Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Public Audit Committee
Section 22 Report: “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you for clarifying that. That is helpful.
You have inferred this to an extent, but one thing that comes out in the report is that temporary arrangements have had to be put in place for things such as paying staff salaries and paying suppliers. From your auditing perspective, were you satisfied that those temporary financial arrangements were sound?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you, Willie—I will come back to you.
For me, there is a stand-out feature of the report. Over recent weeks, we have looked at section 22 reports on organisations that are quite small and have fairly limited resources, budgets and staffing levels. Here, we have two premier agencies of central Government—Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council—which have a combined budget each year of £2 billion and more of public money. Despite that, the story in the report is that, going back to 2016-17, they have failed to agree, and therefore things have not happened. That is quite staggering.
The report infers that the Scottish Government has failed to provide leadership to address and rectify the situation. There have been a few reheated attempts to set up various committees and bodies to co-ordinate things, all of which—according to the report that has been laid before the committee—seem, largely, to have failed. Why do you think that is, Auditor General?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much, Auditor General. We have a large number of questions, but before we go to them, I remind everyone that, to aid broadcasting, it would be helpful if members could direct their questions to a particular member of the team. I also say to Stephen Boyle that if someone on his team other than whoever has been invited to respond wishes to come in and add something to our evidence gathering, they should put an R in the chat function. We will pick that up and bring them in.
Sharon Dowey has a number of questions.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
I think that there might be some problem with the cameras for Douglas Black and Gordon Smail—[Interruption.] I now see Gordon—please join us.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
I am sure that we will consider that. I will bring Willie Coffey in before we begin the last lap of our evidence.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
We have a couple more questions that we wish to ask. I will bring in Craig Hoy in a minute.
First, one of the other substantive areas of the report concerns data sharing. One of the threads that seems to run through the report is a lack of consensus between the two agencies, with a lack of agreement on timescales, measures of success and so on. There also appears to be an inordinate delay in getting a data-sharing agreement into place that addresses the task at hand around skills alignment.
I want to understand why there was such a delay in getting the data-sharing agreement in place. It seems to me that data is fundamental to the planning of future demand in the labour market, given the skills that we are going to need in five years’ time, 10 years’ time and so on. That data and that evidence are absolutely critical. Why did it take so long to get to the point that we have got to? Even now, is that data-sharing agreement fit for purpose? Will it address the challenge that we face?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
That was the final question. I thank the Auditor General and his team—Gordon Smail, Douglas Black and Rebecca Seidel—for joining us.
We will have a changeover of witnesses, so I suspend the meeting.
10:28 Meeting suspended.10:29 On resuming—
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
We want to explore a couple of other areas before we finish this evidence-taking session. I was struck by the following heading in the report:
“Staff capacity constraints within the SFC created tensions between the agencies”,
and I note that those constraints in the Funding Council were highlighted to the skills alignment joint programme board in February 2020. Who is represented on the board, and was any action taken at the time? What is your view of a situation in which there is an atmosphere of tension between two agencies, both of which are supposed to be serving the public interest?
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Craig Hoy has a number of questions.
Public Audit Committee
“Planning for skills”
Meeting date: 10 February 2022
Richard Leonard
Willie Coffey, who is joining us via videolink, has a number of questions about the report.
