What, in the NHS England system, is different from our system that means that it can report the data just now?

I thank my colleague Graham Simpson for raising such an important issue for debate. There is no doubt that antisocial behaviour on buses has increased dramatically since the free bus travel scheme was introduced. That has been an issue locally in my region, where a community council contacted the Minister for Transport on behalf of the residents of Dundonald in South Ayrshire. Local people said:

“our village has seen a dramatic rise in youth disorder with several residents being attacked, fires being raised and many residents, some elderly and some disabled, being verbally abused and threatened by groups of youths.”

They added:

“Evidence from our area would suggest that there is a direct correlation in the rise of youth disorder and free bus travel.”

I am sure that MSPs across the chamber have similar examples from their areas of physical assaults, verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, broken windows and vandalism. In each case, there is strong evidence of a link to the free bus travel scheme.

We do not know the full extent of the problem because the Scottish National Party Government does not appear to collect the data. In responses to parliamentary questions, I have been told that it collects only general crime statistics and that an evaluation of the scheme will consider the impact of antisocial behaviour. However, the Confederation of Passenger Transport Scotland, which is the trade association for the bus and coach sectors, has confirmed that

“there is no currently official data set to capture incidents of antisocial behaviour on buses.”

The Scottish Government must gain a better understanding of the problems that relate to the scheme. The SNP does not seem to want the true extent of antisocial behaviour to be uncovered, but we know that it is happening.

The Government’s “Behaviour in Scottish Schools 2023” report said:

“The ability of young people to travel for free on buses had, in some cases, led to young people traveling to other areas of the city to take part in fights or meeting up on buses and engaging in anti-social behaviour.”

We know that the Government has not acted to stop such incidents. It seems to be saying that it is powerless to prevent such crimes. Despite all the evidence of antisocial behaviour, despite the increasing costs to bus operators, despite the buses that have been taken off the roads, despite passengers being driven away from services and despite drivers being attacked—despite all that—the SNP is still not taking the issue seriously enough. It has stalled and delayed instead of finding a way to withdraw access to the scheme from the minority of people who abuse it.

I thank my colleague Graham Simpson for raising awareness of the issue. It is up to the SNP Government to act on what it has heard today.

I want to ask about jury majorities. You said that, at the moment, we have 15 jurors and the decision to send somebody to jail may be based on the decision of one person if there is an eight to seven majority verdict. Would you like there to be a change to unanimity, or, if the jury size reduces to 12, for eight out of 12 to be needed to reach a verdict? What are your opinions on unanimity?

I have one further question. I absolutely agree that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, but you mentioned a difficulty in relation to rape cases. If you have a murder case, there might be a knife in somebody, so you know that a crime has been committed. At the moment, a complainer in a rape or sexual crime case does not get individual legal representation unless section 275 of the 1995 act is applied. Is there a case for them to get individual legal representation earlier? I put that to Ronnie Renucci.

What research would you like there to be?

You said earlier, Auditor General, that the audits are months rather than years late. Are there any key areas that are still to be audited that are behind schedule and that you are concerned about?

I was going to ask about the new bodies to be audited in 2024 and 2025, but Daniel Johnson has covered that already. I will hand back to the chair now.

Thank you. I apologise for not being at the meeting in person this morning.

In paragraph 26, on page 9, Audit Scotland reports:

“Recovery from the disruption to audit completion deadlines continues while the focus remains on our key priorities of health, safety and wellbeing of colleagues and quality of audit.”

Will you give us more detail on that? Will you explain the status of the recovery to pre-pandemic audit reporting timelines and advise when you expect to return to pre-pandemic service levels?

If the Government gave us more information, it would save it a lot of man-hours spent dealing with freedom of information requests.

Do you have any concerns about the increasing level of repayment charges linked to borrowing? Has the Scottish Government taken a view on what is considered to be reasonable?

Good morning. Given the non-recurring way in which the 2022-23 changes to improve pay deals and provide cost of living support occurred, and given that increases in public sector pay will be baselined into the 2023-24 budget and beyond, how can fiscal sustainability of the public sector payroll be achieved? Do you think that that can be done without reducing the size of the public sector workforce?