Chamber and committees

I have a final, follow-up question. The points about generalism versus specialism that we discussed interest me. Is there a question about how you bring about generalism? Rather than people starting their career off in that way, do they instead need a grounding and a specialism before they broaden out into a generalism? Is it an issue if the civil service tries to create generalists from the moment that they arrive in the civil service?

One of the typical reactions that you get when you are trying to implement a consistent methodology across an organisation is, “Well, that all makes an awful lot of sense, but our area is special so we don’t need to follow it.” We see quite often in the public sector that public bodies will try to get around that by presenting their findings or thoughts publicly in line with the methodology while, behind the scenes, they carry on doing what they were doing. To what extent has that been apparent? How much has the approach driven fundamental change in practice, and how much is it simply about presentation of existing practice? How much resistance has there been to that approach, overall?

Thank you very much. That is very helpful. I will hand over, at that point.

I will move on, thematically. We embarked on our inquiry into Government decision making in a very broad sense by thinking as much about how the Government makes decisions on managing changing day-to-day circumstances as about policy making, which is about what Government wants to do in the future.

It is interesting that when we speak to politicians and officials, they naturally talk only about policy; only when they are prompted or prodded do they talk about delivery. I wonder whether there are comparable approaches to looking at how, once a policy is set, it is implemented and then managed in the steady state. Those things are often as important, if not more important, than up-front initial analysis and policy for the future.

That is interesting. One of the things that probably strikes most of us as interesting is the move by the New Zealand Cabinet to publish all of its Cabinet and Cabinet sub-committee papers in public within 30 days. That is quite a striking contrast with how things are done in Scotland and Westminster, where there are 30-year rules and things do not emerge until decades after the discussion. To what extent has that made a difference?

We have also seen that when transparency measures are brought in, the Administration and ministers essentially do everything that they can to avoid channels on which they might be recorded. It is the rise of government via WhatsApp. Have transparency measures improved things, or have things been pushed into the shadows?

I will come back to Ben Thurman, because I would like to put the question to him in a particular way. First, I ask Mark Taylor whether he has anything to add to that or any insights from his work at Audit Scotland.

I have one final question. Consistency in approach is one thing that needs to be examined. You have all discussed challenge, but I wonder whether it is being conceived of and captured in the right way. In our discussions with officials, it struck me that, when we asked them about it, they pointed towards the use of external people on programme boards. That sounded to me very much like challenge at a policy level rather than necessarily challenge at the level of granular assumptions.

That is certainly the case in comparison with my experience of the commercial world, where you build in challenge at that more granular level in order to ensure that the assumptions are correct, because, ultimately, that is what ensures that you have a robust business case. Is that a fair reflection? Is that backed up by your experience of looking at those situations in detail?

Thank you very much. I had better leave it there.

I will come back to that issue, but I am interested in hearing from James Black. Does the Government have sufficient clarity on its categories of decision making?

I think that my line of questioning will touch on some of the issues that the convener has already mentioned. Broadly, based on the conversation that we have been having to date, I have questions around how people in Government understand the categories of decisions, how consistently those are approached and whether there are consistent methodologies.

On that first point, it struck me that, when we are asking people in Government—be they former ministers or officials—about how they understand decisions, they almost automatically and exclusively talk about policy. If pushed, they might start talking about financial decision making, and, if really pushed, they will start talking about delivery. I think that the focus is very much in that order, and what they are not volunteering at all, which is quite striking given recent events, is anything around commercial decision making.

Does that chime with your understanding of the focus, and do you think that there needs to be a recalibration of the different types? Are they the right categories, or are there others that we should be asking about? I ask Mark Taylor to respond first, because the question feels quite Audit Scotland-y.