Excuse me. We met at lock 16 in Falkirk at the opening of the new centre.

Convener, I think that I have outlined to the committee at great length the interactions that I have had with the chief executive—

Excuse me. If you will allow me, convener, I would say, again, that Mr Kerr does not seem to understand how the interaction with non-departmental bodies operates, with—

No. I want to give the committee the assurance that I have the utmost confidence in the senior civil servants who are dealing with Historic Environment Scotland from day to day. Not all of them are present in this meeting, as an additional senior civil servant has been brought into role and is dealing with these matters, in addition to Kenneth Hogg and other colleagues.

Mr Halcro Johnston and other colleagues will be aware—I am sure you can imagine—that I speak with those civil service colleagues extremely regularly about the developments that are taking place, and I want to pay tribute to them. I think that it is absolutely right that the appropriate officials have been in the room at the appropriate meetings, making sure that they understand the circumstances that are being discussed in a variety of fora with Historic Environment Scotland and are reporting what is necessary to me.

Convener, if I might be able to finish my answer to Mr Halcro Johnston—

I have already said that. It has been appropriate for me to meet the chief executive and to meet the incoming chair, to make sure that he has all the appropriate support to make the changes that need to take place at Historic Environment Scotland.

It is really important that there is a new chair in place. That is the foundational change, as I see it, for Historic Environment Scotland getting itself into a better place. Because the different inquiries that are going on internally, within Historic Environment Scotland, and with external support are issues for Historic Environment Scotland, I am not privy to the delivery time or how long the investigations will take. What I do know is that Sir Mark Jones is very keen for me to be informed about their progress and whether there is any concern that any of them might take longer than expected.

As I signalled in answer to Mr Kerr’s question, Sir Mark Jones is arriving with a long list of on-going challenges—I think that we all appreciate that it is quite a long list—some of which will be extremely difficult to deal with, so I do not expect the issues to be resolved from one week to the next. As I have said before, we have made it absolutely clear to Sir Mark Jones that, if there is any issue with the capacity to deal with any of the outstanding questions, we will be supportive, including with resources—human and financial—if that is what is required, to make sure that these processes can take place as quickly as possible.

One thing that has become clear to me—as it will have become clear to committee members, because we have all been sent emails, whistleblower reports and that sort of thing—is that people within HES have felt that either complaints have been made or problems have been on-going and they have not been dealt with. However, I take confidence from Sir Mark Jones and his experience, and I hope that that confidence can increasingly be shared by people within Historic Environment Scotland—perhaps the people who have had cause to complain—that those issues will be dealt with properly and timeously. Were there a feeling that that was not happening, I would wish to be informed about it and, at that stage, I would intervene, were it necessary, to make sure that it would take place. However, I have had no indication that that is the case.

Now, with Sir Mark Jones, a new chief operating officer and new board members, we are seeing the capacity within the organisation to go through this change, deal with the historic issues and get things on an even keel, to use Mr Halcro Johnston’s term. I want that to happen as quickly as possible, although I think that we all understand that it is a pretty challenging situation.

The key determinant in relation to Mr Bibby’s question is this: do all organisations have HR issues from time to time? Absolutely. Am I aware of any other organisation that has had this range and scale of issues? Absolutely not. Therefore, we need to understand how the situation could come about and why some of the issues were not dealt with, given that much of this has transpired through the media because people felt that the processes were not in place for matters to be resolved internally. I am greatly concerned about that. The Government’s responsibility is not only to make sure that there is new leadership and that the new leadership is best supported to do what HES is supposed to do as an arm’s-length organisation, but to be aware of the reasons why the situation transpired in order to ensure that the same situation does not arise in any other public bodies.

I think that that is part of the package of investigations that Sir Mark is taking forward. I will hand over to Kenneth Hogg in a second, in case there is more granular information that I cannot provide to Mr Bibby on that.

Sir Mark has inherited a range of inquiries. Those are on-going, and they are happening in parallel. As I said to Mr Halcro Johnston, it would be everybody’s hope that the investigations take place as timeously as possible.

As to the extent of external HR advice, I know that this is an area where we and officials have signalled to HES that the Scottish Government can provide an understanding of different external capacities that might help these processes. That is definitely something that has been offered.

Mr Hogg, do you want to add anything to my answer?

That is correct. HES is also in receipt of about the same amount of resource in commercial income, which has seen a very significant increase in recent years. That is one of the reasons why Historic Environment Scotland has been viewed as a non-departmental public body that has been particularly successful in requiring a reduced level of support from the public purse. We have changed the rules so that it is able to retain more commercial income, which incentivises it to be more commercially successful.

As Mr Bibby reflects, public pay awards are important, and the remuneration of staff is also important—that should be the case in all public organisations. No specific issues with financial management have been raised with me. If Mr Bibby wants to share any concerns that have been raised with him, I will be happy to look at those and for them to form part of the discussions that I will have with senior HES management.