Audit Committee, 20 Mar 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, March 20, 2001

Official Report 172KB pdf

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Committee Business

Good afternoon. It is nice to be back. I say that without my tongue in my cheek.

We have apologies from Andrew Welsh. Margo MacDonald has indicated that she will join us later.

Item 1 is that we agree to take items 4 to 7 in private. Are we agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

Can I raise a couple of points of order? The first concerns the timing of our meetings. Perhaps we should discuss the matter; obviously, other members are entitled to their views. I would find it a great deal easier if we could meet at 2.30 pm rather than 2 o'clock. Today, I had to put off a constituency engagement that I would have liked to undertake. I concede that parliamentary engagements come first, but I would find the extra, slight leeway helpful.

My second point is to thank the clerks for getting the papers to me last Thursday because I had realised that today's agenda would be considerable. In the past, and in other committees of which I have been a member, the papers have tended to arrive at the weekend and members have not actually got them until Monday. Could we consider, if the agenda is particularly heavy, having the papers sent out in two lots—I know that the convener has to approve the agenda—so that we can get them well in advance and have a chance to read them?

The papers were sent out in two lots this time. All papers for the committees on which I serve are received on a Saturday morning. That is why the clerks usually ask where we want the papers sent to.

Actually, I received them all at once, as I specifically requested, on Thursday. I do not want to make a big issue of this, but I would find it helpful to receive the papers on a Thursday, because we do not always have access to papers or laptops on Saturdays. I am just trying to be constructive. It would be particularly helpful if papers were sent out in two lots when there are a lot of them.

I do not want to prolong the issue unnecessarily, nor do I want to be awkward. I appreciate what Keith Raffan said about starting at 2.30 rather than 2 o'clock, but I urge us to stick to 2 o'clock, because occasionally our meetings have finished quite late. Once, we finished at nearly 5 o'clock. Some of us have constituency engagements on Tuesday nights, and I would rather have the half hour eat into my lunch time than my evening time.

What is your feeling about timing, Margaret?

Since the committee started, we have met at 2 o'clock and I have accommodated that in my diary. I am disciplined in that regard, and I do not think that we should change it.

May I take the question about the timing of meetings under advisement and speak to the convener about it? The issue was discussed at a previous meeting. It suits some of us to start at 2 o'clock, as Scott Barrie said. I have a 5 o'clock meeting every Tuesday, and it is difficult for me to get out of it. I will speak to the convener, and if he agrees we will put the item on the agenda for the next meeting and make a decision. It could be that, in search of the middle way, we compromise by 15 minutes.

My experience as a member of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee is that we are extremely lucky in the Audit Committee, with regard to the number of papers we get. This is the heaviest period that I have seen in two years of being on the Audit Committee. Some of the papers were sent to us on 2 and 7 February, but when you get two Auditor General reports in one envelope, it is somewhat daunting. It is daunting to get one, so two are doubly daunting. I will speak to the convener about when the papers are sent out.

I am slightly concerned about papers arriving in dribs and drabs, because I am not the most organised person—although my secretary is—and I have had papers go missing in the past. The difficulty is that because of where I live, the post does not arrive until Saturday, and if the postman misses Saturday, I do not get the mail until Monday, which can be a bit of a struggle. Does the clerk have anything to say?

I do not have a microphone; I cannot speak.

That can easily be remedied.

I think that our having so many papers was a one-off, but the sending out of papers is an issue with which all committees must face difficulties. I will speak to Andrew Welsh; I do not like to take convener's decisions when he is not here, on matters that he should be involved in

I ask members to shout when they wish to speak, because, as a result of health problems, I have gone slightly deaf.