Audit Committee, 30 Oct 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 30, 2001

Official Report 206KB pdf

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Audit Scotland (Corporate Plan)

Item 4 is the corporate plan for Audit Scotland, copies of which have been included in members' papers. I invite the Auditor General to outline the plan to the committee.

Members of the committee will recall that, in early September, I presented to you a strategic statement that set out the priorities and the direction for public audit. We had a dialogue at that point and the committee expressed its general support for the direction in which Audit Scotland would be moving.

The next stage was to finalise a corporate plan, which will function as an action plan for Audit Scotland. Members have a copy of that plan for their interest and information. The plan runs until 2005 and sets out a vision for Audit Scotland. It also sets out what happened during Audit Scotland's first 18 months and the priorities for the next 18 months. The plan's final section indicates how we intend to measure and report on progress and performance within the organisation.

The vision is about better delivery of public services and better management of public money. Audit Scotland must contribute in those areas to prove its worth. We will do that through the application of rigorous standards of public audit across all public bodies and against the background of the expectations and priorities in the strategy that I have shared with you.

One of the areas where we will have to be especially active and vigilant is in ensuring that audit by Audit Scotland is co-ordinated well with the panoply of inspection activity throughout Scotland. We are working closely with HM inspectorate of constabulary, HM fire service inspectorate and with other regulators, such as the Clinical Standards Board for Scotland.

Pages 5 to 10 of the corporate plan outline what has happened during the first 18 months of Audit Scotland's existence. I do not intend to go into that in detail, but I would be happy to answer the committee's questions. The organisation's activity divides into three parts. We have been sorting out the governance arrangements of Audit Scotland and are just about there on that. We have been creating the organisational structure, appointing staff, matching staff in, and creating an appropriate package of pay, terms and conditions and so on. A huge amount of activity has gone on in that area, as you might imagine.

At the same time, however, I think that we have kept our eyes on the ball. We have brought in tighter deadlines for completing and reporting audits—particularly in local government—with some success. Over the year, we have published more than 40 reports and 25 technical notes. They are listed on page 23 of the plan's first appendix.

The next 18 months' priorities will take us firmly ahead on the road to 2005. Within the framework of the mission statement—which is now agreed and is set out in the corporate plan—we have developed a set of values that will govern how we do our business. The values are to do with people, performance, communication, good management of the organisation, and the basic value of integrity, which will govern and drive everything that happens in Audit Scotland.

Within that framework we have adopted six priorities for the next 18 months or so. The first is to deliver the audit. The second is to support democratic scrutiny, which is primarily the work of the Audit Committee and the Accounts Commission. The third is to maximise the value and benefit of audit. The fourth is to create an integrated organisation with good business processes. The fifth is to support the learning and growth of our organisation—for the record, that does not mean expansion, but growing the organisation's capacity and performance. The sixth priority is to address the agenda of applying best value principles to our organisation.

The next section of the plan, from pages 14 to 19, has a description of the activity that we intend to undertake under each of those six headings. At the end of the plan we draw together our measures of performance. Page 22 has a summary of the key performance indicators that we will put in place and report on in the Audit Scotland annual plan. In appendix 2—page 25 onwards—members will see that against each of the main themes that I have outlined there is a summary of the action that will be taken, along with a time scale and an indication of how delivery will be measured.

I know that the Audit Committee always has a full agenda and we had a constructive discussion in September about Audit Scotland's strategy. It is probably appropriate that the committee concentrates on the strategic direction. However, I am happy to answer the committee's questions and receive comments on the corporate plan, which is the next level of activity. Now that the corporate plan is in place, there will be further planning to produce business plans and performance review systems within Audit Scotland.

I thank you for packing a great deal in to a short statement. There are no questions, so you have satisfied everybody.

Auditing more than 200 bodies is an impressive record for an organisation that is only 18 months old. There are three audit reviews, four statutory reports, two overview reports, 33 performance audit reports, two introductory leaflets for stakeholders, a new code of audit practice and a statement of responsibilities of auditors and audited bodies. You have not been—and with the future programme, you will not be—unbusy. I look forward to the results of your work as the public financial watchdog.

I thank the Auditor General and Audit Scotland.