Chamber and committees

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you, Alan. That is useful.

In April this year, you wrote to us about repurposing £287,000 to appoint five additional members of staff at auditor or auditor officer grade to increase your staffing levels in the short term. Can you give us an update on progress in recruiting those staff, given that, as you have said, there are various recruitment challenges, depending on which grade and specialism you are recruiting for?

On the back of that question, I want to drill down into an aspect that staff have reflected on, which is the availability of training to enable them to deliver high-quality audit work.

It is clear that you offer your in-house teams more training days than private firms do. However, when you ask your own staff whether their training level is adequate to deliver such quality, significant numbers of them still feel that it is not. I want to understand what lies behind that. Is it because you have a lot of new staff coming in who feel that they have particularly high training needs? Does it relate to the points that we discussed earlier, about the need for peer-to-peer support?

It is a little concerning, so I would like to understand how you are addressing your staff’s perception that, even though their training provision is good, as regards the high number of days that are available, it does not seem to give significant numbers of them the confidence that they need to deliver the highest quality of audit work.

That partially explains things, but I still do not fully understand the differences with the firms. Do staff in the firms not come up against those issues?

Can you remind me whether the recruitments are to short-term posts in the organisation? Are they temporary or permanent posts?

I want to go back to the issue of accommodation costs. Is your model for office accommodation now pretty fixed, as we move further beyond Covid? You have a balance between an office in Glasgow, which is expanding its footprint, and an office in Edinburgh, which is declining in size. Will you continue to follow that model, or will there come a point at which you decide that you could make substantial savings by moving to a central office in Falkirk or Stirling, or somewhere else that is equidistant from Glasgow and Edinburgh? Do you think that there will continue to be a strong business case for having a footprint in both the major cities? Is that balance right? Any further changes that you make to your office accommodation strategy would have quite major financial implications.

I will briefly move on to the horizon programme, cabinet secretary. It was good to understand that the Scottish Government will now promote the opportunities that can come from horizon. Will you say a little bit more about what that will involve? Is it about working with the higher education sector? Is it about the Scottish Government showing leadership with particular research institutes and trying to galvanise potential projects that could come through horizon? I am interested in the roadshow and what is being planned.

You have highlighted a good example of where there would be common interest in aligning with European Union regulations. I suppose, though, that I am interested in the Scottish Government’s position of maintaining alignment with the EU and how that might differ from a UK position.

Perhaps I can give you an example. Next week, a statutory instrument on persistent organic pollutants is coming before the Parliament. The EU is looking to phase out such chemicals, but on a very strict timescale—that is, by 2027. The position of the UK and Scottish Governments is to take a slightly weaker regulatory approach and not to phase out those chemicals by 2027. It is a niche bit of environmental policy, but that is a clear area where the Scottish Government is taking a position not to align with EU policy. I am not asking you to comment on the merits of that—I am sure that we will come to that in the Parliament next week.

Is that an example of where all that regulatory development work is being done within the UK—it is about agencies and regulators working together with industry—but, because that does not involve the European Union, there is potential for divergence? That is a clear area where, if that statutory instrument is passed next week when it is presented to the Parliament, there will be divergence from the EU position. I do not know whether you understand my point there—

Do you want to bring your official in on that as well, Mr Robertson?

There are always good examples of Government working with neighbours—I am aware of many of them—but it is a question of who in the Cabinet sits on top of the sustainable development goals and it is about ensuring that Government policy is aligned with those goals and that they are reflected in the national outcomes. I am not clear whether that is done by you, the First Minister or the whole of the Cabinet or whether it is done by nobody specifically in the Cabinet but everybody is responsible for a bit of it.

The national outcomes are important and the sustainable development goals have been there for decades. The goals are massively important if we are to move in the right direction as a society and work with the rest of the globe on those outcomes. Who is in control of that work and who is monitoring it? Is it you or is it someone else in the Cabinet? Who would you speak to if there was a question on sustainable development goals?