Committee Reports (Responses)
Item 7 is responses to committee reports. We have received a response from Dr Kevin Woods, head of the Health Department, with regard to our report on the implementation of the consultant contract. I invite members' comments.
In a sense, I am loth to prolong debate on this issue, which we have been considering for some time. I have one comment in response to the reply that we have received. For me, the letter reinforces a view that I expressed at our previous meeting. Although the examples that are given of improvements in services and service design support the fact that the consultant contract has had a positive impact, they also reinforce the question why this professional group requires such substantial changes in conditions for good practice to be levered.
I will not take up the committee's time by going into detail, but I was interested, to say the least, to see the reference to the redesigned cataract pathway in Ayrshire and Arran. My colleague Ms Jamieson has left, but she might have a view on the matter and will know about the background. I am concerned that it required the changes that we have made to the consultant contract in order to lever such good practice. If the response answers one question, it raises more significant ones.
As I said at our previous meeting, other staff groups in the health service—and, indeed, people in other sectors—could rightly ask why change of this scale and expense is required to improve practice. I am all for rewarding the medical profession effectively. There was a need for a massive overhaul of the contract because of the impact that that would have on recruitment and retention, which are vital. However, I was struck by how much of the response gives yet more examples of improvements that have been levered by the contract. I apologise for repeating myself, but that raises the much bigger question why the change was required to lever those improvements.
I think that Margaret Jamieson commented on that very example and I am sure that she would support your view. Your comments are well made. You talked about change across sectors; it could be argued that there are similarities with the way in which the Executive is trying to bring about change and modernisation through the teachers agreement, which is the subject of the next response that we will consider. Management to improve services should not necessarily require renegotiated contracts such as this—or, at least, not on this scale.
Are there any points that the Auditor General wants to pick up on?
No.
Can we agree to note Dr Woods's response, noting also that we are particularly pleased to read, in the paragraph on the lack of clarity in the response, how committed the department is to responding appropriately?
Members indicated agreement.
Next, we have a response from the Education Department to our report on the teachers agreement. We had a question about the chartered teacher project, which has been answered by Colin MacLean. The committee has no points to raise on the response. Does the Auditor General have any points to raise?
No.
Are we agreed to note the response?
Members indicated agreement.
That ends item 7 and brings the meeting almost to a close.
This is the final meeting of the Audit Committee in this session of Parliament. Before I close the meeting formally, I will say a few words of thanks. We have today agreed a legacy paper, which will be published soon. The report details the work of the committee and what we think can be done to improve the work of the committee—and, through it, the work of the Parliament—in the next session. I hope that the next audit committee will take on board some of our arguments.
The legacy paper reviews all the reports that the committee has produced. Our first report was on individual learning accounts in Scotland and it considered issues concerning not just governance in Scotland but the relationship between Executive departments and UK departments. Our report on the 2002-03 audit of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body was important in showing that the committee would examine all public departments, including the body that governs the running of the Parliament. The committee also produced reports on the accounts of bodies such as NHS Argyll and Clyde as well as on the overview of national health service finances, all of which helped to focus on the particular difficulties that are faced in the NHS and came up with recommendations on how to deal with those difficulties.
The committee has not only reviewed such things as value for money but considered section 22 reports. The one that springs to mind was on the National Galleries of Scotland. Before we were even able to have a colourful evidence session on the subject, it was announced that the issue was being resolved and the funding problems were being tackled—we won the cup before scoring the goals. Another section 22 report dealt with the more serious matter of the financial problems of Inverness College, in which context it was appropriate and important for the committee to visit Inverness. I am confident that not just Inverness College but the whole of the further education sector has improved as a result of the work that was done by the committee and its predecessor committee.
Our recent work has included examinations of the consultant contract and the teachers agreement and there are still two reports to come out—no doubt there will be a great deal of interest in the relocation report and, possibly, the community planning report.
Those are just some examples of what we have done. From that, we can say that the committee more than pulls its weight in making changes even though they are not legislative changes but changes to do with scrutiny and accountability. I am a sceptic about the Parliament if ever there was one, but I can testify—and do so regularly—that that scrutiny is one of the Parliament's significant achievements. I hope that the Parliament is considerably strengthened in that.
I thank the Auditor General for Scotland, the deputy auditor general and the rest of the Audit Scotland team for the working relationship that we have enjoyed in trying to hold public bodies to account. I thank them for the briefings and information with which they have provided us and for the convivial manner in which that has been done on and off the record.
I also thank the parliamentary staff at all levels. I thank those who make the rooms available to us, the information technology services, facilities management, the cleaners and the security staff who look after us. Most important, I thank the clerks, who service us, keep us right, correct our grammar if it is required—perhaps I am just speaking from personal experience—and provide us with questions when we suddenly lose the ability to think, which happens occasionally.
We also need to thank the witnesses. Although they may be asked hard questions when they come before us, it is important that they know that, regardless of whether they are considered friend or foe—or, rather, whether they think that we are friend or foe—they will be treated civilly and with manners. Our task is to get to the truth of a matter, and witnesses are not treated in a partisan manner when they come before us, unlike the way in which I have seen other committees work. This is a cross-party committee, which functions in a non-partisan manner.
I thank Susan Deacon and Margaret Jamieson, who is not here at the moment, for being ever present on the committee; I thank Margaret Smith, Mary Mulligan, Robin Harper and Andrew Welsh for being members of the current committee; and I thank Kenny MacAskill, Rhona Brankin, George Lyon and Eleanor Scott, who have also served on the committee.
The committee has worked tremendously well, and members who have come on to the committee at different times have probably been surprised at quite how interesting the Audit Committee can be. I have to say, I had the same experience myself when I came to the committee. In particular, I must thank committee members who had served on the previous committee, such as Margaret Jamieson and Andrew Welsh, for their good grace and the way in which they allowed us newcomers to learn as we went along, especially as I had to convene the committee without having been on it before. I have served on other committees and I see many other committees in action when I challenge Scottish statutory instruments and lodge motions to annul or amendments to bills, but I have found my time on this committee to be the most rewarding part of my time in the Parliament.
The committee can and should become far stronger. Other committees can learn from its governance procedures and the way in which it has brought bodies before it to try to make them more accountable. There is much talk of a bonfire of the quangos, but a little bit more scrutiny of quangos through committees could achieve a great deal without the need to close them down.
Those are my final words. It has been a tremendously successful period. I thank members.
Before you formally close the meeting, convener, it would be appropriate for us, as members of the committee, to put on record our appreciation of your contribution as convener. You have been colourful in more ways than one but have been very fair at all times and have often put to one side your strongly held opinions—some of us would regard them as totally unacceptable opinions. We are appreciative of the role that you have played and the contribution that you have made.
Thank you very much. That is greatly appreciated. I look forward to sharing a drink and swapping a few ideas and stories with the next convener of the committee whenever he or she is appointed.
Meeting closed at 12:35.