Finance Committee, 23 Apr 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Official Report 228KB pdf

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Contingent Liability (Amendment)

I hope that we will deal quickly with agenda item 2. Members have a paper from the clerk on the matter and the amendment to the contingent liability is attached. As the paper explains, the amendment is to the number and type of clinical trials that are carried out by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. It is expected that the liability that the committee approved last year will be unaffected by the revised programme. The amendment is copied to us in line with the committee's request when it approved the liability.

We should thank the Executive for bringing the matter to our attention. The paper from the clerk suggests that we simply note the amendment and take no further action. Do members have any comments?

Having been through the previous rounds on the matter, I think that the questions that the committee asked at that time have resulted in the liability coming back to the committee to give us an opportunity to comment. I have some knowledge of the matter. If we are assured that the liability has not altered, I suspect that that is because there has not been enough time for anybody to suffer problems and to have an indemnity claim. I suspect that we are back in the same situation as we were in when the paper was before us previously.

We should note the position.

Members indicated agreement.