 To the eighth meeting of the Public Audit Committee in this session of Parliament, before I begin, can I remind witnesses, staff and members present that if you are moving around the room, if you are entering or leaving the room, please wear a face covering and please respect social distancing rules as well. The first business item that we need to consider is if we agree to take agenda items 4, 5 and 6 in private session. Are we all agreed on that? Thank you very much. The principal business of the first half of our evidence sessions this morning is consideration of a section 22 report on the 2020-21 audit of the Crofting Commission, which was published on 13 October. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting this morning. I am delighted to welcome the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle. We have also got joining us remotely in this session Graham Greenhill, who is a senior manager of performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland. Also joining us remotely, I am pleased to say, is Pat Kenney from Deloitte, who worked on audit and assurance, particularly in reference to the audit of the Crofting Commission. I ask Auditor General if you would like to make an opening statement before we proceed into a round of questions that we have. Thank you. Many thanks, convener. Good morning, committee. I am presenting this report on the 2021 audit of the Crofting Commission under section 22 of the Public Finance and Accountability Scotland Act 2000. Crofting is a system of land holding unique to Scotland as an integral part of life in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The commission was established in April 2012 as a non-departmental public body with the principal functions of regulating crofting, promoting the interests of crofting and keeping under review related matters. It consists of a board of six elected commissioners and three commissioners appointed by the Scottish ministers led by a convener. As a non-departmental public body, the relationship between the board, the senior management team and the Scottish Government sponsored division has a key role in contributing to the effectiveness of the commission's governance arrangements. A previous review of the commission's governance in 2016 highlighted concerns. Thereafter, an almost entirely new board took office in 2017, including six newly elected commissioners, and membership of the board has stayed constant in the following four years. The external auditor's work by Deloitte this year has identified that there has been a breakdown in trust between the board and its senior management team. With the board formally writing to the cabinet secretary expressing a lack of confidence in the commission's chief executive, the auditor's also highlighted a lack involvement of the board and its audit and finance committee in the setting of the commission's budget. Serious governance deficiencies were identified, including the excessive involvement of the board and the former convener in operational decision making, normally the responsibility of the senior management team. In addition, I have reported on concerns about the leadership of the former convener. At the core of those issues, convener, is a failure to respect established boundaries between the respective roles of the chief executive, the convener and the board. This transgression, when combined with a breakdown of trust between the various parties, means that the leadership and governance of the commission is currently falling below the standards expected of a public body in Scotland. There is a pressing need to rebuild trust between the chief executive and the board and to ensure that the boundaries between both roles are understood and respected. The Scottish Government has a key role in supporting the commission so that it is operating properly. The commission has now drawn up an improvement plan in response to the auditor's recommendations. It will be vitally important that the senior management team takes ownership of the improvement plan and works with the sponsor division to ensure that it is delivered. The board must provide appropriate support and challenge to ensure that the necessary improvements that are set out in the plan are achieved. As you mentioned, I am joined by Graham Greenehill from Audit Scotland and Pat Kenney from Deloitte. Pat is the engagement lead and the external auditor of the Croft and Commission. As ever, we will do our best to answer the committee's questions this morning. Thank you, Auditor General. To Pat Kenney and to Graham Greenehill, if you want to come in at any point and use the chat function and put an R in there, we will bring you in. I am quite sure that Auditor General will prompt you to come in as well. There are some fairly serious conclusions reached in this report. It is very hard-hitting and very critical of the way that the Croft and Commission has been run and governed. The report points to significant weaknesses in the commission's leadership and governance arrangements. I am bound to ask what has the accountable officer in the Croft and Commission been up to? I am happy to start on that, convener. I am sure that Pat will also want to say a few words given his interaction with the chief executive as the accountable officer. I think that that is an important point to start. The accountable officer is the chief executive and accountable to the board and to the Parliament. The issues that are identified in the report are significant and talk about, in particular, the breakdown of trust and the lack of confidence between the board and the chief executive, which culminated most unusually in seeing a letter being sent by the board to the cabinet secretary expressing its lack of confidence. There is a complexity in the organisation that it is worth mentioning, convener, in that the Croft and Commission is a non-departmental public body. There are around 40 of those in Scotland. They do not all have the same governance framework in the way that they operate the all-fulfill unique functions. What is different in the organisation, though, is that the chief executive is appointed by the minister, as opposed to the board of the Croft and Commission, and hence the decision that the board of the commission took to engage directly with the cabinet secretary. Nonetheless, as we set out in the report, the commission felt that they were unable to take the steps that they felt necessary to take in respect of what they identify as weaknesses in the leadership of the chief executive. I will pause, convener, because I suspect that Pat will want to say a bit more about the work and interaction that he has had directly with the chief executive. Yes, thanks, Auditor General, and good morning, everyone. Just a couple of important facts to outline for the committee. The vote of no confidence in the chief executive by the board has now been withdrawn, and our understanding is that the senior management team within the organisation has expressed their full confidence in the chief executive. Fundamentally, where the issues have arisen with the chief executive goes to all the main players in the governance structure. The responsibilities were blurred, and the board and the chief executive were getting involved in matters that they should not ordinarily be involved in. For example, we found that the chief executive was much more involved in issues such as setting the budget, the medium-term, the financial plan and the workforce plan. Those sorts of things would normally be done by the senior management team within a public body. That was the problem that we identified with the chief executive. It was not really the skills, the competencies, it was more the blurring of the roles and the responsibilities within the organisation. Okay, thank you. We are going to explore the dynamics of that interaction between the Scottish Government, the sponsoring division, the executive, including the accountable officer and the senior team, and the board. The board, as I understand it, is a hybrid. Three members of the commission are appointed by the Scottish Government, and six are elected. Is that correct? Presumably, there are different lines of accountability there, even within the commission itself. You are correct in your description, convener. This is a mixture of an appointed and an elected board. It is an important point that perhaps informed some of the behaviours that took place around the accountability and the blurring. When a member becomes a member of a public body in Scotland, they are governed by codes of conduct and so forth. In that context, whether there was a lack of clarity about who was responsible for which aspects of governance, there is almost a dual dynamic going on between those elected commissioners to their constituents, if you will, as well as to the overall governance of the Crofting Commission, and some of that will be irresponsible for what is unfolded in the organisation in recent times. Okay, thanks. I am going to move on to other members of the committee who have got a whole suite of questions to ask, but I guess just on that final answer around those people who are there to represent Crofting Communities directly on the commission. Do you get any sense, and maybe Pat Kenny can answer this, or Graham Greenehill as well, but I will put it to you, first of all, Auditor General. Do you get any sense about the extent to which the issues raised in the report have had an effect on the key services that the commission provides to those Crofting Communities? In the annex, or appendix 1 to the section 22 report, we set out the performance of the Crofting Commission in recent times. Unfortunately, many of its performance indicators for the year are that many of those were not met during the course of the financial year. I will ask Pat to come in a moment to say a bit more about that if he wishes. However, the conclusion that we have reached is that the disruptive nature of Covid was more a consequence of the performance indicator outcome that we have seen as opposed to governance. It is hard not, at the same point, to reach a conclusion that all of the governance issues in the organisation will not have helped to deliver the type of performance that Crofters in Scotland would have expected from its Crofting Commission. Again, convener, I will ask Pat to say a word or two more. Yes, thanks Auditor General. I would totally concur with those comments. We did not find a direct correlation between the governance issues identified in the report and the key performance indicators. However, there is absolutely no doubt that the organisation given the issues that we identified in governance, given the blurring of roles and responsibilities, the absolute consequence of that is that the organisation, by definition, could not have been as high performing as it possibly could have been. That is why it is so important that the issues that we have identified are resolved as quickly as possible. I will bring in Craig Hoyer, who has some questions that developed the line of inquiry. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Mr Boyle. You, in part, answered the first question that I was going to ask. I will elaborate on that a little bit. Paragraph 12 of page 5 of the report states that the commission does not have an overriding code of corporate governance or the equivalent. To what extent do you believe that the lack of a code of corporate governance has contributed to the issues that have been identified in the report? Or are there any other issues that you think have been contributing factors? I think that there are a range of factors that have contributed to the circumstances that we are discussing this morning. However, in terms of the specifics about the overarching documentation and the framework, the absence of a code of governance framework, undoubtedly those are also components of ambiguity about roles and responsibilities and one of the main factors that we identify in the report is the blurring of lines of responsibility. In circumstances in which organisations find themselves and where there is a blurring of responsibility between the executive, the board and the sponsoring team, it is often in the documentation that sets out clarity as to who is responsible for which actions. We are pleased, in part, to update the committee that progress is now being made to develop an updated code of governance in more detail in the framework agreement. Had those been in place prior to the report and the subsequent improvement plan, it would undoubtedly have helped to provide clarity, especially as we have talked about already. Mr Hoy, the nature of the board has been comprised of both elected and appointed members. All those circumstances would have helped. You mentioned that, obviously, the vote of no confidence has been withdrawn since the original issue came to light. The report refers to the letter that was sent to the then convener to the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Tourism and notes that subsequent meetings have taken place between the board, the chief executive and the current cabinet secretary. Have you been made aware of the nature and the content of those meetings? Could you update us on what may have occurred there? I will ask Pat to come in and say a bit more about what we understand. Other than the conclusion that we have heard of since we published our report that the vote of no confidence has been withdrawn, I am not partied to the detail of the specifics of the discussion. It is worth emphasising, as we note in the report, that the letter of no confidence from the commission was sent to the minister. There was not a formal response to that letter, albeit that there were discussions that subsequently took place, as you know, between the Government, the commission and the members. If I may, I will ask Pat to say a bit more about partied to any of the specifics. My understanding is that the interaction between the commission and the sponsor division has improved dramatically since the report was issued. In terms of the convener having an invitation, I stand invite to attend meetings with the sponsor division. Every board meeting, there is a standing item in terms of feedback in terms of the previous meeting with the sponsor division. There is a definite improvement since the report has been issued. I will go back to the first part of the question. A major contributory factor to the governance issues was the process for the appointment and monitoring of the chief executive. That is a function of the Scottish Government, where you would normally expect that to be a board appointment in most other public bodies. I also think that there was an issue with openness and transparency in the organisation that led to the governance issues. That resulted in some of the key players in the organisation feeling that they did not have the information that they needed. They went out with their usual boundaries to try and get that information, which again led to some of the blurring of the roles and responsibilities. That was a definite openness and transparency and was a definite contributory factor to the issues that we identified in governance. I can summarise some of what has been said so far. The report was published by Audit Scotland on 13 October. We are here meeting on 4 November, 22 days later, and all of these things have been addressed and rectified. It seems to be the message that is coming through for Mr Kenny. Is that correct? I think that that is part of the story, convener. You are right. We published the section 22 report in October. Pat and his colleagues, though, as the external auditors, have regular engagement by producing an annual audit report, which sets out their findings from the audit, and which I used to draw to inform my own section 22 reporting. I would not characterise it as our report landed in October, and that led to a whole series of actions. I think that it is a fair assessment that the audit work that has publicly surfaced issues in the Crofting Commission through Pat and his team, which have been the catalyst for some of the improvement plans and quite a detailed improvement plan. I acknowledge that the commission has instigated, but many of the steps that are in that plan are very fresh, so they have not been formally tested yet. I think that that will be an important part of the work that Pat and his team and, supported by myself and Graham, will continue to monitor progress and report further next year, if necessary. I am sure that we will return to some of those scenes. Willie Coffey has a particular razor-like focus on one area of the report that caused rail alarm among us as a committee. Mr Coffey, Willie. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. Steven, I wanted to talk about the commission's budget, and your report makes quite clear some concerns relating to the development of the budget. The report says that there was a lack of involvement of the board and wider stakeholders in setting the budget in the United States. The draft budget had been developed without prior board or audit finance committee involvement. There was also minimal involvement of the senior management team beyond the chief executive and the head of finance committee. Could you tell us a wee bit about what happened here? Firstly, who developed the budget then? Could you take us through the process of whether it was in fact approved and is it still in place? We absolutely share the concerns, Mr Coffey, that are described in that paragraph of the report. If I may, I will ask Pat to describe the detail of the circumstances. However, what we are describing here is not normal effective governance arrangements. A budget for a public body ought to be developed as a consultative event between led by the executive. Yes, but clearly the role for governance steps throughout the process up to and full consideration by the board in advance of the new financial year. Typically, this would start in the summer months discussion between the executive team through to engagement with committees. The Audit and Finance Committee clearly would have a strong role, an iterative process, getting feedback before striking on a final budget, typically in January, February, before the start of the new financial year in April. It is very serious issues that did not happen in the Crofting Commission. I will ask Pat to comment, just to describe the work that he and his team found in what went wrong in the Crofting Commission. Thanks, Auditor General. Really not that much to add to that. Stevens outlined the principles that we would expect to apply for how a public body sets its budget to deliver the best outcomes, and that clearly was not happening. There were fundamental weaknesses in how the budget was constructed. One of the issues that I referred to earlier is that we found that the chief executive was far more involved in the setting of that budget than we would normally expect. That would normally be a function of the senior management team, the finance individual leading that budget preparation. It is something fundamental that the organisation understands that it has to improve on going forward. Who approved this budget, then, after the little involvement by most of the principal players that should have been part of the process? Who approved it? Pat, do you know? The budget was approved by the board. Mr Greenhill wants to come in as well, so I will invite Graham Greenhill to comment on this. Thank you, convener. The Crofting Commission has developed an implementation plan in response to Pat's audit work. One of the actions in that implementation plan is to formalise the budget's second process and who should be involved when in the approval of that budget. It is an area where the commission is taking action. Of course, as Stephen mentioned earlier, the auditor will be looking at the implementation of the recommendations as part of the on-going work. It is important to probe further about why what happened there. You must surely have asked when you were doing the audit what on earth they were doing by proceeding in such a manner that breaks all the guidance that is known to us and known to this committee for many years with organisations. What explanation was offered to you for proceeding in that manner? I totally agree with the committee's concerns on this. It was a fundamental weakness in the governance process. It comes back to the blurring of roles and responsibilities, the individuals not doing the functions and the roles that you would expect to happen in a well-run public body. That blurring of responsibilities is the key factor behind that. Ultimately, convener, we had a budget that the board approved that they had no part in developing neither of the Audit and Finance Committee, but yet they all collectively just decided to approve it ultimately and presumably they are running with that budget, convener. How are we getting on? Is that budget working? Is it in place or is the organisation in trouble? Where are we at the moment in terms of your understanding of it, Pat? We have not detected any problems in the current year in terms of how they are running with the budget and performance. There has never been any issues identified in terms of short-term financial sustainability. We have made points on medium-term financial planning, longer-term financial planning, but historically there has never been issues in terms of that short-term financial balance or keeping within the budget on an annual basis. As you noted a minute or so ago, have they recognised that those are serious and major issues and have they accepted that this is really not the way to help a budget? They have, Mr Coffey. Okay. Thanks, Mr Coffey. Again, we note the comments that have been made on on the way that the budget was put together by the commission last time round and we shall look with interest how the next year's commission budget is put together. One of the themes that again exercises quite considerably and that we want to probe into more is the relationship between the commission and the sponsoring division within the Scottish Government, because somewhere in the report it says that over the course of the last year or during the year that relationship has been deteriorating significantly, is the quotation. I wonder, Auditor General, whether you could begin by expanding on that and putting some flesh on the bones of that, please. I am happy to do so, convener. The Scottish Government has a very clear and important role. I appreciate that this is not new information for the committee in terms of how sponsoring arrangements work across Scottish public bodies and there is a very clear feature of auditing and discussion that the predecessor committee had in its work in session 5. The role of the Scottish Government in particular when we are talking about very small bodies like the Crofting Commission is particularly important so that it sets a context that they can track and monitor progress on how the organisation is performing, that they can really ministerial feedback, instructions and so forth. That is a two-way dialogue of both support and progress monitoring. Unfortunately, it was not working as intended within the Crofting Commission and we describe in the report, as a phrase we have used a few times already, a blurring, a lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities between the executive team, the board and the sponsor team. What we found was that the dynamic, instead of being between the sponsor team and the convener, as typically takes place in public bodies, that the convener or the chair of the board tends to have the most direct relationship with the sponsor team. It was, in fact, the chief executive, whose relationship was on a more direct basis with the sponsor team. As we mentioned already, convener, that may be as a consequence of some of the appointment nature of the chief executive in this organisation in that he is appointed by the Scottish Government, as opposed to the Crofting Commission. However, the phrase that we use in the report is that the relationship of consequence was between the chief executive and the sponsor team, as opposed to having a much wider engagement. I may be ending by saying, convener, that it is positive to note in the improvement plan that the engagement of the sponsor team with the commission has been formalised, that now appears as a standing item on the board's agenda. However, those are relatively new events, and it is probably not possible at this stage to draw any conclusion as to whether that represents a reset or improvement in the relationship that we have described in the report. How confident are you that those new arrangements will allow any issues to be spotted and addressed at an early stage, without the need for another section 22 report by Audit Scotland? It is too early to give definitive assurance on that. We, through the work of Deloitte and the annual audit, will have to take a view as to how that is progressing. During the course of this financial year, Pat will set out his conclusions in his annual audit report following the 21-22 audit. On the face of that report, he would expect that the board, the commission's board, would be aware of the interactions that are happening with the sponsor team outside of the board meeting. The sponsor team has an opportunity to attend board meetings in an observer capacity, and those are not untypical arrangements. However, the important thing is that sometimes the effectiveness of relationships are not always bound up in processes and structures that they will be evaluated, and it will be people who are applying those relationships, so it is probably too early to tell them, but we will continue to monitor and report. Did your team have a look at the communications between the sponsor division and the commission, including the commission and the board? To understand what that relationship looks like, were you able to amass any evidence that pointed to some or lack of relationships that rang any alarm bells with you and Mr Kenny as the auditor? I will pass to Pat in a second or two, but in the report, convener, we talk about the example of structures as were in part manifested that those discussions were very prominently between the chief executive and the sponsor team. That feels in the wrong place. Those type of discussions about how the organisation is being run would have been better served to happen between the board and the chief executive. Dialogue or information passing to the Scottish Government sponsor team as appropriate rather than a conversation between the chief executive and the sponsor team. However, it is probably reflective of the breakdown of relationships between the three parties that we set out in the report. I think that Pat will want to describe that in a little bit more in any other examples that he and Deloitte saw. I think that it would be fair to say that we saw some very unusual interactions between the body and the sponsor division. For example, the report identifies the chief executive interaction with the sponsor division in terms of trying to get through a change to the senior management structure within the commission, which we found was a very unusual exercise. The reason for that is that our understanding was that the chief executive expected board resistance to the changes that were being proposed to the senior management team. There are definite examples of some very unusual interactions that we would not see at any other public body. I think that that is just symptomatic of the blurring of roles and responsibilities. The issue that was raised previously is that the chief executive is appointed and monitored by the Government rather than the usual position of a board appointment. I think that all of these were contributory factors. The committee in session 5 raised concerns about the adequacy of sponsorship arrangements between Scottish Government and public bodies, especially MPDs. Those arrangements are set out fairly clearly and are not in the Scottish Public Finance Manual. Accountable officers in organisations, as well as board members in those organisations, receive some training or led to some understanding of their roles and responsibilities and what those sponsorship arrangements should look like. I mean, again, Alas Stephen Boyle, what is your sense of that and the extent to which that has happened or is happening now? You are quite right, convener. There is no shortage of guidance to how the sponsoring arrangement should operate and how it ought to operate effectively. You mentioned the Scottish Public Finance Manual as being a primary source. As we mentioned at paragraph 11 of our report, we also referred to on-board guidance, the guide for members of statutory boards, code of conduct for devolved boards and Audit Scotland reporting in recent years, not to mention the work of the predecessor committee and all of the need to improve sponsorship arrangements across public bodies. None of that ought to have come to as any surprise to public bodies how this relationship ought to work to best effect. I am somewhat disappointed, convener, that we know that the Scottish Government has been providing training, reviewing its arrangements for sponsorship arrangements across the piece. To have an example as acute as this set out in the report needs further consideration by the Government and the resetting of relationship around who is responsible for delivering the respective roles between the executive, the board and the Government. I think that Mr Beattie has a series of questions that further probe into these areas of governance and different areas of responsibility, so Colin. Thank you, convener. Our general, before I ask any specific questions, here we are again with the NDPB, which is in trouble. We have had a whole series of those over a number of years, and it all seems to rotate around much the same issues, the big one being governance, but also we have had problems with budgeting, technology, all sorts of things, and it just keeps coming up time and time again. Do we have a fundamental problem about the way that NDPBs are run, monitored? Is the system broken? Should we be looking at something totally different? There have been far too many examples of further breakdown in governance, leadership, deficiencies and sponsorship arrangements, and I can understand why that conclusion would be reached. Mr Beattie, there is a more fundamental problem. If there is any mitigation, I would say that the examples of those significant aren't representative necessarily of all of the sponsorship and the effectiveness of how NDPBs are run. There are over 40 NDPBs in Scotland, and only a very small fraction of those are subject to section 22 reports or deficiencies, but one is too many. The fact that those are being repeated in isolation year after year points to the need for a considerable review of the effectiveness of the relationships. We know that the Government is undertaking work in this area, but the significance of those issues suggests that there is more urgency required. I can remember at least half a dozen without even thinking. As a percentage, I don't think that that's a small percentage. If it's 40 odd, it's certainly 10 per cent or more. I would say that that's significant. The question is, has it been recognised by the Government that they are actually taking steps to do something about it? There's no indication based on this report. How do we take this forward? How do we emphasise this? Is it something that we should be doing some particular investigations on? Is it something that we should really be focused on in driving forward? There does seem to be a real issue here. I absolutely recognise that this is an important issue that needs to be resolved. You asked whether the Government recognises and are taking steps. They are taking steps, so we know that they have reviewed and changed how they induct and how they support boards for NDPBs. We also know that they are undertaking a review of sponsorship arrangements. Currently, the test will be how effective those are, the steps that they are taking, whether they actually work. The work that is happening all feels relatively new, and I would accept the challenge that you make. There have been too many issues in terms of the adequacy of sponsorship arrangements across NDPBs in Scotland. It may be that this is an area that the committee wishes to explore directly with Government, because with the variety of issues that we have seen, there is undoubtedly concern and there is a problem. The biggest problem that I see has been governance. What we typically have is a small organisation operating out there semi-autonomously. The organisation turns in on itself and becomes a little knit and circle that gets out of control. The question is how that can be dealt with, because they are semi-autonomous. What should the Government do to bring them back in and retain that level of autonomy that, for example, the Crofters Commission needs to carry out its job or that the NDPB needs to carry out its job, while at the same time making sure that they have the support and the overview that is necessary? Ultimately, it will be for Government to determine how it wishes to apply its sponsorship arrangements. The fact is, as the convener mentioned, that there is no shortage of guidance as to how the structure and framework ought to operate effectively. You mean to look first to see what they are? Quite. How it chooses to enforce or apply the training and iteration of it. As we have seen in the Crofting Commission and some of the small public bodies, I appreciate that the committee has previously explored the extent of involvement of the sponsor team in public bodies. That is a question of balance. In some cases, we have seen far too much involvement and in other examples, not enough. That rightly has to be iterative. I think that it is important that the Government and public bodies listen, take stock and review the governance arrangements. The point is that it is not in times of relatively plain sailing for organisations. Is that stress testing? If it is a time of a pandemic or behaviours of a chair or the chief executive's relationship breaks down with the board, how would the board respond to it? Those are not imagined scenarios. Those are scenarios that we have seen across public bodies and it may be a bit more rigor in some of the stress testing to say, how would the organisation perform? Would a sponsorship arrangement stand up to some of those risk scenarios? All of those things may be a route forward, but ultimately it is for the Government to determine how it will take that forward. Can I put you a little bit on the spot? You have obviously recognised the issues. You see the problems that repeatedly arise. What communications have you had with the Scottish Government other than through those section 22 reports? What relationship have you got with the Government, what communications have you had with the Government putting forward your concerns and getting them to understand and take that on board and take action? I will speak specifically, and then perhaps on more generally. Specifically, the Government has seen this report and has, as we have looked to do for factual accuracy, for all organisations that are represented. The report is cleared and it reflects Government's understanding and feedback on the report. The committee will have heard in previous sessions that Audit Scotland has engaged with the Scottish Government on sponsorship arrangements. We are part of training induction sessions for non-executive directors about the role of public audit and how accountability works in Scotland. I also interact with the Scottish Government's executive team on matters coming out of public audit work and that sponsorship is a theme as part of those discussions. The Government is not—I should say that it is a senior civil service—unsighted on those issues. As I have mentioned, it is undertaking a review of those arrangements. The question that I am left with is whether there is an opportunity for a more fundamental audit of how sponsorship arrangements work in Scotland. That is one that I am considering as to how best to focus in and around individual organisations. Whether it is now time to refresh the work that Audit Scotland has undertaken in recent times about the role of boards and how that operates. I am happy to speak further about that, but it is probably at a time when we have refreshed our programme. I would certainly think that, after seeing so many failures, I would encourage you to consider having a look at the whole rather than the individual parts. Let me carry on with one or two questions. The report has raised concerns about the leadership of the former convener. Clearly, that person did not really recognise the distinction between their role and that of management. Do you think that the role of the convener now has been set out clearly enough and is understood by the current convener? I will ask Pat to come in, because he will be cited on the new convener and how that relationship is working. Given how recent some of those changes have been, again, it feels early days to offer that level of assurance. We would say as a positive what we have seen in the improvement plan that that feels reasonable and credible, but perhaps not enough to say that that relationship is currently operating as effectively. In terms of what went before, if I may, I will ask Pat just to describe what we saw during the course of our audit work. In terms of the new convener, I agree with the Auditor General. It is far too early to draw any conclusions on that. Across the board, the organisation still has a significant way to go. As we have mentioned, we will monitor that as part of our on-going audit work. The issues with the previous convener are really related to, again, a blurring of those roles and responsibilities, far too much involvement in operational matters, involvement in issues such as gradings of junior members of staff and things like that. Those issues were documented in our Deloitte report earlier in the year, but it is far too early to draw any conclusions on how well the new convener is operating at this time. The confusion of roles with the previous convener. Would you say that the role of convener should have been clear to that person? Was it actually laid out in such a way that there should not have been any ambiguity in terms of the issues that were listed in the report? The report states that the former convener retained the confidence of the board. Despite all the issues around his leadership, such as failing to appropriately chair board meetings and arranging private decision-making meetings and so forth, which raises the question that was briefly touched on earlier. Were the board members actually offered and attended the training that is usually made available for board members? That would have equipped them to challenge some of the decisions and so forth, or the actions taken by the convener. I will ask Pat again just to come in on what we know about the training activity that took place with the board members. It is worth stressing before I do that that that was the very clear feedback that Deloitte and Audit Scotland received during the clearance process for this report that the board was supportive of the former convener. Hearing that, but also as we sit out in the report, the circumstances that you mentioned about chairing meetings, the private decision-making that was taken place and the annual appraisals, which is an important part of the governance framework between the chair and board members, weren't routinely happening, all feels at odds with good governance and effective governance arrangements and the leadership of the former chair. I will ask Pat again just to see whether the training arrangements were effectively in place and what we have seen if he is able to speak to that. I will also ask Pat to touch on whether the board members would have been made aware, even if they did not attend, that the training arrangements were in place and that they should be attending? We did identify an issue that there was a lack of training. That was definitely an issue in terms of board members. Whether the board members were aware of the training that they could potentially get—I am not perfectly 100 per cent sure on that one, if I am honest—we did identify a deficiency in the training arrangements of the board. That would have been the responsibility of the convener to ensure that training took place. I will ask a little bit about sponsorship. The report states that the Scottish Government's sponsorship division appeared to view its relationship with consequence as being with the senior management team rather than the convener. You said earlier on that the sponsor team's relationship was with the CEO, which is slightly different. Maybe you could just clarify that. I guess that the point that I was trying to make and just for absolute clarity, Mr Beattie, is that the relationship of consequence ought to be between the Scottish Government's sponsor team and the convener or the chair of a board through to the wider board, as opposed to what the audit team found was that the relationship was primarily with the senior management team, but principally with the chief executive. Would it be correct to say that, given the relationship that the sponsor team had with the senior management team, that they attended meetings of the senior management team and or the board? In terms of the specifics of how that manifesto will be able to speak about the frequency of Scottish Government attendance at senior management team and board meetings, we thought and looked carefully at the role and presence of the Scottish Government's sponsor team at board meetings. In and of itself is not the wrong thing to happen, but it is the extent of involvement that is important. As we have seen through the new improvement plan, the sponsor team interaction with the executive team is now a standing item on board meetings. They have a presence at board meetings in an observer capacity. It is clarity as to what really matters as to what the sponsor team is there to do and how it will support the team. As to what went before, Pat will be able to speak about the specifics of that. I would concur again. Again, it was an unusual interaction in terms of the number of times the frequency that the sponsor division would attend, particularly board meetings. That was the issue that we identified. As the Auditor General mentioned, there could be very valid reasons for that, but we did feel that there was a potential risk again in that attendance in such a frequent manner would blur the overall roles and responsibilities of the key players and the governance mechanism. Again, when I compare the 30 odd public bodies that I look after, we again identified that as an unusual occurrence and not one that we would see at the other bodies that we audit. On a slightly different angle, the Audit Dimensions Invest Value report states that the commissioners were apparently unaware that the commission can employ staff in its own right rather than succumbing staff from the Scottish Government. Is that correct? If I may, I'll just ask Pat to answer that as the author of the report. Yes, that's correct. So how many of the commission staff, particularly at senior level, were succunded from the Scottish Government? To what extent do you believe that that succunment of employees led to blurring of the lines of the relationship between the commission's management team and the sponsorship function? I'll maybe start and ask Pat to say a bit more. I think that as a set-out in the Crofting Commission's accounts is that all of the employees are employed by the Scottish Government through the terms and conditions. As I mentioned earlier, there is a range of factors as to how that operates across NDPBs in Scotland. Some are employed directly by the body and some are employed by the Scottish Government. So we think that it is a factor, Mr Beattie, that there was a, and I think particularly, how the chief executive saw his relationship with the sponsored team as opposed to the board as a consequence of that set-up. It's not a sole factor, but that's the thing. It's not unique that there are other NDPBs where the employees are Scottish Government employees, so it's not an excuse, as it were, that the system cannot operate, but it undoubtedly supports the line of questioning that it was a blurring and a confusion in terms of lines of accountability and roles and responsibilities in that organisation. Can I just pick you up on something that you said there? You very carefully said that the staff working for the Crofting Commission were under Scottish Government terms and conditions. Is that the same as saying that they are employees of the Scottish Government that are seconded to the Crofting Commission? So I've not looked at the employment contracts, I should say, but in terms of the disclosures in the Crofting Commission's annual report and accounts, I must look at the specifics of the wording, if I may just take it right. Convent is one thing. Simply recruiting somebody under the same terms and conditions as the Scottish Government is another. Yeah, I agree, actually. So a secondment implies a different relationship as opposed to operating under Scottish Government terms and conditions, and I think it's the latter as opposed to saying that this is a secondee-type relationship. Although the chief executive would operate under Scottish Government terms and conditions, they had the designation as the Accountable Officer of the Crofting Commission, and that in itself is a formal process that results in a letter of an Accountable Officer status from the permanent secretary. As my understanding of that, there's no ambiguity about that point, but clearly that was a feature of the circumstances within the Crofting Commission. Could we have a clarification, whether it's actually a secondment or simply terms and conditions? I'll invite Pat, if he's able to support that clarification, if it's not something we can do right now. Mr B2 will certainly come back to the committee in writing. Apologies, I don't know if you picked that one up. I wasn't clear of my make. No, we didn't touch that. Yeah, my understanding is that it's terms and conditions. That makes a significant difference. Would even at that level it cause a blurring of relationships? I don't think so. It ought to be clear, regardless of whether you're employed on Scottish Government terms and conditions, if you are identified as working for the Crofting Commission or any other public body, where your accountability, what you're there to do, is to deliver the functions of that organisation. As I said, apologies for repeating myself, Mr B2. Especially at senior level, if you're designated as the accountable officer for an organisation, that's the purpose of your function, to deliver the aims and objectives of that organisation. However, in spite of all that, there has been a breakdown and a blurring of those roles and responsibilities in that context. Just one final question on the back of what we've been talking about. You've already indicated that for NDPBs it's not unusual for seconded staff from the Scottish Government, but based on what we're talking about, is it mostly on Scottish Government terms and conditions? You may not have an answer to that. Scottish Government terms and conditions, or is it actually staff being seconded from the Scottish Government? I think that I may need to come back to the committee in writing, and we can do so just to set out how that operates across Scotland's NDPBs. I know that there are a range of factors, and before I finish, I may invite Graham actually just to say if there's anything further that we can add on how that operates. There are examples where the NDPBs themselves are the employer. The terms and conditions vary in terms of appointment model, pension arrangements and so forth. There is no one single arrangement. Before I hand over to Graham, I would say that the second E model is more unusual. Even if it is Scottish Government terms and conditions, the person is there to fulfil the interim objectives of the organisation that they are working for. The relationship between the Scottish Government and that NDPB is changed if it is actual Scottish Government staff that are going in there and doing the position. At least it is in my mind, so clarification on that would be good. I'm happy to come back to writing, but I'll just invite Graham to see if there's anything more that we can add. Yeah, thanks Stephen. Just to chip in there, the section 22 report talks about a framework document that governs the relationship between the commission and the Scottish Government. Within the framework document, there is a reference to staff being provided by the government to the Crofting Commission, and it specifically says in that framework document that those staff provided to the commission from the government will retain the terms and conditions of Scottish Government staff. In other words, they keep their own pay and grade levels, pension arrangements and so forth. Okay, what about you gentlemen? Maybe you can give me or give the committee the clarification then you can. Happy to do so. Thanks very much indeed. I'm keen to move things on and I therefore want to bring Sharon Dowie in who's got a couple of questions to ask before I turn to Willie Coffey, who's got a further question. I've mentioned quite a lot about blurring of lines and whether people actually knew what their roles and their accountability were. In respect of the discussions on proposals for an expanded role in grazing, who expected that the chief executive would update board members that is necessary rather than the convener? Morning, Ms Dowie. You're right. We set out paragraph 14. I guess one of the other key breakdowns in effective governance during the course of the year at the Crofting Commission where this expanded role wasn't, I think, what we would say is follow expected governance patterns that, as a change of roles and responsibilities happens in an organisation, that should be subject to discussions and awareness to be by the board. Instead, what we have is a retrospective approval within the Crofting Commission, which feels unsatisfactory in terms of that body expanding its roles and responsibilities, but doing so without having the board had the opportunity to consider how best to do so, what that would mean for its organisation, its structure, its finances and so forth. As we understand it, the discussions took place between the Scottish Government and the chief executive rather than taking place before the change in legislation took place. Was there any reason given why the convener did not continue to attend the discussions? I'm not sure. I'll maybe turn to Pat Kenny to see if he can say a bit more. No, I'm not aware of the specific answer to that, but I'm happy to look into that one further. Nothing really to add to the Auditor General's remarks on that particular issue, thanks. You touched on your last answer there. The Crofting Commission was required to agree an expanded role in grazings in the national crofting development plan, retrospectively, as it did not have the opportunity to view and agree the final plan prior to the Scottish Government announcement. What impact, if any, did that have on the Crofting Commission? It's a serious issue. I think that's the thing that we tried to convey in the report, and I touched on it in my previous answer. With an expanded role, whether there were financial implications to staffing implications, what it meant for performance reporting, all of which ought to have been considered in advance so that, whether it's the commission's own arrangements or subsequent reporting through to government, that is known and understood. A last pact is to say a bit more about what that meant in terms of those factors and the financial implications of the monitoring arrangements, whether there are any staffing changes that would be required with it. The fundamental point that we look to make it is that this is a change to the organisation's business arrangements. In those circumstances, it's bored to have had the opportunity, as a collective of bored, not just through either the chief executive or the convener, to debate and consider what that meant for the delivery of its functions. The specifics, again, I'll turn to Pat if he can add anything further. Yes, the fundamental impact of that is the knock-on impact on the budgets, on the financial plan, on the workforce plan potentially. That potentially could have been serious implications because of that. It basically goes back to identifying a weakness in the cohesiveness of the organisation as a whole, and the board was not allowed to ask the questions and provide the scrutiny of that outcome and to understand the full implications for the organisation. That is the fundamental issue that we identified in the report. Willie, I do not know whether you had any further questions that you wanted to put, so it is an opportunity for you to do that. It is just to look forward and look ahead to your recommendations and so on. Stephen, we have been at this point before where we have had a report from you, and we think ahead to how this will be monitored and reviewed and so on. The audit report identifies seven recommendations with a financial aspect to them and 47 relating to governance issues. Who will do the follow-up and verification that this work is going to be done? Will it be Scotland, or will it be Deloitte or a mixture of both? How will the committee and the public be assured that the organisation is taking the recommendations on board and getting things done? Pat and his team at Deloitte will monitor the progress of the Crafting Commission implementation of the recommendations that he and his team made during the course of the annual audit. He will then be reporting during the current financial year 2021-22 on how that has progressed, and then that comes back to me, Mr Coffey, as to the opportunity to report publicly again on the progress that has been made. I will hesitate to be definitive in committing to a follow-up section 22 at this stage, but it is a very clear option for me to report to the committee and publicly on how that progress is being made. Thank you. Thanks, Willie. Craig Hoy has another question to put as well. I think that the former journalist in me just elated on perhaps the sound bite of the morning, which was Colin Beattie, who said that NDPBs have got the capacity to become little knitting circles that turn in on themselves. I am struggling a little bit to see whether or not we are saying that the deficiencies and the shortcomings of the Crafting Commission are based on personalities, culture or structure. However, one of the recommendations that comes through is for the commission to reconsider the structure of its senior management team, and I look to Exhibit 1, and it looks like a pretty traditional structure to me. To what extent do you think that that is necessary, and has the commission accepted that recommendation? If so, on what timescale would it be implementing that? I can say a bit more about the timescales and the commission's consideration of the recommendation. I recognise your description of that being quite a traditional management team structure and potentially say that it perhaps has not kept pace with some of the changes in structures that we are seeing elsewhere in public bodies. It also looks quite a large team, I think, would be the observation and one that we shared with Deloitte's conclusion for what is a relatively small organisation in terms of delivering its functions. We know that there were discussions taking place about the structure of the executive team in the organisation, as we noted, between the chief executive and the Scottish Government, as opposed to the board. However, it is a factor of the circumstances that we are seeing, and, as ever, we will continue to report, but Pat can say a bit more about the timescales. We know that the commission has appointed external consultants to conduct an independent review, an independent workforce review and a key component of that will be a review of the senior management team structure. We see that that is a very important and fundamental piece of work. My understanding is that the external report and review will report in the short term, so that is something that we will keep a keen eye on. However, I think that that is encouraging that the commission is recognising by commissioning that review that there are serious issues that need to be addressed with the senior management team structure. The final question is, obviously, once the section 22 spotlight fades on the commission, what steps do you believe will be required to ensure that the boundaries between the role of the chief executive and the board are understood and respected? How critical will the Scottish Government's sponsor division be in making sure that this functionality does not return in the future? I have a key role to make sure that that works effectively, that the commission can discharge us what it is here to do to support the functioning and the effective monitoring of crofting in Scotland. You are right that after the section 22 process of public reporting, any substantive consideration that the committee chooses to take any evidence of the report does not stop there. Pat and his team will continue to audit the crofting commission, they will monitor and track the report publicly on the progress of the improvement plan, and then it comes back to me, as the auditor general, whether there is a subsequent statutory report. Perhaps, as I mentioned in the discussion with Mr Beattie, to take away any broader consideration of how effective sponsorship arrangements are working in Scotland, all of those are options. However, the important thing is that, as we have mentioned a number of times in previous discussions of the committee, there is transparency about how well this is operating and that, as a public body, it can reassure its service users, the public and the Parliament that it is operating effectively, and we will continue to report as necessary. We are drawing towards the end of the session and I am going to bring Sharon Dowey shortly, but Mr Kenny mentioned the hopefulness that comes with the commissioning of an external consultant's report. Did I not read that, in 2016, there was a consultant's report that looked into the crofting commission? The question that it provokes to me is, to what extent is there a similarity between the findings of the consultants in their 2016 report and what Deloitte has uncovered in 2020-21? Is the crofting commission just dealing with the same issues? Are you, as auditors, having to deal with the same issues? Are we, as the Public Audit Committee of the Scottish Parliament, having to deal with the same issues over and over again? Regrettably, there are parallels between the issues that the independent report in 2016 found that refer to strong personalities, differences of opinion and individuals and their priorities being incongruent. Yes, there is undoubtedly a read-across between what that report found and what we are seeing in that report. I think that all the more reason that suggests that the support that the organisation gets is that if the relationship between the Government, the chief executive and the board is not operating effectively, there is a real risk and there is a broader review. The Government's work on how sponsorship arrangements and how it is operating effectively needs to happen and needs to be stress tested so that, when circumstances happen, those circumstances will always happen when there are people involved. There are so many variables that can allow to override well-intentioned, well-written documents that set out how Governance ought to operate. Unfortunately, five years down the line from that report, we are now seeing elements that are reoccurring in that organisation. We will certainly reflect on that. Sharon Dower, you have a final point and question tonight. Probably more of a statement for the record rather than a question, but the report states that seven recommendations have been made in respect of financial sustainability and 47 recommendations have been made in respect of governance and transparency. In your section 22 report, you state that you will continue to monitor the commission's performance, including how it takes forward its implementation plan, with a view to further public reporting in the future. Due to the number of issues identified during the audit, the committee would welcome further public reporting in order to gain reassurance that the issues in the audit have been addressed by the commission. We will see, and it is going back to 2016, the similarities. Thank you. Just to confirm, as I note in the report, that Pat and his team will monitor progress against that plan. They will report publicly and I will take the opportunity, if appropriate, to do further public reporting on that. With that undertaken, I thank Pat Kenny, Graham Greenhill, for their evidence this morning. It has been very helpful to the Auditor General for leading on the evidence before us to place once again on record our thanks to him. I am now going to suspend the meeting to allow for the changeover of witnesses. I welcome people back and welcome in this section of our report to new witnesses, who are joining the Auditor General, both from Audit Scotland. Joining us remotely is Ashleigh Madgi Tee. Ashleigh, if you want to come in at any point, if you can use the chat function and put an R in there, that would be very helpful. We are also joined in the room. Ah, sorry. Ashleigh, welcome. My apologies. Carol is joining us remotely, who is Audit Director in Audit Services in Audit Scotland. Carol, if you wish to come in at any point, if you would like to use the chat function and put an R in the room. I welcome Ashleigh, who is here with us in the room, to talk about the audit report into personal protective equipment, which was the subject of a report in 2020-21. There was a fuller audit and then a subsequent briefing, which came out more recently. I have a series of questions that I would like to ask of you, but if Auditor General, if you want to begin with an opening statement to get us under way, thank you. Many thanks, convener. As you say, I am bringing you two reports on another key area of the Covid-19 response personal protective equipment. The first, as you mentioned, is a briefing paper on PPE that we published in June. The second is the report on the 2020-21 audit of NHS National Services Scotland, a section 22 report that has been prepared under the Public Finance and Accountability at Scotland Act 2000. I took the decision to prepare a section 22 to capture the key role that NHS NSS played in response to the pandemic with a focus on how it procured PPE for Scotland's health and social care workers. Our briefing paper on PPE considered how the Scottish Government and NSS put in place arrangements to procure, store and distribute PPE to health and social care settings before and during the pandemic and how they are now planning for the longer term. The section 22 report examined the procurement of PPE in more detail and notes a number of other areas where NHS has played a key role in the pandemic response. NHS worked with its partners to procure PPE, construct the NHS Louisa Jordan field hospital, set up and operate the contract tracing and support the vaccination programme. It expanded its PPE distribution early in the pandemic to meet PPE demand in the NHS and primary and social care settings across Scotland. We found that centrally held stocks of PPE were very low in the early days of the pandemic, with less than a day's supply of some items held in April 2020. As global demand increased and supply chains collapsed, prices also increased. NSS had to make decisions quickly, as countries across the world competed for PPE. It therefore used emergency procurement regulations to award contracts without competition and reduced its usual governance arrangements. Between March 2020 and June 2021, NSS awarded 78 contracts worth £340 million to companies providing PPE. 29 contracts were to new suppliers without competition. Through the annual audit work on NSS, auditors considered those contracts. They were satisfied that reasonable arrangements were in place but noted some variations in application and recording. Their work did not uncover any evidence of preferential treatment or bias in the awarding of contracts. The Scottish Government and NSS worked well with their partners to set up new supply chains, making PPE supply more resilient, creating jobs and benefiting local economies. By April 2021, the majority of PPE that was distributed by NSS was made in Scotland, compared to none at the start of the pandemic. As we emerge from the pandemic, the Scottish Government and NSS will need to continue working with their partners to develop a longer-term approach to PPE supply and distribution. That includes both business-as-usual PPE needs, as well as preparing for future pandemics. As you mentioned, I am joined by Carol Grant and Ashley Magity. Carol is the appointed external auditor of NSS. Between the three of us, we will do our best to answer the committee's questions. Thank you, Auditor General. I want to press head straight away with questions and turn to my right to Sharon Dowey. Thank you, convener. Hello again, Mr Boyle. In my short time in this committee, I have had lots and lots of reports that have come in, and the common thing in them is that a lot of the recommendations haven't been actioned. We know that the Scottish Government did not fully implement the recommendations from the previous pandemic preparedness exercises. Again, nobody could have predicted the pandemic coming, but when we did the preparedness exercises, if we had actioned the points in them, we would have been a wee bit better prepared. Can you outline what the recommendations were and why you believe that they were not implemented? I am happy to do so, and I am sure that Ashley will want to say a word or two more about the opportunities for preparedness. We touched on that in both the PPE briefing paper and the overview of the NHS in Scotland that we prepared in February of this year. We referred to three pandemic preparedness exercises that I have been undertaking in the years leading up to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. A couple of important distinctions are that the planning thinking has centered around flu pandemics, as opposed to the Covid-type pandemic that we have seen. It identified a couple of areas that subsequently emerged as themes from the Covid-19 pandemic about the supply and use of PPE, as well as the extent to which social care settings would have been able to cope in circumstances allowing for a pandemic. There were opportunities, which was the conclusion that we arrived at, to be better prepared and to explore those opportunities. As it subsequently unfolded, we nonetheless reached the judgment that NHS in Scotland responded well in incredibly difficult circumstances to secure a supply and distribution of PPE across Scotland. It also took on the additional responsibilities for social care settings and quickly moved to set up hubs, secure new contracts and so forth. Having said all that, there were opportunities to be better prepared. We noted the low levels of PPE stocks in April 2020. As reported in your briefing, how confident are you that NHS-NSS has done enough work to ensure that we never return to the precarious situation again? I want to say a word about the forward thinking and the steps that NHS is taking. As we set out in exhibit 4, I hope that it is the most helpful in the PPE briefing, to illustrate how perhaps frenetic is the best description to describe that, as PPE was being sourced at great pace, we mentioned the introductory remarks about the global competition for PPE stocks and what that meant for the change in price of PPE items. The supply was being passed out to hospitals and social care settings with great urgency. That allowed us to reach the overall conclusion that Scotland did not run out of PPE, but that with certain items it came close to doing so. However, it worked not at a real pace to ensure that it was sourcing PPE as quickly as possible to pass out supply. The point is really clear as to what happens next, matters that we learn lessons from the pandemic. We take the opportunity to think about what it means for business as usual context, what it means for future pandemics so that Scotland is not left in a precarious position. We will want to say a bit more about how NSS is taking that forward. A large part of the problems were the deliveries that were coming in from overseas, so they take time and were on shipping containers coming in. Now that 88 per cent of PPE is made in Scotland, that should make the situation much stabler, so if we were in a similar situation, we could get it much quicker. As the Auditor General says, as NSS is considering how to go forward with the stockpile, they need to balance having enough PPE in a stockpile, but also the costs that are involved with keeping that stockpile and keeping large amounts of PPE in warehouses. They now have three to four months supply of PPE, which you can see from Exhibit 4, so they are in a good position now. Excellent, that is fine. I have noted that as well, so obviously we are making them in Scotland now, which is excellent. The demand for PPE remains high because it is needed in more settings, so we have said that in social care settings, etc. The second wave in winter 2020 meant that there were more people in hospital and intensive care units, with winter 2021 fast approaching. Do you expect that demand to continue or indeed grow even further? Are you happy with the amount of stock that you have got? I suppose that it is probably hard to be definitive and to offer assurance for the factors that I mentioned. Scotland now has a larger stockpile, its supply chains are almost exclusively domestic, and it has been through a pandemic already in the winter that it will have a better idea as to the extent of demand that it will be facing. All of those factors place it in a far stronger position than it was 12 months ago, but, as everything that we have seen over the course of the past 18 months, I am probably unable to offer definitive assurance, and it may be a question of the better place to NSS themselves if they are able to give a view as to what the future might bring. I see Carol has indicated that she wishes to give an answer, and I am happy to say that if Carol is able to say another word or two about that. Thank you, Auditor General. It was just to say that at the end of the first wave of the pandemic, NSS did a lessons learned exercise, and that enabled them, as we moved through future waves of the pandemic, to be in a better place and to understand some of the challenges. I thought that I could offer that for the committee. I now want to bring in Craig Hoy, who has more questions about the PPE contracts and how they were experienced by people on the front line in particular. It was widely reported at the time that the concerns of RCN, the BMA and care professionals about access and use of PPE and the shortage very early on in the pandemic. Are you aware of any on-going concerns by healthcare professionals, social care professionals or any others about access, use or the quality of PPE today? Thank you, Mr Boyle. I will ask Carol to supplement my own contribution. The extent of the availability and use and training of PPE was one of the features of the pandemic preparedness exercises that this would need to be considered. As you rightly mentioned, both in the overview report and in the PPE briefing, we touched on the concerns that the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association raised from their members about how they were experiencing the use of PPE at the early stages of the pandemic. The team can contribute, but we are probably seeing and hearing less of the concerns at that initial stage. It probably speaks to the far greater security of supply that we have, the more rigorous arrangements around quality and confidence and familiarity in their use than was the case back in April, May 2020. Again, Carol and I might want to update the committee as well. Thank you. We are not aware of any later surveys from the BMA or the RCN that are pointing out similar findings. The Scottish Government told us as part of the briefing that they are not getting the same level of concerns that are raised with them. Just in terms of the modelling to assess the required supplies, between March and June 2020, it was based on Covid numbers. After that, it was then based on staff numbers. Assessing the stockpile that we require based on staff numbers is the most appropriate and optimal way of doing it. There is modelling for the use of PPE. Ultimately, NSS will be the experts as to how much PPE and Scotland's health and social care settings require. As well as staff numbers in Covid cases, we are probably 20 months into the pandemic. We have gone through a period of Covid over winter. We will have the usage statistics as to how much has been used. That is perhaps an even better representation of what the PPE demand will be across Scotland in future. As Carol mentioned earlier, NSS has gone through some of that learning iteration and is beginning to think about its forward plans, stock management arrangements for future pandemic and business as usual context. All of that suggests that that learning is being incorporated into the demand modelling. Between March and June 2020, the fact that it was based on Covid numbers, could that in part have contributed to the shortfall and was that reconfiguration to base on staff numbers increased the supply so that it had better matched demand? I may want to say a word or two. I suspect that I am not able to be definitive in respect of that point. Whilst recognising that it may have been a factor, the steps that NSS took along with Scotland's development and economic agencies to secure supplies in a globally competitive market would have been as equally valid about securing supply across health and social care settings. It is a combination of those factors. Just finally, during the height of the pandemic, NHS and NSS were providing daily PPE stock bulletins. I just wanted for the record to check if that is still happening. I will ask the team if I am not citing that part. I am not aware. They have a dashboard that is updated daily, which is information. I am not aware how widely that is shared beyond NSS. If it is not something that we can answer today, Mr Hoy, we can come back to the committee on that point. That would be very helpful if you were able to do that. I now want to invite Colin Beattie to ask a couple of questions. During the height of the PPE, some of the private supply chains that were supplying the primary care providers and social care fell apart. The Scottish Government stepped in and provided PPE to the private care homes and so forth. Has the Scottish Government ever been reimbursed for any of that PPE that was supplied to private businesses? No, that is not our understanding how the arrangements operated. The Scottish Government and, again, Carol can come in at the moment to say about the transactions that are involved with the Scottish Government committed to fund and supply private social care settings across Scotland. I will check with Carol about the duration of those circumstances. I do not know whether we have a cost on that. I may invite Carol in to say a bit about that. From the report, there were significant changes in audit adjustments to the financial statements, and part of that was the accounting for the PPE and how it flowed through. What is captured in there is the cost for public sector bodies. I do not have the figure to hand for the private sector bodies, but I know that NSS has it, so it is definitely something that we can come back to the committee with. It would be good to see that figure. I realise that it was a period of extreme urgency and that the PPE had to be gotten through to protect lives. Your briefing also says that 48 PPE hubs would be in place until the end of June, and that the Scottish Government and NHS NSS were considering future arrangements. Any idea what those future arrangements might be? You are quite right, actually, to say about where that is now headed. We identify the hubs as one of the successes of the PPE programme that there had to be an effective mechanism in place, given the dispersal of social care settings in particular across Scotland—primary care settings, too—that there was a process in place to supply PPE as quickly as possible. Particularly as you mentioned in your question that the Government took on responsibility for providing into settings that had not been part of their remit beforehand. So, the role of the hubs was particularly important. It secured the supply, and that lasted until the end of June of this year. What comes next matters is that it is factored into the long-term thinking that the arrangements can be enacted quickly in the event of a further surge or subsequent pandemics, but I can see where we are now with the hubs. Thank you. In paragraph 50, we say that it was till the end of June 2021, but since everything has been published, the Scottish Government has extended that now till March 2022. As part of their longer-term work, the PPE strategy and governance board is currently considering the longer-term plans for PPE, and part of that is social care and how that will work going forward and what role NSS will play within that. Other than the fact that they are still evaluating what their forward plans are going to be, was there a specific reason why they decided to continue to support private providers? Not that I am aware of, but I can find out if you want. If there is any information on that, I would be very interested. Obviously, there is a cost to the public purse on that. Although PPE is essential and the Government is doing everything that it can to make sure that it is available, nevertheless, there is a cost, and you should be monitoring that cost. I should clarify that the hubs are for a provider of last resort. If the social care providers are unable to access their PPE through their usual routes, they can go to the hubs and access PPE through those hubs. They should be going through their usual private supplies, and if they are unable to access it through them, the hubs are able to provide them with a weeks' worth. This is a backup rather than primary provision. Do we know whether they are using the private supply chains these days or are they still accessing it from the hubs? I do not know for the time being. In paragraph 31, we say up until August 2020 the breakdown of what was being used, but I have not got more up-to-date figures. It would be interesting to know the extent to which the private sector is still reliant on the public sector to provide PPE. Your briefing also states that NHSNSS has been able to purchase PPE at 2019 prices during the first five months of the pandemic. It would have spent £37.4 million less on PPE. It may be a daff question, but I suppose that it has to be asked. In your opinion, was there anything that could have been done to avoid that additional spend? I think that it is probably fair to say that that is something of a theoretical number, Mr Beattie. Unless NHSNSS Scotland had the arrangements that it subsequently brought in over the course of the pandemic, it would have saved that money. The wider context of a global competition supply chain is collapsing. I do not think that it would be reasonable for us as auditors to arrive at a judgment to say that that money was spent unnecessarily. I think that it reflected the circumstances that NHSNSS Scotland found itself in. Whether it would have been as high as £37 million if all of the pandemic preparation exercises had been enacted, whether that had been based on a Covid-style pandemic as opposed to a flu pandemic, there may have been opportunities to reduce that amount. However, it is hard to pin down where that number would have landed, and I think that the wider context of a frenetic pandemic, a scramble for PPE supplies, is a more realistic description of why that money needed to be spent. Again, as we refer to in the report, it is what comes next. It matters that there is a business model, a stock management system in place that can adjust quickly. Building on the big success that Scotland now has a domestic PPE supply chain, the vulnerabilities of securing contracts overseas at pace with new suppliers that we saw and touched on in section 22 of the report, is not the context that Scotland and its NHS would find itself in in subsequent pandemics? Paragraph 22 says that NHSNSS was committed to ensuring retrospective contract approval and to monitoring NHSNSS through its established governance group. How is that progressing, particularly in respect of the contracts mentioned in paragraph 25, where issues have been raised? Carol will want to say a bit more about how the contract arrangements operated. We have seen that there has been retrospective approval for all of the contracts that were awarded at pace that took advantage of emergency procurement regulations. We make a point in the report that, even though contracts are being awarded at pace and emergency procurement regulations were used, there is still a need for appropriate governance and transparency of how contracts are being awarded. There is still a need for contract awards to be published, so that users of public services, public money and clarity as to what is being spent, with which suppliers and how much. We have seen that that has now happened. We are clear that that is an important step that needs to be followed in the future. However, of those contracts, they are now there and they are now the transparency that we would expect. I will invite Carol to say a bit more about the arrangements that NSS will be following, just to make sure that that is an embedded part of their processes. Within the annual audit report, we did make a recommendation in relation to the consistency of documentation. I think that the collation of our audit work, we saw evidence to support the assessments of the quality that they were approved and that the governance arrangements were being followed, but there was a lack of consistency in terms of how that was captured and how it was documented. Sometimes it made it more challenging for us when we were doing our work. We recognise the situation and the pace, as the Auditor General has said, that the NSS was operating at, and to confirm that for the two contracts where spend was higher than the approved contract value, as the Auditor General has said, the retrospective approval has now been processed. They had to look at the arrangements, sometimes it was because of the value, sometimes it was a time frame, so they were continuing to order products out with the time frame, and the retrospective approval has now been in place. So everything is now regularised. Chris, come to a slightly different question. There was a range of measures that NHS NSS took to support contact tracing, which is outlined in the report. However, the report does not outline what the impact of those measures has been on the programme overall. So to what extent have those measures been evaluated in terms of their success or otherwise? I think that it is probably too early for us to be definitive on that, so we haven't, if I am answering your question properly, we have not audited the contract tracing system in Scotland, so our references in the report, as we were talking more general terms about the digital innovation that took place to allow Scotland to have one of the tools at its disposal to stabilise the pandemic in Scotland. Through our work, Mr Beattie, there is an option for us to do that, to look at the spending, the effectiveness of the contract tracing programme, and it will be part of our thinking as we continue the iteration of our work programme. In terms of the spending, it is something that Cara Will be continuing to track and monitor and report on through her annual auditivity. I just want to go back to part of the discussion that you have just had there with Colin Beattie. I think that those are my calculations, so they may not be entirely reliable. Broadly speaking, based on the figures in the report, the increase in volume of PPE was around about the order of 212 per cent, so the volume went up by 212 per cent from the year 2019 to 2020 to 2021, but the cost of shipments increased by 2,100 per cent, so by a factor of 10, the price inflation was exorbitant, wasn't it? I just wondered whether you have any reflections on that. We recognise the difference in scale of change, convener. For all the factors that we have talked about, we have seen that market forces came into play during the course of the pandemic. Supply and demand, if that is a reasonable analysis, kicked in that the global competition allowed suppliers and suppliers all over the world to increase the prices. At the height of the pandemic, there is an exhibit in the report that shows that that has tailed off over the course, and there is a more stable environment that we are now in. Looking to the future, part of the conversation that we have had already, is that Scotland is better placed to be insulated from some of those price shocks in future. That has now got a reliable domestic supply of PPE that gives it a better chance of avoiding some of those price increases that we report. Some of us might describe it as excess profiteering from a global pandemic, but the other thing that I just wanted to come to, which is not designed to catch you out, is that my eye was drawn to a line in the report that said that the auditor reported that the audit work did not find any issues with the quality of goods procured or the companies contracted, and then it went on to talk about some cost overruns. I am struck and I will not always rely on the media for my source, but I think that the weekend after the report came out, the Sunday Mail ran a story that included those figures. We can reveal that millions of masks and goggles were binned after a rush to secure vital PPE as Covid struck. They included 90,000 respirator valve masks made by US firm Medline, 3 million pairs of goggles, lenses and frames from US company Tiger Medical Products, 66,000 poorly made face masks from Dumfries-based Alpha Solway and 700 charity-donated masks that were made at forced labour camps in China. My question is an inquiry as to what your methodology was and how you arrived at a point where you could make such a categorical statement as was made in the report. Thank you, convener. Carol looks like she wants to come in some of the section and I absolutely will pass to her in a moment. The judgment that we make in the report is that if we look at the volume of PPE that was procured and used, and not to mention the environmental impact of some of that and perhaps of interest to the committee, for some of those items that were procured, they were returned. So there was a contractual arrangement. They were received by NSS or health boards, assessed, deemed not to be of sufficient quality and then returned to the supplier. So refund credit arrangements are part of the normal process for supply and demand and looking at our own consideration of it, we've seen some of the examples that you referred to that were reflected in the media. Whether that reflects overall arrangements in the round, I think that we've seen that that's not been the case, that there are sufficient safeguards in terms of quality checks, the review of the PPE itself, the review of documentation that allowed us to reach the conclusion that there were sufficient contractual arrangements in place between NSS and its suppliers that public spending wasn't left to pick up the cost of poor quality PPE. Carol can say more about the specifics of what we looked at and what we saw on those examples any more. Thank you, Auditor General. Clearly, the audit team are not experts in assessing the quality of PPE, so what we were relying on was the arrangements that NSS had in place and what we could see was evidence of that review and that check being done. In terms of the amounts that were quoted, it is helpful to bear in mind, as Auditor General has said, the overall volume and the likelihood of there being the odd occasion where it maybe wasn't at the standard, but it was always assessed by an expert as part of the procurement process, and that is what we have based our judgment on. Thanks for that clarification. I say that I wasn't designed to catch you out. I just want to understand better how you arrived at the conclusions that you arrived at. One of the other things that is featured in the report is that, because things were being done at pace, especially in those early days, contract approval documents weren't completed—I think that you have already mentioned that—to a consistent level of detail. There are concerns in the report raised about the scrutiny of contracts before their conclusion. My question is, can you perhaps give us a picture about the extent to which this was prevalent at the beginning when there was an urgency and the extent to which this continued as a practice over the months after the initial spike in demand for PPE? I am delighted to do so, and I am quite sure that Carol will come in and say more to my comments. The fundamental point that happened is that the provision existed for emergency circumstances, so that the normal procurement arrangements that exist in public bodies, such as framework contracts, are set out well in advance and that suppliers are identified. If it is a new contract, it will be a place where tender notification contractors will submit their suitability, a bidding process and so forth. We weren't in that environment at the height of the pandemic when supply chains collapsed and global competition and so forth. With the support of Scotland's development agencies, we had to go out and source new suppliers for PPE across the world. You have already mentioned what that meant for some of the prices of items that were purchased. How that related back into the NSS meant that some of those procurement and associated governance arrangements had to be flexed so that the pace of which PPE was being used was matched with supply and sourcing of demand. The point that we make in the report, convener, is that in that environment transparency matters so that it is possible to see what is being spent, who the contracts are being awarded to and where, if necessary, there are retrospective approval arrangements, but we do not sacrifice all of the governance and transparency that goes alongside that. That is why we arrive at the finding that we have in the report that there needs to be a rigor around publishing contract awards and approval arrangements when we are in that environment. We are not quite still in the heat of that, there is more stability as we have touched upon. As NSS governance arrangements, Carol can speak to how the various steps that they went through and how they are now responding to the publication of award notices. I think that it is safe to say that the inconsistent documentation was a feature in terms of the contracts that we were looking at, but I would agree that it was more at the start of the pandemic. As things settled down, there was a more business-as-usual type approach to the contracts and the processes in place. In the annual audit report, you will see that, as the auditor general has mentioned, we point to the arrangements that they put in place with Scottish Enterprise as an example of good practice, because that relationship enabled them to have access and do due diligence in markets that, potentially, they would not have otherwise been able to. Overall, yes, there is a need for the documentation to be standardised across a few of the areas. We are seeing that as part of the business-as-usual arrangements now in force. Thank you. I know that, in the report, Scottish Enterprise has mentioned visiting overseas factories and, presumably, part of some kind of due diligence process. I wonder whether you could expand on that a little bit to give us a bit more of a sense of what is contained in that due diligence guidance that they are pursuing. Does it include, for example, things like labour standards, whether forced labour is involved or whether exploitative labour is involved or what the conditions are like in the factories that they visit, presumably at home as well as abroad? Could you elaborate on that part of the report? We will do our best to describe what we saw from the consideration that NSS undertook on the due diligence of the contract awards. There probably comes a limit to the point that Scottish Enterprise at NSS will be able to describe the steps that they took, what they saw when they undertook factory visits and so forth. Weighing up the balance of securing supply and how deeply it was probed into the arrangements of individual factories and so forth. As you are suggesting, we have also seen media reports of the factory conditions that existed around the world in the supply of PPE. For the risk of repeating myself, I think that Scotland now has its own domestic supply arrangements for PPE. It makes it a better place to have the respect for working conditions that we would expect, but for the work that the due diligence that was undertaken by Scottish Enterprise and NSS, as is said, we will be able to say a bit more about the specifics of what we saw in our work. Thank you. I do not have the detail to go into the specific checks that were done on the due diligence. What we saw evidence of was that a sign-off of a better word was that a visit had taken place and that they were content with the arrangements. We did know that we saw limited guidance in terms of specifying what they had to consider. I think that there was an element of trust and experience given the situation in which the bodies were in. That is another element in which there was an inconsistency on occasion in terms of how it was documented, but we saw clear evidence that that had taken place and that there had been that assessment done prior to the contract being awarded. Who would issue that guidance normally? Is it the Scottish Government? Is it the NSS? I think that the pace was probably part of the situation that I would suggest, potentially, together. It would determine what the need was that NSS would set out their expectations. I would imagine that Scottish Enterprise would be able to offer an insight from their experiences working in this area and having done site visits in the past. I think that it would have been probably together. It would have developed the guidance and the NSS would have defined what it was looking for. I want to now bring in Willie Coffey, who has a couple of questions to put. Thanks very much, convener. When I think back, convener, to the start of this and the real struggle that we had to source PPE, I remember well that a flight coming in to Prestwick loaded with that to help. The NHS, the NSS, and others moved heaven and earth to help supply our hospitals and care homes. Thank goodness, thank God, they did that by whatever means possible to protect the public. I think that I would like to put that in record, convener. You have said to the general that we went from zero, really, our ability to produce PPE in Scotland to figure 88 per cent we produce now. How soon did we get to the point where we were sourcing and supplying the PPE material in Scotland? Was it weeks? Was it months? How soon did we get there, do you think, in being able to source it and supply it locally from our own sources? You are right that Scotland did not have a PPE supply chain before the pandemic or domestic supply chain. That now affords, as well as the economic benefits, the supply of new jobs into the country. It has got security of supply for future pandemics and that that happened at pace is a remarkable achievement. We now have the opportunity to be better placed as a country to absorb the impact of future pandemics. It is not universal that there are some items within the PPE supply chain. Gloves is one that is often mentioned that is not part of it, but that is not unique to Scotland. However, the time and pace with which the country has moved from to invest through the work of NSS regional development agencies has all been very significant to allow us to be in a place to better respond to future pandemics. That figure of 88 per cent is April 2021, but we have also got a case study in our briefing about Alpha Solway, which is just one of the major UK PPE producers. That sets out that, back in March 2020, as Alpha Solway is struggling to get its Taiwanese-made masks into the country, it started working with the Scottish Government to resure production back in Dumfries and Galloway. As early as April 2020, NSS had committed to an order of 2 million masks from Alpha Solway and had paid an advance payment, which allowed Alpha Solway to buy the machinery and bring that back to Scotland. By June, they were making a million masks a week in Dumfries and Galloway. Later on, in the summer, by August, they placed another big order through a framework supplier, but they then subcontracted Alpha Solway for £53 million worth of masks and visas. You can see that that all happened quite quickly over those first few months. That is an incredible achievement, convener. It is really worth putting that on the record so that the public can be aware of how quickly in the pace which Government officials, NHS and the companies moved to get that material. I do recall, convener, that the skies were empty, there was nothing flying, and when you were seeing something coming in, you knew it was this material that was coming in, convener. I think that it is worth putting that on the record. However, turning to the jobs that have been created—Steven, you have mentioned 470 jobs locally—is that likely to be sustainable? Is that now likely to be an established production industry for Scotland, and then looking ahead to supplying the international healthcare chain? Is that now in a position where we are able to help to supply the world for those products as we go forward? I am cautious about making predictions, Mr Coffey, in the midst of the pandemic, as to whether that is a new model of supply and sustainable jobs. As we mentioned in the report, what has not really been addressed yet is some of the environmental implications of much of what is the single-use PPE in Scotland and the very significant use of PPE that, for clinical reasons rightly, cannot be reused and has to end up in landfill. There are issues still to be tackled, but what that means for sustainability experts will determine in those companies and beyond. I think that the NSS and social care users will be able to describe what that means in terms of future demand and supply. However, as we currently see it, Scotland is far better placed. It has said that a number of times that, with the provision of a domestic supply, it can cope far better with future pandemics and meet its PPE needs than it ever was before. Is that likely to be a Government's decision about establishing such a supply chain locally? Is that likely to be a Government level that will be a decision to be taken about that? It is fair to say that there will be discussions between the Government, the NHS and the enterprise agencies on how best to meet those needs. As Ashley mentioned, part of the thinking that is happening within the NSS about future demand needs in a business as usual context and for subsequent pandemics. Do you know if we are supplying PPE to the international healthcare market as a result of this development in Scotland? Are we doing that at the moment? Is everyone with sufficient supplies throughout the world for what they need locally? It came up as an ambition when we were speaking to the Scottish Government and the NSS, but they would be better placed to tell you if it was actually happening. Last but not least, the online portal that you mentioned to yourself earlier, Stephen Beattie, where we usually have the opposite types of reports from the Audit Committee about ICT initiatives, seems to have been a success as well. Do you have any information about who developed this online portal for PPE ordering and is it still in place and working well? Carol Orr might know about who was involved, but I would say that you are right, Mr Beattie, and probably all of us, Mr Coffey, apologise in terms of our report from last week, also in the vaccines briefing, again made reference to successful IT contracts within NSS and the NHS. This is really welcome, as opposed to changing the narrative about Scotland's public services and their ability to deliver complex IT projects at pace. We are seeing this reporting that we are pleased to see that, as ever, the only thing to take away is the application of that learning, not just in the context of the NHS, but how it has been used across public services in Scotland. We are keen to see that happening and we will track it and report it back to the committee. In terms of who was involved, I will check with the team whether we can say any more about that. Yes, thank you. NSS developed the portal and it was a way for them to assess the volume of inquiries and emails that they were getting in and the expressions of interest. Although there were not many contracts that flowed from that, what it did was that it gave a very efficient way to respond to people as they expressed their interest in getting involved and also to save time for staff who were under a significant amount of pressure. We note it as an efficient way to manage the level of interest and ensure that that was proportionate for the staff at hand. Page 13 of the report confirms that NHS NSS built, stocked and decommissioned the NHS Louisa Jordanfield hospital. It was also responsible for the redistribution of equipment to NHS boards across Scotland. How quickly is this taking place, given the pressure that many hospitals are currently under? We report on the NHS Louisa Jordan that the Scottish Government spent £51.2 million to build stock and have NHS Louisa Jordan available to treat Covid patients. As we have all seen, that is not what it ended up being used for. Instead, it was used to provide vaccinations, outpatient appointments and so forth. It was used, albeit not as intended, as we have seen, that that ended in June of 2021 and that the equipment, rather than being wasted or returned, was instead provided to NHS boards' healthcare settings across Scotland in the months that followed. We understand that that is now complete, but I can just check with the team if there is more detail about how that operation was unfolded and perhaps Carol's best place to respond. I would say that it is substantively complete. I have not had an immediate up-to-date position on it, but I know that they were working through and absolutely looking to redistribute the equipment to health boards as and when the need arose. Thank you. We are coming towards the end of the session. I know that Craig Hoy has got a couple of questions to ask. I just wanted to touch on the section that we took a special interest in, which is about long-term planning of NSS and future funding. I think that, while we have looked in our review mirror at how things have gone over the last two years, we also want to look at some of the consequences of that for the future. We note that, in the report, there is still what appears to be some financial uncertainty for NSS. I do not know whether that has changed since the report was published or not. There is consideration of the pausing of some areas of development work by NSS. I guess that my question is to the Auditor General, could you outline for us which areas of their work are potentially or are being paused and what your assessment is of the risks of not progressing that work? A couple of things to say about that. In terms of the financial position, I think that since the report is being published, we have seen further funding allocations. We discussed some of that at the meeting last week, and the NSS was a significant recipient. I apologise, I do not have the precise allocation to hand at the moment, but that will go some way to meeting the financial pressures that it is facing in the current financial year. What comes next, of course, will be through the Scottish budget and the consideration and the review of the recovery plans that all NHS boards, NSS being a national health board in Scotland, have submitted to the Scottish Government, and we will see what that means for their financial position. The audit team will look at its financial sustainability and report during the course of this year's audit. Services being paused was a feature of the pandemic. We would absolutely acknowledge that really difficult decisions were taken during the course of the pandemic to pause critical services that some of those related to screening programmes that NSS would have run that have now been restarted clearly will have had an impact on individuals, and of course that is very serious. Unlike many health boards, though, as a national board, much of the activity that NSS undertook, albeit that grew at scale, could reasonably be categorised as business as usual. The supply of PPE stock management on behalf of the NHS in Scotland, we would say that activities that it would have done, but its prominence and the scale of it were something that NSS grew as opposed to taking on brand new activities. Having said that, there were some activities that they paused in terms of IT developments and the roll-out of other services that they are now picking up. Carol can touch on those, I am sure, but I think that in the round this was not quite as dramatic a change of working practices that happened within other NHS settings where it became as opposed to a universal service. It was much more of a Covid-related focus, and the context for NSS was quite different. Carol can say a bit more about the restarting of some of those IT and other services. What NSS did was assess all of their services and categorised them into essential, paused and stopped. The internal work that we saw them stop was largely IT transformation that they had planned to do moving forward, but we are seeing real innovation in terms of some of the IT tools as part of the pandemic response. I think that it was a shift of focus in terms of the digital team and ensuring that they were providing the digital tools to support the pandemic response and are now moving back into how they can restart and recreate their more internal and their more planned IT transformation. The remobilisation plan really sets out how NSS is continuing to support the pandemic, but also its plans for delivering for the future and how it is working towards that. I want to end the session by inviting Craig Hoy to be very topical with us. Craig Hoy, thank you, convener. This has been COP26 a week in perhaps running the risk of bringing a greenwashing by bringing this up briefly at the end. I just wanted to maybe just get an impression from you on the extent of which you think the NHS NSS was taking environmental considerations into account at the height of the pandemic through its procurement process. Now that things have calmed down, are you excited on the activities that they are engaged in to try and make sure that they perhaps acquire a more environmentally sustainable stream of materials? I will do my best to answer that. Ashley and Carol will be a better place to provide you with some of the detail of the NHS activity. As we mentioned in the report and have touched on that, the environmental sustainability of PPE supply probably was not at the forefront of people's minds, especially at the height of the pandemic. We see the exponential growth in usage and the scramble for supply as the bigger priority. However, now that we are in business as usual, it has to come back into the thinking that the sustainability of it, the single use, the extent of which much of it will be either incinerated or landfill. Given that it has grown so much more than it was used before the pandemic and is likely to remain higher, all of those factors have to come back into—the obligation is not just to NHS or NSS, we are really all public bodies in terms of their—as many public bodies have made a commitment to sustainability and to net zero 75 per cent by 2030 and 100 per cent beyond. There is a real onus on public bodies to capture sustainability and environmental considerations in their thinking. As you rightly said, not in a greenwashing perspective, but this is supported by evidence and subject to scrutiny. As it relates to what that means for NHS Ashley and Carol, we want to say that word more. Through our discussions with Scottish Government and NSS, we asked about the environmental side. I am aware that there were discussions going on with industry and with the National Manufacturing Institute. However, how far they managed to get with those among clear, it came down to the health implications of reusability and how that can work. However, it is definitely one of the things that we highlight in our briefing that, as they are going forward in making these plans for the future, they should be considering. Thank you very much. I do not know whether Carol Grant wants to come in with a final word. Yeah, it would really be to say that I did not have much to add, to be honest, but just to see that again it does feature for NSS and their remobilisation plan, and it is something that they are working with partners to see the best balance, I suppose, more than anything else, to take everything into account. Thank you very much indeed. I thank the Auditor General, Ashley Magity, who is with us in the committee room, and Carol Grant, who joined us remotely. I thank all three of you for some robust and illuminating evidence. It is greatly appreciated. Now we would like to move the meeting into private session.