I am sorry, Mr Brannen—I will come to the recent correspondence between the permanent secretary and the Finance and Public Administration Committee of this Parliament—but you just said that the piece of paper had been found. That is not the view of Audit Scotland, is it? Its view is that the piece of paper that was found and presented to Parliament a couple of weeks ago represented more information on who. Now, you have said that it was entirely the then minister for transport. That seemed to suggest that, actually, the then finance secretary was involved in the process. However, the piece of paper that was presented does not fill the gap identified by the Auditor General, which is that there is no substantial recording of the considerations of ministers and their response to the risks that were clearly identified by CMAL in presenting the contract to Ferguson Marine.

We may well return to that.

I begin by putting a question to Roy Brannen and Hugh Gillies, but I will take you first, Mr Brannen. You mentioned current and previous roles. You have both held the post of designated accountable officer for Transport Scotland, so can you outline what is required in that role in providing formal advice to ministers and recording decisions, particularly where significant concerns or risks are involved?

Hugh Gillies, do you want to add anything to that?

You can get back to us with more detail on that, if that would be useful.

I turn to Craig Hoy, who has some questions to put.

That would indeed be very helpful.

Let me deal with a contemporary issue that has its roots in a bit of history, namely, private finance initiative and public-private partnership contracts. I cannot remember whether it was in the programme for government, but I am reminded of when the First Minister announced—fairly recently—that the 24-bed East Ayrshire community hospital was going to be taken out of PFI and brought back into the public sector, as almost an early glimpse of what was to come.

We know that those contracts are coming up towards the end of their period of private operation. We are interested in understanding a bit more about how that is working and what the plans are to manage that transition. The 24-bed East Ayrshire community hospital is small, but there are some big projects with presumably quite significant revenue implications for the public sector coming towards the end of their life in the private sector. Are they all coming into the public sector? What will that look like? What plans does the Government have to manage that transition and run those assets after they have been transferred?

I have one final question, for the moment. Helen Carter, Nick Ford and Andrew Watson are on the IIB. Who is on the infrastructure advisory group?

Are they published on the Scottish Government website?

Good morning. I welcome everyone back to the 15th meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee, as we resume in public session. Under item 3, the committee will look at major capital projects. We get regular reports on the performance of such projects. This morning, we are keen to examine their governance and accountability arrangements. I am pleased that we are joined by a panel of five to help us understand how those governance and accountability issues work.

From the Scottish Government, I welcome Helen Carter, who is deputy director of infrastructure and investment; Nick Ford, who is director of Scottish procurement and property; Alan Morrison, who is deputy director of health infrastructure, investment and personal protective equipment; and Andrew Watson, who is director of budget and public spending. Last but not least, I welcome Lawrence Shackman, who is director of major projects at Transport Scotland.

We have not asked you to make an opening statement. If it is okay with you, Andrew Watson, we will use you as a conduit. Obviously, there will be questions that relate to particular areas of work, which you should feel free to direct. If other members of the panel want to come in at particular points, they should indicate to me or the clerks and we will do our best to bring you in. I will begin by asking the deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, to open the questions.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is not an unscheduled proxy session on the delivery of vessels 801 and 802.

Let us return to governance and accountability. Andrew Watson mentioned that he had given us a written submission in advance, which is very useful to us. In one part of the paper, which struck me, he says:

“Infrastructure strategy is developed through a range of mechanisms.”

I note from the paper that there is a Scottish Futures Trust, an infrastructure investment board, an Infrastructure Commission for Scotland, an infrastructure advisory group and, as Alan Morrison has just told us, a departmental infrastructure board. How do those all fit together? What are their respective roles? Is there duplication? Is the system overly bureaucratic or does it work perfectly well?