need people to come as witnesses to the committee to allow us to obtain the evidence on which to make strong, solid recommendations.

I thank past and present committee colleagues for their contributions. In fact, only two of the original committee members remain: Margaret Jamieson and I. Finally, I express my best wishes to the successor committee. I hope that its members will feel that we have laid strong and successful foundations on which they can build.

For me, personally, it has been a pleasure to be a member of the Audit Committee and I have thoroughly enjoyed the past four years. I believe that the audit process has got off to a good, strong start. We wish the next Audit Committee all success in its work on behalf of us all.

I have been the deputy convener for only a short time—just over a year—but, on behalf of the committee, I congratulate Andrew Welsh on the way in which he has steered the committee for the past four years.

Hear, hear.

I thank you for that.

We now move into private session.

Meeting continued in private until 15:23.