Good morning. I welcome Paul Johnston back to the Public Audit Committee—hello again.

I will broaden out the discussion a wee bit and talk about things such as management standards and project management quality standards. The sponsorship arrangements and toolkit—if we can call it that—are crucial and it is important that they are clear. Reference was made in the report to sponsor teams not being seen as “sexy”, but somebody also described sponsorship as a “black art”. Usually, that tag is used when there is a lack of clarity about any process and only a few people know how things work. Therefore, I am very hopeful that the work that you are doing will make sponsorship less of a black art and much more visible and usable for people.

Alongside the sponsorship toolkit, huge importance is, surely, placed on the public bodies, which spend all the money—£22 billion—that you mentioned at the outset, to embrace recognised quality management standards to deliver the thing that they are trying to do.

Over many years, the committee has seen numerous examples in that regard. I remember i6, Disclosure Scotland, the national health service IT systems and many other IT systems. The common message and theme for me and other members of this and predecessor committees is the lack of embracement and adoption of recognised management standards. However, there is a success story in Social Security Scotland, which you, quite rightly, mentioned. Could you talk a little more about that important aspect that should enhance and complement the sponsorship toolkit? For me, that is the embracement of management standards within the public bodies that serve Scotland.

Even the most optimistic of us would not say that the committee is unlikely to see another example of a project that has gone wrong. Usually, when the committee or the Auditor General opens the lid and looks in not only will sponsorship arrangements be pointed at but quality standards management arrangements will be seen to be lacking.

I would like an assurance that, going forward, the discussion that we have had, and the other suggestion that I put to you on project management, will be embedded into the thinking of all organisations. I say that in the hope that we will not see a regular recurrence and a procession of organisations that have not embraced such standards and processes coming before us. What assurance can you offer the committee that progress is being made towards that aim?

That is very helpful. Thank you very much to everybody.

Thank you very much, convener. I want to ask the Auditor General a question arising from page 3 of the briefing paper, which says:

“The key policy actions to reduce child poverty in Scotland rest with the UK Government, the Scottish Government”,

councils and partners and so on.

It is perhaps appropriate to be putting this question to you on the anniversary of the removal of universal credit uplift. Do you feel that you cannot scrutinise, assess or examine the impacts that some of the UK Government’s measures might be having on overall child poverty levels? I am sure that the committee is interested in gaining the widest picture possible as regards the key influencers on this topic. Will you say a bit about where you see your role being and whether you are able to look at and scrutinise that side of the process?

Thank you very much for those responses.

The briefing that Stephen Boyle has referred to talks about the Scottish Government increasing

“the focus on policies aimed at preventing children from experiencing poverty”

and mentions that increasing the Scottish child payment to £25 a week per child could—we hope—reduce poverty “by five percentage points”. However, there is commentary all through the briefing about our not meeting the child poverty target and being 1 per cent short or whatever. How do we know that the ability to reach these targets is not also being driven by the negative impact of, say, the withdrawal of universal credit in certain circumstances? Who is assessing the impact of that? As we know, it has directly affected 350,000 households. How do we get a balanced picture to ensure that we know that all these influences are having an impact?

I do not think that we will ever get rid of the time lag issue, but is there any missing qualitative or quantitative data that we should be gathering?

Thanks very much for that response. Do any other witnesses want to offer an answer to that question?

Your statement about the measure potentially being interpreted as an instruction not to pay rent at all is quite a big one. Do you have any evidence to back that up? Do you have any forecasts around it? I would be obliged if you could share any information that might give some credibility to that statement.

Thanks for that. Do I have time for another question, convener?

That is really helpful, minister. Thank you.