Colin Beattie, do you want to come in on the issue of social security fraud, or has that been covered already?

The second item on our agenda is an evidence session with representatives of the National Records of Scotland. The session follows a section 22 report that the committee considered at its meeting on 9 December 2021 with the Auditor General for Scotland and a team from Audit Scotland.

I am pleased to say that we are joined by Paul Lowe, who is the registrar general for Scotland and keeper of the records of Scotland. Also from the National Records of Scotland are Linda Sinclair, who is the director of corporate services and accountable officer; Anne Slater, who is the director of operations and customer services; and Peter Whitehouse, who is the director of statistical services.

I mentioned that Linda Sinclair is the accountable officer, but I invite Paul Lowe to give us some opening remarks before the committee asks questions.

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the second meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take agenda items 4 and 5 in private. I assume that all members agree to do so, unless any member indicates otherwise. Does any member object to taking agenda items 4 and 5 in private?

I see no objections, so that is agreed.

Thank you very much, Paul. If you want members of your team to field any of the questions, please let us know who the appropriate person is. If members of your team want to come in, they should type R in the chat function to make sure that I call them.

I will give a bit of context to this morning’s session. A section 22 report by Audit Scotland is quite a serious matter; it happens when alarm bells have been or still are ringing. This morning, we want to probe a little into the journey that you have been on and to consider how things look over the next few weeks because, as you said, the census has still to be delivered.

I will start by reflecting on the second paragraph of the Audit Scotland report, which contains this note from the Auditor General:

“I have prepared this report to draw the Scottish Parliament’s attention to the challenges facing NRS in the delivery of the census programme. This includes the significant impact the decision to delay the census until March 2022 has had on NRS’s costs. There are also ongoing risks to delivery of the programme, including resourcing and financial pressures, which NRS will need to continue to manage so that the census can be delivered successfully in line with the revised budget and timetable.”

Committee members will return to those themes over the next hour.

I want to reflect on the evidence session that we had with the Auditor General on 9 December 2021. You might have seen that one of the issues that were brought to our attention was that an options appraisal report led you, through evidence, I presume, to the decision—or the recommendation to ministers for their decision—to postpone the census for a year. That was a very big decision to make. We asked the Audit Scotland representatives whether they had had sight of the options appraisal report. They might have had sight of it, but they were not in a position to offer it to us. Would it be possible for the committee to see the full options appraisal report?

I am sorry to interrupt, but I want to check something. We were told in the evidence session with Audit Scotland that you were now planning to access some of those data sharing sources. Are you saying that you have not done that or that you have no legal basis for doing it, and that it is not happening?

Thank you for clearing that up.

I must ask you to try to keep your answers a little briefer. I suspect that you will be able to do that in the forthcoming sections. Again, please feel free to bring in members of your team if you think that they can add useful evidence to the gathering of information that we are embarked on.

I invite Craig Hoy to ask a number of questions.

Mr Lowe has frozen. I do not know whether we are able to—

Yes, that is helpful. Nevertheless, I go back to the fact of the matter, which is that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the census went ahead in March 2021 and, as I read it, there was a 97 per cent participation rate. You made the point that Scotland had a different status at various points in the month of March 2021. That is clearly a factor but, notwithstanding that, we have been told that one reason why the ONS and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency were able to go ahead was that they had access to other sources of administrative data, which I presume would be there for them to rely on to add texture to the returns from census day. Can you explain why NRS did not have access to those same sources of administrative data?

We will return to the issue of the digital dimension, which Mr Lowe raised in his answers to Craig Hoy’s questions. I will come to Willie Coffey to ask questions on that. However, before that, I will bring in Colin Beattie to continue on the theme of the financial implications of the delay to the census.

Thank you, Sharon.

I conclude the session by thanking the witnesses—Paul Lowe, Linda Sinclair, Peter Whitehouse and Anne Slater—for joining us. I do not think that we heard from Anne Slater, but she has been on hand to give evidence.

Reflecting on what Paul Lowe said at the beginning, we understand that NRS is not the Office for National Statistics, but it is the body that is charged with delivering the census in Scotland. We are concerned about the efficiency and effectiveness of that process. It is exactly two months to the day until census day on 20 March, and the committee may well invite the witnesses back after the census later in the year—it will be for the committee to decide that—to reflect on how it went and any broader lessons that can be learned, as well as to consider the future.

Paul Lowe said that 10 years is a long time. I am not sure whether the next census will be in 10 years’ time or nine years’ time. We have not touched on that question, but I am sure that we can return to it.

I reiterate that we welcome your commitment to give us a copy of the options appraisal. If any other aspects of the evidence that you have given this morning would be supported well by any written submissions, the committee would welcome that. Thank you for your time and your willingness to answer the questions that we have put.

I suspend the meeting while we change witnesses.