Chamber and committees

Thank you very much, indeed, for that comprehensive opening statement, which is useful. I am sure that it will provoke lots of questions.

Craig Hoy will put the opening question to you.

Thanks, Mr McGregor. That is helpful.

I want to go back to a point that Jo Green made a few minutes ago. Jo, you told us that the public register is the one service that is not currently available as a result of the cyberattack. For the layperson, will you explain what information is captured in the public register and what we cannot see that we normally would be able to see? When do you expect the public register to come back online?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”. I am pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning, all of whom join us online, as does our deputy convener, Sharon Dowey. I welcome from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency: Jo Green, acting chief executive; Stuart McGregor, chief finance officer; and David Pirie, executive director, evidence and flooding. From the Scottish Government I welcome: Roy Brannen, interim director general, net zero; Helen Nisbet, director, defence, security and cyber resilience; and Kevin Quinlan, director, environment and forestry.

As we are quite tight for time this morning, I would appreciate succinct questions from committee members and succinct answers. On 31 March, the committee will take evidence on major information and communications technology projects in general, at which point we will look at some of the wider read-across from the cyberattack that SEPA sustained and the lessons that we need to learn. I encourage people to be as disciplined as possible, but I hope that our line of questioning will take that into account, too.

Jo Green and Roy Brannen should feel free to bring their colleagues in, if it will be helpful. If those who join us online want to come in at any point to give evidence in the conversation that we are having, they should type R in the chat function, and we will pick them up at the appropriate time.

I invite Jo Green, who had hoped to attend the meeting in person this morning, but is joining us virtually, to make a short opening statement.

As I mentioned, some of those broader themes will be picked up in the evidence session that we have planned for 31 March.

That brings us to the end of our short evidence session on the report on SEPA. I once again thank Jo Green, acting chief executive of SEPA, Stuart McGregor and David Pirie, who joined us visually and by audio only at points. Thank you very much for the evidence that you have given us, which has been valuable. I also thank Roy Brannen, Helen Nisbet and Kevin Quinlan from the Scottish Government, who also joined us. If there are any points that, on reflection, you feel that it would be useful for us to have, by all means submit them to us in writing—we would receive them gratefully.

I briefly suspend the meeting so that we can have a changeover of witnesses.

I think that the power has been restored, Auditor General, so I will bring you back in. You were telling us about the findings and the evidence that you had looked at in the area of staff wellbeing and about the surveys that organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing had carried out on the views of its members.

I want to take you back to the point about GPs. I am at a bit of a loss to understand why the issue is so problematic. Are GPs saying, “We’re so busy getting on with it that we don’t have time to record these things”? Are health boards asking them to do that? Are GPs saying, “We are independent organisations and we make our own determinations about what our priorities are”? Is the issue at the health board level? Why is there such a long-standing problem in finding out that information?

Given that, at the moment, GPs are defending their position and are often under attack because people feel that they are not getting access to them, it seems to me that, if GPs were able to demonstrate with evidence the extent to which they are meeting patient demand, that would serve their cause better, rather than there being a complete absence of data.

Good morning and welcome to the ninth meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. Before we begin, I remind members, witnesses and staff who are present that social distancing rules apply in the Parliament, and that they should wear face coverings when entering, leaving or moving around the committee room.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take items 4, 5 and 6 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much, particularly for that very helpful clarification. Indeed, Willie Coffey will be asking questions on that particular subject later in the meeting.

Sharon Dowey, who, as I said earlier, is joining us via videolink, has a couple of questions to start us off.

Agenda item 3 is a discussion of the Audit Scotland report “NHS in Scotland 2021”. I am delighted to say that we are joined in the room by the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle—welcome, Auditor General. Alongside him, we have Leigh Johnston, senior manager and Derek Hoy, audit manager, Audit Scotland. Eva Thomas-Tudo had hoped to be with us, but unfortunately she is not able to attend.

I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement, after which we will ask what is quite a wide range of questions.

I read in the report that a short-life working group is being established. Again, is that sufficient to properly monitor the impact of the measures?