Work Programme
Item 3 differs from the agenda item that referred to the Auditor General's longer-term draft programme for reports for 2001-02, which will be considered after the summer recess. I invite the Auditor General to brief the committee on his provisional programme for reports for the period between September and December.
The short paper that members have before them is our best stab at what reports will be produced by Audit Scotland in my name between September and December. The purpose of the paper is to give the committee a basis on which it can think about its forward programme of activity through to the end of the year. I will quickly run through the paper.
Over the summer, I will publish two reports relating to further education in Scotland. One is a report on Moray College, in Elgin, which will be published at the end of this month. The report concerns the problems that have occurred with financial management and governance over a number of years. Perhaps the most significant thing for the committee is that the report will raise issues that concern the accountability of the FE sector as a whole in Scotland.
The report about Moray College will sit closely alongside my first overview report on further education as a whole. I will draw information from the local audits. I also hope to have that report published and laid in good time so that it is available to the committee after the recess. I have suggested in my note that the committee might consider the reports together. However, that will be for the committee's judgment once it has seen the content of the reports.
Apart from local government, the national health service is—as the committee knows—by far and away the biggest single block of expenditure that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. There will be a steady flow of reports relating to the health service. Four reports are lined up to be produced before the end of the year. Two will be baseline reports, which is a device to keep the committee in touch with the early stages of our work. The first, on the outpatient service, will be published in the autumn. A bulletin will highlight that there are some real problems with the management information that is available on outpatients.
Alongside the report that will be produced for the committee, a handbook will be made available to managers in the health service. We will expect health service managers to use that handbook to improve their performance over the next couple of years. We will audit that performance as they take the agenda forward. We will report back to the committee at the end of that process, when the committee will be in a position to consider whether it wishes to take further evidence.
A baseline report on NHS supplies, which will be published in September, will mark the start of a major piece of work. The report will look at the issues that surround the procurement and management of supplies in the health service. There is still enormous variation in the procurement practices of different parts of the health service in Scotland. The study could be one of our most significant pieces of work, because we have already identified significant scope for improved procurement in the Scottish health service. That study will run for 18 months or so and we will report back to the committee within two years.
Just before the Accounts Commission for Scotland surrendered its statutory responsibility for the health service, it produced a fairly major piece of work on general practitioner prescribing in Scotland. I had hoped to examine performance in that area and report back in the autumn of this year. Unfortunately, the data that we need to do the study, which were to have been provided by the Common Services Agency, will not be available for some little time yet. However, we will produce an interim report in the autumn, which will consider issues such as the use of information technology for repeat prescribing, models of support, training, medicines management and how unified funding streams are being progressed in the health service. We had hoped to produce the work on performance indicators next year, but that is unlikely to happen before May 2002.
Finally, we will produce the second overview of the health service. That will be based essentially on the local audit reports for the financial year 2000-01. It will be in a similar format to that of the first overview and will identify major issues arising from individual local audits as well as some of the key trends and issues relating to financial management and performance in the health service. I expect that it will contain issues that the committee will want to examine more fully.
The third category of work concerns what I call the bus-stop issues: I stand at the side of the road and an issue comes along. As in Edinburgh, sometimes three or four come along at once and then there is a fallow period. The most significant of those issues is the Holyrood project, about which I need say no more. The next most significant piece of work in that area relates to the letting of the new trunk roads contracts. The examination of that is at a very advanced stage—it is pretty much at the point at which I could report on it to the Parliament. However, as members will know, the Transport and the Environment Committee has postponed its study because of a court action that has been raised by one of the unsuccessful consortia. I am taking stock of the legal implications of that court action and deciding whether it is possible for me to publish my report. Even given a fair wind, it is unlikely that that report will be out before the autumn, although the study is largely completed.
As you mentioned in your opening remarks, convener, I hope to have a strategy for Audit Scotland when we return after the recess. That strategy is likely to be in three separate parts. I shall produce for the committee a strategy statement, under my name, on the way in which the role of public audit is developing and what its priorities might be in the future. That will be linked to a second document, a corporate plan for Audit Scotland, which will be much closer to a business plan for its activity. That document will look two to three years ahead.
You will also receive the longer-term work programme on which we will consult over the summer. That will be the longest of the studies and will cover the whole range of activities in the devolved expenditure of the Scottish Parliament. We have identified a long list of areas for study. Over the summer, we will consult various stakeholders and return to you with some proposals and the results of the consultation. There will be an opportunity at that stage for the committee to influence the content of the work programme in whatever way it thinks is appropriate. With the agreement of members, I would like to write to you individually over the summer with the informal consultation documents. So, when you want a change from reading your novel on the beach, you will be able to read the Audit Scotland forward work programme and come back in September refreshed and enthused, as we will be.
That is extremely tempting. Both Audit Scotland and the committee will be busy after the summer recess. I thank the Auditor General for that trailer of forthcoming attractions, including bus-stop issues. We will have two education reports, four NHS reports—including two baseline reports, one of which is delayed and the other of which is a major overview—as well as a roads report, which has been postponed following court action. I thank you for outlining that programme.
Do any members want to comment?
I have two points to make, the first of which is on the further education overview. In recent weeks, I have visited two of the further education colleges in my region. One of the main issues that was raised was funding and the colleges' relationship with the Scottish Further Education Funding Council. The colleges are concerned that much of the 12.5 per cent rise has been ring-fenced by the council for specific projects and that only about half of it is being fed through directly to the colleges—in dribs and drabs, so that they have not been able to plan ahead. Is that the kind of issue that the overview report will address?
Absolutely. The financial performance and situation of FE colleges will be a major topic in the overview report.
My second point concerns the consultation over the summer on the longer-term work programme. We will have the opportunity to influence that work programme; will we also have the opportunity to suggest ideas? I have said in the past—and I would like to put it on record—that I am especially concerned about drug misuse, an issue that is now receiving a large amount of Executive expenditure. I am convener of the cross-party group on that issue. It is a cross-cutting issue and expenditure falls to four departments. I am concerned about the effectiveness of that expenditure.
I would like to ask the Auditor General about GP prescribing and its effect on the overview of the NHS. We were advised by the Common Services Agency that it would eventually catch up, but I understand that it is still some seven months adrift. There is a difficulty in signing off this year's accounts of the NHS trusts—in primary care in particular. I appreciate what Mr Black has said about a delay, but the report on GP prescribing came out 18 months ago and it indicated significant savings that should be achieved. Would it be possible to indicate to the CSA that it appears to have told us one thing but to be doing another? It assured us that it would be on target.
I will invite Arwel Roberts to answer that, as he has recently been at a meeting with CSA management.
Mr Arwel Roberts (Audit Scotland):
The picture seems to be that the CSA has not caught up. It gave us a presentation on its proposals for making progress and improving. We have held off from commenting formally and will do so until we see the results. However, we will certainly cover the issue in our NHS overview report. It will be a continuing feature.
Savings were identified in the report on GP prescribing and the committee was expecting your follow-up report to identify further areas of work but, when we took evidence at Glasgow, Tim Davidson told us about the difficulties that the largest primary care trust in Scotland is experiencing with its drug budget. I understand that internal and external auditors are having to qualify this year's accounts so that the accounts can be dealt with in the appropriate time scale. That all goes back to the CSA. I have checked the Official Report; we were advised that things would get better.
We do not know the formal position on NHS accounts yet, because the appointed auditors have yet to sign them off for the year. We are aware of the situation. I agree that difficulties exist, but we are trying to resolve them.
You are alert to the issue and no doubt it will be discussed again.
As there seem to be no further questions, I remind the committee that once the conveners group has agreed the schedule for the coming period, members will be sent a work programme.
I thank Audit Scotland and the Auditor General for their information. We all look forward to next year's work programme.
Meeting continued in private until 16:47.