Chamber and committees

It would be good to have that new direction.

College principals and board chairs would disagree with you. They tell me and others that, essentially, they do not know what they are meant to be doing as organisations, what areas they are meant to be focusing on and what their priorities are. The statement of purpose and principles was derided pretty universally as a watered-down version of what had been a broader reform programme.

Essentially, there is another consultation about the previous piece of work, and the Withers review. Are we not limited by the absence of a real direction in the agenda? How can we expect the principals of colleges, who are the people delivering the qualifications and skills for our businesses, to be able to do that and to make strategic decisions?

In pulling my next question together, I will focus on colleges, on which you have done a significant amount of work. You said:

“The college sector is facing huge challenges. But to plan effectively for the future, colleges need a much stronger steer from the Scottish Government on what parts of their role to prioritise.”

That relates to a point that I would like to make about the long-term process of reform. Reform is a nebulous concept, but it is perhaps driven by a fiscal requirement due to the constrained fiscal situation, the ageing population and all the dynamics that come with that. However, there is a question whether the public realm understands the purpose of what it is meant to be doing. College principals and chairs of boards tell me that they do not know what they are meant to be doing because the Government will not tell them. How possible is it to reform if you do not know where you are going?

The other function of X-Road is interoperability among the various data sets.

The idea is that, rather than asking whether we can re-engineer legacy systems, if a new system is being built, it should be built to a standard that enables data to be shared between, for example, Food Standards Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council.

Lynne Raeside talked about building a new data system. You said that that was done independently. Did you consider, and did the Scottish Government provide any form of guidance on, the need to ensure that your data system could be used interoperably with the other agencies that are represented around the table today?

Thank you for the Scottish Funding Council’s submission, which is very useful.

In common with much of the information that we have received, there is a lot to say about the internal operations of your organisations. We explored some of those issues with the Auditor General in the previous evidence session—you might have caught some of it. There is your internal operation as public bodies, but there is also the broader programme of reform and what the Government intends to do about the sectors for which you have some responsibility.

With regard to the SFC in particular, it is interesting to understand your internal processes, but the broader reform of the post-school system must surely be the meat of reform in your area. Do you feel that there has been sufficient guidance or direction from the Government regarding where you are headed and what you should be helping to govern?

Okay.

It is good to see you in front of the committee, Mr Boyle. We have not seen you for a while. Today, we are looking at your report on fiscal sustainability, which was published in November, but a lot of the things that you say remind me of comments that you have made previously. In that regard, I have picked out five Audit Scotland reports from the previous 15 months.

In your report “NHS in Scotland 2024: Finance and performance”, you said:

“fundamental change in how NHS services are provided is now urgently needed.”

In “The 2023/24 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, which was published in October 2024, you said:

“The Scottish Government’s projections suggest that it cannot afford to pay for public services in their current form.”

Back in November 2023, in “The 2022/23 audit of the Scottish Government Consolidated Accounts”, you said:

“Fiscal sustainability is one of the highest-ranking risks in the corporate risk register.”

In October 2023, in “The Scottish Government’s workforce challenges”, you said:

“The Scottish Government’s projections suggest that it cannot afford to pay for public services in their current form.”

Having read those reports, and your most recent one, it feels to me as if you are banging your head against a brick wall. You started today by saying that the concerns that you have raised remain valid post-budget. Is there a sense of real frustration that you are not being heard?

I wonder whether the warnings that you repeatedly give us—and that you give the Government directly—in terms of detailed analysis are not sufficient to animate the Government into recognising the medium-term financial position. I am trying to understand that. Collectively, we have echoed and highlighted some of your concerns and, we hope, have put our own on to the Government’s radar. In your view, what would be sufficient to animate the Government to act?

If we can see delivery against a plan, that will be positive. Previous medium-term financial strategies have shown that there is a significant gap. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has highlighted the significant gap between revenue and projected expenditure in the near-term budgets over the next couple of years. The budget this year could be described as doing no harm but, on the current trajectory, does it store up problems for years to come?