 If we can begin, we'll say good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in 2022 of the Scottish Commission for Public Audit. I would remind members and witnesses all to be concise and to the point in their questioning and answering, because that will be very helpful time-wise, and ask that everyone ensures that their electronic and mobile devices are switched to silent. I'll turn to agenda item 1, which is Audit Scotland's annual report and accounts for the year to 31 March 2022. It's the only item on the agenda today, along with the auditor's report on these accounts. Members have copies of these, as well as a management letter from Alexander Sloan and their meeting papers. I'm welcoming to the meeting today Alan Alexander, chair of the board of Audit Scotland. Professor Alexander is accompanied by Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland and the Accountable Officer. Martin Walker, Acting Director of Corporate Services Audit Scotland. Minister Stuart Dennis, Corporate Finance Manager Audit Scotland. I'll ask Professor Alexander first and then the Auditor General to make short introductory statements. Thank you chair. Can I just add my comment to the team? It's good to be here in person. Let's hope it continues. Over the past year, Scotland's public bodies have had to address the immediate impacts of Covid-19. At the same time, they've had to start the job of rebuilding our communities and economy. Over the past two years, we've seen dramatic changes in the way public services are delivered, how citizens and communities engage with them and the accompanying sharp rises in public spending. For Scotland, it's been another year of significant development, adaptation, progress and change. For much of the past year, we continued to operate as a virtual organisation. I chaired my first board meeting in person in November of 2021 and we continue to develop how we communicate with each other and with our stakeholders in order to deliver public audit in new ways. Like everybody else, our transition out of the pandemic, across my fingers as I say that, and into new ways of working met with delays and setbacks of infection spikes, new variants and sometimes the unanticipated re-imposition of restrictions. As always, and I've said this to the Commission before, I've been impressed by the professionalism commitment and good humour of Audit Scotland staff as they focussed on the delivery and development, despite the uncertainty and volatility of their operating environment. It's been a year of adaptation and development as we continue to deliver audit work remotely, working with public bodies as they deal with the impact of the pandemic on their capacity and resources. We also continue, as you will have seen from our annual report, with our change agenda in areas ranging from digital audit to the new code of audit practice to securing the procurement of audit for the next five years. We've also seen changes in our leadership and governance. Diane McGiffin and Fiona Cordiac, Chief Operating Officer and Director of the Audit Services Group respectively, leaders who have been with Audit Scotland since its inception, have left. I want to put on record today the board's thanks for all the incredible contributions they've made to both the organisation and crucially to public audit. On the board itself, Elma Moran has been succeeded as both a board member and as chair of the Accounts Commission by Dr William Moyes. As a board, we've focused on good governance while providing support to the executive and the staff during the past two years. The key component of good governance is to oversee the exercise of all the functions of Audit Scotland. This means centrally ensuring that Audit Scotland effectively supports the Auditor General and the Accounts Commission as they scrutinise public bodies and provide assurance about public spending and the public services that are so vital to us all. I'll now hand over to Stephen as Auditor General and Audit Scotland's accountable officer. In doing so, chair, I'd like to thank him publicly for his leadership and vision. He, like me, came in at a less than suspicious moment in the pandemic, and his leadership over that period has been exemplary. Anybody who spoke to him in the staff would support that view. I also thank all those who work at Audit Scotland for what they've done to ensure that we continue to provide high-quality, independent and robust public audit. At a time when it's never been more important. Chair, thank you. I'll hand over to the Auditor General. Thank you very much and thanks firstly to Alan for his kind words. During 2021-22, we began to see some of the wider and longer-term impact of the pandemic. We've seen this in the impact on service delivery and demand and now with backlogs in the NHS and our courts. We've also seen it in the morale and mental health of public workers. Scotland's public spending has increased by more than 25 per cent in a year. As I reported in my report on the audit of the Scottish Government consolidated accounts, in the 2020-21 financial year, Scottish Government spending was £50.1 billion up from £39.4 billion in the previous year. Billions of pounds therefore have moved through the public sector at record pace. Now as we emerge from the pandemic, Scotland's public bodies must refocus on the pressing issues we face such as inequalities, climate change and the cost of living. This past year, Audit Scotland has focused on delivering high-quality, independent audit that serves the public interest, while also ensuring that we are developing the capacity, skills and structures for what the future holds. 2021-22 was the first year that the full impact of Covid-19 came through our financial audit work. In many ways, this was a more challenging year than 2020-21, as the restraints on the capacity of public bodies became clear. I'm grateful for the work of my colleagues and partner firms who delivered nearly 300 audits and also improved the quality of audit work. During the year, we produced a flexible, responsive and relevant performance audit programme, providing the Parliament, the Accounts Commission and the People of Scotland with in-depth reports, briefings on emerging issues and fast response online publications. That has enabled us to support effective scrutiny in a volatile and dynamic environment. We've also continued to build the resilience of our organisation and our ability to deliver our audit work. Through our annual report, we have examples of the impact of our audit work. It's very important to us that our work benefits the people of Scotland and the outcomes that they have in their lives. As our chair says, at the heart of this is the resilience, professionalism and empathy of my Audit Scotland colleagues. They continue to support one another and ensure that wellbeing and safety are protected while delivering high-quality audit work. As ever, Professor Alexander, Martin, Stuart and myself will do our utmost to answer the commission's questions this morning. Thank you for those opening remarks. Maybe I can start off with a couple of straightforward questions. Last time we discussed the budget for Audit Scotland, we talked about Covid-19 impacts. The fact that they didn't seem to be particularly well identified within the books, of course Audit Scotland does highlight this with some of the organisations that it audits itself. We were promised that we'd see a breakout of Covid-19 figures. Unless I've mistaken some place in this pilot document, I haven't seen that sort of analysis. Do you have it? Do you have it available? I'm happy to start on that, chair. I'll leave you, Stuart, to say a word or two about how that relates to our reporting. Our annual reporting accounts follow a prescribed format. We follow the frame, the financial reporting manual that sets out our spending. In a number of places in our annual reporting accounts, we set out our spending against budget, the analysis of that and how we've used the additional funding. We have supplemented it and can provide the commission absolutely with more detail on the use of the additional funding. I can pass to Stuart in a moment to share some of that verbally and then, as the commission was, to provide more detail in writing as you would like. First, at a high level, we have used the additional funding that the commission approved for us to invest in our capacity. We have recruited some 46 additional auditors. We have invested in our IT and components of our support services, all of which have flown through the annual reporting accounts. As I said, Stuart might want to come in and say a bit more, but we can certainly provide the commission with any further detail that you wish. I think that there's not so much spending of the extra money. I think that it's more Covid-19 and the money that derived from that and how it was deployed within the business, because, like any other business that you receive, you presumably receive furlough pay and all that sort of thing. How was it all dealt with? How much did you receive? Those are the sort of things that we are looking at. That's what we discussed last year. For clarification, we didn't receive any furlough as a public body. We were funded entirely from the fees and funding that was approved by the Parliament. I guess that I'm trying to describe is that we're somewhat constrained in the format that is required of us through the annual reporting accounts and our ability to deviate from how that's set out. I think that what we've tried to do in a number of points through the annual reporting accounts is give that both narrative and quantitative information about the spending that we received. I guess that we're trying to do both of those things, but recognising that we don't have a dedicated page in our annual reporting accounts that's set out specifically, as you're suggesting. I think that the commission last year was interested in just understanding what Covid funds you received, how you deployed them and how effective it was. That was really what it came down to. I recognise that interest and I'm very grateful for the support that the commission provided us to support our budget. I think that probably going back to some of the conversations from 2020 and 2021 is that the investment that the commission gave us, our discussion, I think that we were hopefully relatively clear that that wasn't likely to be a one-year change that we've sought to invest that money in both our additional capacity in our audit work, the support functions that all organisations require, and then in particular alongside that some of the changes that we're making through our strategic improvement programme to support some of the digital auditing and future focus. If memory serves me correctly, I think that some of our recent correspondence with the commission has also set out in some detail how we've invested that. Probably less clear, and I think that some of the prescribed formatting arrangements that we have through our annual reporting accounts doesn't immediately lend itself to that kind of detail. I'm keen to bring some colleagues into your content just to say that maybe Stuart and perhaps Martin might also want to say a bit more detail. Thanks, Stephen. The additional funding in 2021 was required because of the way we operate and we could only recognise a certain amount of fee income and we were expecting a shortfall in that respect. We do have a time recording system that had Covid disruption as a code, so that gave us indication of colleagues that whether they had Covid or there was carrier responsibilities, so we did actually know the numbers. From 2021 it was around 2,600 days recorded as Covid disruption, which equates to broadly about a million pounds. In 2122 that number reduced to 400 days recorded against that code, which is in the region of nearly 200,000 pounds. We monitor that, and as the Auditor General said, it's something that we do internally as a management accounts book, but we do have that information available that we can provide to you in more detail. Can I maybe just at this point talk about what you've been highlighting? You've got work in progress in the accounts of about £1.5 million, and obviously that's money you haven't received. The extra funds that came through last year for you, presumably part of that was used to help your cash flow, to bridge that gap between getting that money in. That money will come in presumably in the not too distant future as you catch up on where you are. You'll have a surplus at that point. Presumably that surplus will go back to the Scottish Government's consolidated fund. Leaving aside, of course, if you come forward with another proposal for more money at the end of the year, we'll deal with that when that comes, but presumably for this particular transaction, that will go back to the consolidated fund. In broad terms, yes. That's correct, but I might ask Stuart just to explain a bit more detail about how our work in progress works. Work in progress is not a new feature of Audit Scotland's arrangements, largely attributable to the overlap or crossover between our financial year and then the completion of our audit work and through the audit year. I wonder if I can just pass to Stuart to talk the commission through in a little bit further detail. Thank you, Stuart. The work in progress, like you mentioned, is the £1.5 million. That is work that we've done that we haven't built for effectively yet due to the fee model, how we operate that, but you're absolutely right. There will come a time where in 2021 what the issue we had was that normally in any one year where broadly you have 100 per cent in fee income and that works out where I have the balance of the income from finishing the audits from the prior year, which is the audits years broadly work from October through to September. Because of Covid and the delays and with the timescales we had to put back, what that meant in 2021 is that we couldn't recognise sufficient income. We weren't going to get the broadly 100 per cent, but you're absolutely right. There will come a point where we're gradually catching up and more of that will come in in the year. As the Auditor General said, that would come back to the Scottish Consolidated Fund. What I would ask is at the end of the year when you're doing your budget calculations again, which you'll bring forward to the commission, that you make it absolutely clear how that money is being treated, how much is still needed for cash flow and how much is going back to the consolidated fund. If you are asking for additional funds at that point, that's something that we have to look at as a separate issue. I'm very happy to meet that commitment, chair. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. You used the language there, Stuart, of catching up, but when we look at the annual report for 2021-22, we see that the number of audits delivered was at 75 per cent. In other words, presumably 25 per cent were not completed. This time last year, I think that the figure was 82 per cent, and I'm reliably informed that pre-pandemic you were in and around 100 per cent, or the late 90s, presumably. What's the reason for that? Why does there appear to be on the face of those figures not a catching up but a falling back? Good morning, Mr Leonard. You're quite right in your assessment of the numbers. Probably what I would take us back to is the very early stages of the pandemic. In respect of our financial year, we close our annual reporting accounts at the end of March. The first year that we reported really only was interrupted by a few weeks of the pandemic to reflect our progress. As I touched on in my opening remarks in 2021, it reflects the full impact of some of the delays of the availability of public officials. As Stewart mentioned, some of the disruption that our own colleagues have felt during the course of the pandemic. That reflects the change in the level of performance. All of the audits are now completed for the 2021 year, but we still have a catching up period and we still have work to do this year to recover some of those timetables. We're focused on doing so, particularly looking into 2021-22. I should say that it's the start of the next audit appointment round where auditors move. We've gone through the appointment process and I'm happy to say more about that if the commission would like. We're keen to do that and recover some of those timescales, but that broadly sets out the difference in performance from one year to the next. Do you expect to be here in 12 months' time back to 100 per cent? I would hesitate to give you that commitment. For all the reasons that we know about the volatility of the pandemic, some public bodies are still looking to recover those timescales for the preparation and production of their accounts and our ability to audit that. We have a detailed plan in place. We're confident that we will recover some of the deadlines that existed before the pandemic. It's our expectation that 2022-23 will look to recover to where we had been. I think that it's the last few years that I've shown us that I'm cautious about being definitive at this stage. Again, just so I understand it properly, the time lags are not just a function of your ability to carry the work out, it's also a function of when accounts are prepared by the public bodies that you are auditing. Both those things are relevant factors, yes. Thank you. Again, Professor Alexander spoke about development and things being dynamic and moving and so on. Obviously, one of the massive adjustments that you've had to make is moving from an operation that is office-based and auditing on people's premises, and so on, to a situation where a lot of the work that you carry out is virtual, including the staffing of your office, which is virtual. I was pleased to visit it just last week. I think that that was the first time so many people had been back in the office at any one time. How do you see working arrangements going in the future? Do you see a return to the pre-pandemic model of operation? Where do you see the balance between people being present in the office and working from different locations? I'm happy to start on that question and turn to Martin in a moment to take the question through some of the detailed thinking that we've been doing around this. At a high level, even before the pandemic, we didn't have a prescribed set of arrangements for colleagues. You must be in the office a certain number of days a week or you must be at a public body's audit site. We had an evolving set of arrangements called Time Place Travel that really afforded colleagues more licence control over where they best did their work. Deploying phrases work is what you do, not necessarily where you go. The pandemic clearly we had to move overnight, like everyone else, to being a virtual organisation. We've had people back in the office then, out again as different restrictions came into force over the past couple of years. Our expectation is that we'll continue to operate with a hybrid model that teams, colleagues, have the ability to decide for themselves where they need to be and when it matters that people come together at the right points, especially to support our colleagues who are new in the organisation who go through training, the ability to learn from one another. But a hybrid model is the right setup for us and Martin can take the commission in a bit more detail. Absolutely. We made it, what we think is a very successful transition to fully virtual working when we needed to. Overnight, on 16 March 2020, we went from being an office-based organisation to a virtual organisation. In terms of the impact on us, because of the preparations and the IT that we got in place, we think we were able to do that reasonably successfully and really quite smoothly, when everybody was able to operate at pretty much full capacity from the following day. We supplemented the arrangements there in that we've got bits of kit out to people that needed them, so whether that be little bits of furniture or chairs, extra screen, all those kind of things. So from very early on in the pandemic, we've demonstrated that it is possible to work in that way. During the course of the pandemic, we've had regular communications and engagement with all audits, call and staff, including a number of surveys that we've done. We've done specific surveys about people's attitude to hybrid working, what that might mean for them, as well as regular pulse surveys, which are essentially a check-on on how are people feeling, how is the mood and certain other subjects as well. From the most recent survey that we've done, it's around about the 75%, 80% mark of people that are saying that, typically, they would be expecting to be in two, three days a week, not necessarily on fixed days. As Stephen said, very much to do with what work needs to be done and which work is best done in an office and a team-based setting, as distinct from perhaps other work where there is benefits from working relatively remote and perhaps to a degree in isolation, getting the head down and getting through stuff. We've got a quite significant project under way, which is our developing hybrid working project. We've got colleagues across the organisation involved in that, and we're looking at various aspects of what hybrid working will mean for us, what impact that needs to have on our policies and procedures, what the requirements will be on our technology and, importantly, what that means for the culture and the engagement that there is within the organisation. That's something that we're working with colleagues, as I said, from across the business in partnership, to actually figure out. I think that, at this stage, we're clear that we're not 100% clear exactly what hybrid working will mean for us in the future. I think that, to a degree, we're all working that out as we start it, as people try it. You mentioned, Mr Leonard, that when you visited us last week, that was one of the busiest days in the office that we'd had. For me, I think it will be interesting to see, with more people having almost dipped the toe in the water, of being back in the office and remembering some of the things that they missed, some of the buzz that they get from, from engaging with colleagues, things like that. I think that we might start to see more of an increase, if you like, in terms of office attendance. It is very much a kind of work in progress, but, as I say, big project under way with lots of engagement with colleagues just so that we can actually figure that out what it's going to look like in practice. I take no responsibility for whether people decide they want to come back to work on seeing me in their office decide they do not. Chair, thank you. Chair, could I just add a point on governance and oversight on this particular topic? The board and its two committees, the audit committee and the remuneration and HR committee, take a very close interest on how we perform particularly the audit committee, but also the remuneration committee because of its responsibility for the wellbeing of the staff. We see reports at each of our board meetings and each of our committee meetings on the way the organisation is performing. I think that the commission can be assured that we have ways of intervening if we see things are going less well than we would like. We do that both at the formal level and speaking for myself at the informal level through regular monthly meetings, in my case with the Auditor General and with the Chief Operating Officer and the absence of a Chief Operating Officer over the last six months or so with Martin. The commission can be assured that both in terms of the management of the money and the governance of the money we are on the case. I can tell you that my board is quite incisive. Particularly, you will be delighted to learn the independent members of the board if things begin to go awry. Thank you. Thank you. Just continuing the questioning, maybe I can bring Daniel Johnson in at this point? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not as successful as we'd hoped. Perhaps, while we sort that technical problem out, we'll move on to Mark Ruskell. Yeah, thanks. Both yourself and yourself, Stephen, have mentioned the importance of wellbeing among staff. I think you said, Stephen, about empathy, resilience, all strong values. I'm just trying to contrast that with quite a stark figure, which is the level of staff turnover, which I think has gone up from what, 5.1 to 9.4 per cent last year. I'm just sort of wondering, is that a bit of a red light for you? What's the story underneath that turnover? What are the themes that are coming out of the exit interviews with staff? Are there underlying issues around the destination of people in the industry where they want to go next? I'm trying to second-guess what those issues are. Is it a natural consequence of Covid that people are now thinking about the next position in their careers? I don't know. It's tempting to look at a figure like that, and it can ring alarm bells. What's the story behind that? On the face of it, you're losing people. Yeah. Good morning, Mr Ruskell. I'll start. Martin will have a perspective on this and perhaps Alan as well. The turnover has increased, but it's one of the metrics with which we use to evaluate colleague wellbeing and so forth, which we've emphasised repeatedly. We talk about it as if it's just been the pandemic. I think that it's an organisation of value that I would recognise having worked in order at Scotland for over 15 years of various intervals. We survey our colleagues regularly. Martin mentioned pulse surveys and also our annual best company survey. We've retained our status as a one-star organisation for which we achieved last year and hung on to that, but it's not entirely a positive story. I think that we would recognise in some of the feedback that colleagues have given us that they are under pressure. There is a factor of delivering in a virtual or hybrid setting. It doesn't suit everybody. It doesn't suit everyone with caring responsibilities. There is, as everybody will have felt during the pandemic, some sense of isolation at various points, mental health challenges for public workers and some of our colleagues have absolutely felt that. We do have support arrangements around that. In terms of the turnover specifically, there are various factors. Some relate to the points that I just touched on. Another relates to what the market is like. It's a very competitive market that we operate in for audit skills, not just at the traditional entry points for trainees, but really throughout the grades and also for support staff as well. There's an example in our organisation. We are very focused on digital auditing and digital security. Those skills are really hot. They are in demand for all organisations and are trying to compete against that. There are a number of factors as to why people have left. Our turnover has increased. We are keeping a close eye on it. We conduct exit interviews with people to explore the reasons why they have left Audit Scotland. We are tracking it carefully. One other factor is that we have increased our organisation. We are still able to recruit and attract skills into the organisation. We are certainly not complacent about it, but we are keeping a close eye on it as we monitor some of the reasons and stats behind it. Just check with Martins if anyone wants to add. Just one or two of the points, if I may. One thing to bear in mind in this is the baseline that we are comparing it to. You are absolutely right that the turnover has increased, but it has increased from what has been for us and compared to other organisations at a very low turnover previously. It is the case that it has gone up, but it is from a very low starting point. That is one factor. Stephen says that we do an exit interview with everybody that leaves the organisation to understand the reasons for it and whether there are push factors, pull factors from elsewhere. We have not seen a particular trend. All of the factors that Stephen mentioned are part of the story. Another part of the story is that for some people, they have simply been reaching that age when they have decided to retire. A few people have moved on and just moved into retirement with the course of the recent year or so. Partly for that, Covid has been a factor in that we have seen in other places and there have been plenty of articles about this. People perhaps re-evaluate what they want from life and if they reach in that stage where they can do a couple more years or maybe just leave that bit earlier, that has been a factor in there as well. From the analysis that we have done, there is not anything that is starting to flash big warning lights to say that we are going to have an exodus on hands or anything like that. As Stephen says, it is something that we keep a very close eye on just to make sure that we are tracking all of that. The point that Martin makes is really important that you take a figure like that in your own packet because there are levers and there are those who retire. Just to emphasise that, Audit Scotland, as an organisation, has existed now for just over 21 years. If you think about that in terms of senior staff, if you get in a new organisation 20 years out of your senior staff, you are doing very well, but it does mean that there is going to be quite a few who go over a fairly short period and certainly over the year to which this report refers, we had a little bunch of these that came up, some half-expected, some not expected at all in terms of retirement, and some of people who took up an opportunity that they did not see coming, but I must emphasise the point that Martin has made. It is a figure that I always look at too, but nothing flashes red to me in that. Amber, maybe, just to keep an eye on it, but I think that the commission can be assured that that in itself, it has not affected the performance of what it has got. I think that it was useful to unpack that and I am much more reassured now. You mentioned about the staff surveys and the Pulse surveys and the more wider annual surveys. One thing that has come out of that is that we have noticed a series of graphs that compare yourselves to other appointed firms, and I suppose that it is easy to draw an exact equivalence that is debatable. On the face of it, staff in all of those firms, including yourselves, are saying that they all feel relatively encouraged, well-encouraged, well-supported to do their work. There seems to be a bit of a gap between Audit Scotland and the appointed firms in terms of the resources that you have, and the training and development that appears to be a gap where there is a noticeable gap between what staff at Audit Scotland are saying and what staff at the appointed firms are saying. The appointed firms seem to be more satisfied on those two areas. I wonder what your response is to that, because again, it flashes an amber to red, maybe. I am happy to start, I will ask Martin to say a word or two. In our accompanying report, the quality of public audit in Scotland sets out some of the detail behind the views of Collegian Audit Scotland about how they are encouraged to undertake quality audit work and the extent to which they have the resources to do so. You are right, Mr Ruskell, we set out how that compares with the audit firms that are appointed on behalf of myself on the account's question to do likewise. There is a triangulation. There is a consistency both within the quality survey and the annual survey that colleagues are telling us that they have felt under pressure to deliver quality audit work during the course of the year and the availability of resources is one of the components around that. Over the course of the past two years we have tried to be very consistent that quality and wellbeing sit as higher priorities than that of delivering deadlines. What always rubs up against that is people's desire to deliver a high quality audit work to meet their deadlines and that sense, I think, that we have used the word from time to time but a snow plough effect that colleagues are keen to move on to the next audit year, recognising that other deadlines and deliverables will be upon them. To tackle the resources issue we are usually grateful for the investment that the commission has supported audit Scotland in our work and that has made a difference, no doubt. What we are now looking at building on some of the work that will maybe turn to Martin to update the commission on is our one organisational working how we can flex our resource model to give us a bit more organisational control, flexibility and that colleagues feel that and we anticipate that that will make a significant difference over the course of these 12 months but we will test that again as you would expect with colleagues through next year's survey but Martin are you able to say some more? Absolutely, thank you. This is an interesting one and as you would imagine seeing the data on that is something that we pay close attention to. There is an interesting thing going on there where for some colleagues how they feel and their sense of achievement is sometimes driven by hitting the deadlines and actually if there is delay to the audit work they feel personally nothing to do with what senior managers may be saying but they feel personally that they are perhaps not quite achieving in the way that they might like and at exactly the same time you could have other people in that same team who are actually feeling the pressure to take that deadline and perhaps will be comfortable if it was delayed and so you get a situation where it can feel stressful but in very different ways for people in the teams. Stephen said that the investment has been very welcome and we did prioritise audit capacity at the front end of our building capacity project and I think one of the factors here is that when we do get that additional capacity and that it doesn't become 100% productive at the point of entry of course there's a leading time in terms of recruitment, selection, notice periods and then quite an extensive onboarding process that we have as well so it's great that we've got these additional people in here but we're the best one in the world that are not able to contribute at full capacity feel like optimistic that that lag effect if you like that you get when introducing new capacity should start to even things out a little bit in the year to come. The other thing I would say as well is that in terms of hitting those deadlines and you picked up earlier on Mr Leonard as well is that for some of the sectors we still I think delivered really well so 100% of the NHS audits were delivered to deadline unfortunately we weren't able to achieve those same kind of rates in necessarily all of the sectors so it can kind of vary from team to team a little bit on that. On the one organisational working point that Stephen Raid we've got a project underway there and essentially what that is about is about trying to ensure that we can use the resources that we've got perhaps more from the sector so that we can get that we've got perhaps more flexible than we might have done in the past so we have as you would imagine organisational structures in terms of super teams and teams that are dedicated to particular audits but what we're trying to work out now is what are the barriers that prevent us from actually just moving people across to a particular audit on the basis of the need in that audit perhaps on the basis of the skills that are needed for that particular audit that work more effectively so that we're getting the best out of everybody in the organisation. The other thing that I think that that project will be real helpful for as well is that we do know from the staff survey that there are some colleagues feel that they've got some skills that they have got that perhaps aren't being utilised to best effect and again that can sometimes be almost an accident of allocation in terms of the work that they're on so we're hoping that through this project we can get the square that off as well so that actually the people are getting the best experience and are feeling that they're able to develop through that more deployment sorry, through the deployment being more flexible and equally from an organisational point of view we would feel the benefit of that as well so potentially if we can get that stuff right it will be real win-win. Can I just note that the question that Mr Russell asked throws a very interesting light on one of the strengths of the Scottish Public Audit Model and that is that two thirds of the audits are done by Audit Scotland and one third by the firms which allows us to make that continuous comparison and not only on price but on quality on the way staff perceive what they're doing and I've spent the last two years chaining the steering group which oversaw the procurement of the next five years of audit from external firms and if I wasn't convinced at the beginning of that process that this was the right balance I was certainly convinced at the end of it because it means that we are not in an Audit Scotland bubble we are continuously able to measure our performance against the private sector firms Can I just very briefly it may seem counterintuitive but would a four day week benefit your organisation because obviously where four day week's been implemented the majority of cases it's improved productivity maybe at a point where you don't think productivity to increase anymore but if you're talking about staff wanting to reutilise their skills move more flexibly around the organisation there would be some opportunities there but I wonder if that's something that's being looked at within the context that you are in We're aware of it, we're looking at it in a couple of factors One is that like many organisations we're following closely and awaiting the results of the national pilot for four day week working that's taken place across public and private sector organisations it's something that we are also engaging in discussion with our staff representatives as well as the enthusiastic to have that debate and we'll do that over the course of the year ahead in terms of the terms of conditions that we offer we have many many colleagues who don't operate a standard five day Monday to Friday working pattern so we offer compressed hours we offer part time working arrangements to give that flexibility to our colleagues and we think perhaps going back to your earlier point about turnover we can't necessarily always compete on pay alone so that we have to have an offer to existing and prospective employees and the flexibility in our terms of conditions is absolutely one of those points that we look to provide people whether that translates into a four day week I think it's something that we'll take a right interest in but keen to have that conversation over the course of the year ahead and see what the pilot results say thank you thank you very much I think we've got Daniel Johnson back on board now Daniel second time lucky can you hear me we can hear you terrific so just really following on from some of the comments that have already been raised primarily from Richard Leonard who raised the question and delays there's also the point in your annual report which states that around 36% of your audits are not meeting expected standards I understand that you target 80% so I'm just wondering if you could apply an explanation as to why it's 36% and indeed how and when it's standard good afternoon Mr Johnson I'm grateful for the question actually and we've in our report on accompanying reports, annual reports and accounts the quality of public audit in Scotland we set out the results of the external and internal assessment of our audit quality so this report reflects the arrangement that we have of chartered accountants for Scotland who have done some of that external assessment you're quite right and you say that 36% of those audits that were assessed didn't meet the expected quality standards in itself that matters we want all of our audits we have a target of 80% on a cumulative three-year rolling basis to meet the standards for auditing standards accounting standards overall arrangements we're in the middle of a process to assure the commission last year the commission we recall is that we had some disappointing results in our financial audit assessments where 36% didn't 36% met the standard we're now up at 64% and that reflects a really focused level of activity over the course of the past 12 months we've invested in quality work we've had very consistent quality messages touched on a moment or two ago about quality and wellbeing over delivery we've created a more extensive programme of what we call cold reviews and hot reviews, cold reviews being after the fact, hot review are potential interventionist reviews that allow audit teams to amend their approach undertake additional work we're pleased to see the progress that we're making some of it, I think, is a bit of a we'll reflect what we anticipate will be a time lag effect that we receive the results and the detailed feedback from ICAS and from our internal cold reviews by the time we get that some of our audits are almost at the point of completion so our ability to share the learning and the good practice from that can't quite always necessarily be captured as completed part of that explains where we'll get to anticipating a stronger set of results next year as we incorporate all the learning from last year and also the point that we're also looking to reassure the commission is that audit quality is fundamental to audit Scotland it's the bedrock of our work the reliability of it and our reputation and we're also just refocusing some of our structure to best capture that we've in previous years had what we called a professional support team that does much of the technical support to auditors alongside some of the quality assessment that's been done in some respects alongside other responsibilities but we felt that that wasn't necessarily giving us the right platform the right level of the resource the right focus on quality so we've in the past few months looking to move that on to what we're calling to an innovation and quality team giving us some dedicated resource to further embed quality or compliance and the impact of our work so we're pleased with the progress we're not complacent and expect that over the course of this year that compliance with quality standards will increase further still could I just push you a little bit for that I mean I note those activities so you're saying that you expect to see improvement so if we're sitting here this time next year do you have an anticipated number that you expect and likewise when do you expect to meet the 80 per cent standard will that be this time next year or will that be in following years so the standard is a rolling cumulative three year target of 80 per cent of our audits will meet the standard for the FRC external quality assessment standard which is a score of one to four so our audits scoring would reflect that it's my expectation really that all of our audits are of a high quality and meet those standards so we would never set out given any message that well you know we want to live with 20 per cent that don't meet the standard or 64 per cent compliance in the year in question we're confident that the investment that we're making in quality building on the work of the past few years capturing that alongside our development and methodologies the training that we provide will get us to 80 per cent and really beyond that just to reassure the commission is that we don't want to operate on a point where we've got a fifth of our audits aren't operating at the expected standards there's my expectation that we'll see progress in the year ahead and if that comes off as anticipated that we'll have a level of compliance consistent with our target the only caveat that would make Mr Johnson is that the standards are changing and growing and that's right so we've got new international standards on auditing that apply for the year ahead we're investing in training and development to support colleagues properly but it's something that all auditors across public and private sector will be dealing with so I allow for the possibility that there may be a bedding in period but that shouldn't differentiate from the message given that we are really taking quality seriously and expecting to see further progress in the year ahead are you finished Daniel? I think so unless any other members of the panel in particular if there's been any activity from the audit committee themselves to oversee this I'd be interested just to understand what discussions you've been perhaps I could help on that chair my approach to being chair of the board of Audit Scotland and my relationships with the senior staff is to insist on I know surprises relationship if anything's going wrong I want to know as soon as possible and I knew very early about the dip in quality before the commission before and we now have a process whereby progress on quality is monitored not only at the board but crucially at the audit committee that is chaired by Colin Crosby with great experience in this field and he also sits as an observer on the audit quality committee of Audit Scotland so if the board needed to know that we were not making the kind of progress to which the Auditor General has referred then we would know very quickly informally and that would then formally be considered first by the audit committee and by the board I think our arrangements for that kind of oversight are very robust indeed and the Auditor General as accountable officer has been robust in making sure that both the committees and the board of cells are involved in the oversight of this so if there was any falling back from the progress to which Stephen has referred we would if I can use an old phrase we'd be all over it but I think we've got the right place and we would hope to report the results of that to you for this day next year okay, thank you Daniel, anything you want to add? no in that case I'll ask Sharon Burnie to come in thank you, hi there just continuing the theme of wellbeing for staff on page 77 Audit Scotland included a provision £9.053 million to cover the cost of unused annual leave it was just to see some of the reasons behind why staff wouldn't take their annual leave and I know that the Auditor General had said about staff's desire to meet deadlines and produce high quality work so that might have been a everything was locked down you couldn't go on holiday anyway so I'll just stay in complete my audits but it's just to see why they hadn't taken holidays to encourage staff and support them to take their holidays it's a really important point we want all of our colleagues to use all of their annual leave every year there are always factors as to why that isn't the case from people's domestic personal arrangements that can hamper that what we have seen though the course of the pandemic is that unused annual leave balances have increased partly for the reasons that you suggest about uncertainty around restrictions places people can and then couldn't go on holiday and then inability to make alternative arrangements at short notice these have all been factors but it is also the case as Martin mentioned that because some of that uncertainty has also fed through to the work environment about the availability of resources uncertainty about the timing as to when audits would start and complete and people's desire to complete deliverables not to have them snowplowed up and overlapping with successive years all of these have been factors it's also fair to say that we've delivered an ambitious programme of public reporting performance and best value audits mentioned in my introductory remarks about a dynamic programme so we've sought to have a regular impactful public audit commentary during the course of the pandemic all of which has placed demands upon our colleagues as we are through that we're evaluating our future programme of public reporting to not necessarily a pre-pandemic style but one that's a more sustainable model and we're also sending out just a clear communication and messaging is that we expect people to take their holidays we want them to take their holidays it's all about the offer that we make as an employer we have a our culture isn't one that we would recognise from some parts of the sector of excessively long hours we want people to have an appropriate work-life balance and all of that means taking their annual leave so please be assured we're sending clear communication to colleagues about that we do have limits on the amount of annual leave that people can carry forward our holiday year it has a cut-off date and line managers have detailed conversations with colleagues where there's a pattern on regular but it's a clear focus for us in the year out there were issues that were highlighted in Police Scotland and in the Fire Brigade the people taking early retirement and I just noticed that you've got the voluntary early release in page 47 it was only one member of staff left under a voluntary early release arrangement where they were entitled to early access to their pension so obviously we're talking about issues with recruitment and concerns so I was just wondering if you could tell us more about the scheme and is it still in place happy to start on that and Martin might want to say a word or two more in terms of the disclosures we have on our accounts so this was a voluntary early release and that's really open to any member of staff at particular points in their career if they want to engage in it there's a more formal process I think it's probably now six or seven years since we've had an active promoted early release scheme that's not been the circumstances that we're in as an organisation at the moment and when somebody does look to engage that whether it's the circumstances that they're in will look sympathetically to individuals request and explanation so why that's the right thing for them in their phase of their career and that was related to this year where that happens somebody can access their pension it results in contractual flow through to us as an organisation I'll pause and just turn to Martin so I don't know what he wants to say probably there's an important distinction to make between having a voluntary early release scheme and receiving a voluntary early release request and as Stephen says I do recall six or seven years ago where we were at a stage to perhaps downsize the organisation a little bit we would create a vera typical acronym in many organisations a vera scheme that would identify certain criteria and people that therefore fell into those criteria could make an application under a broad invite we've not done one of those for many years now but we've actually been in a situation where we're either sustaining or looking to increase capacity and for this year it was simply a request from the individual rather than being under a part of a specific scheme right that's right thank you just one or two final questions as you might expect the cost of remote audit you've highlighted is 25% more expensive to what extent can you recover any of that money from those being audited and to what extent is that being written off against the additional resources budget resources that were allocated to you by the Government thanks for raising this chair it's an important it's been a real factor yes the cost of delivering remote audit but also the quality that we've touched on already this morning I'm going to ask Stuart there's a couple of relevant transactions that are in our accounts that related to provisions that we had in last year's accounts about the cost of remote audit and then one of the other factors that's relevant for our fee arrangements is the travel and subsistence that auditors would typically have done of which our fee model is based and then the fact that that has reduced considerably over the course of the pandemic and what that also means for our fees and potential reflection as we are as we would reflect the legislation as to what our fee model entails so I'm going to just invite Stuart to talk the full thing now that you've mentioned that if you state in here that remote audit costs 25% more that doesn't imply that it's a netted off figure if you take into account discounting off the travel and all the rest of it I assume that 25% is an absolute figure after taking everything into account and it reflects a period probably the volatility of it so the 25% we would have seen very clearly in last year's accounts and the impact of the preparation as we've touched on on public bodies our auditors own arrangements and receiving evidence remotely testing that against quality standards so all that would be... but it is a net figure that 25% so I if I may just I don't want to unwittingly give the wrong answer to the commission so I'll maybe just check that number is as you suggest here the 25% from last year was the indication of the extra time it takes to do the remote audit so normally we plan to do audits in a certain number of days, audit days and what happened is that last year when we had to complete the 1920 audits in the 2021 financial year it was broadly speaking it worked out that that extra time required to do the audits was in that region so in effect what happened last year was as you'll see from the accounts and the auditor general mentioned is that we the firms that do audit work said that the actual costs that they incurred was more through doing the audit work remotely and we put a provision in the accounts to cover that what then happened is that when we got the information and negotiated with them in the 21-22 financial year we managed to work out a figure that was less and settled for a less figure with them so in effect whilst it might have taken 25% more time to do some audits not all of them were like that it really depended and I think was mentioned earlier depended on the quality of the papers you had and from the bodies we're auditing as well as the time that we needed to do that so in effect the 25% is a net figure that you mentioned just to be clear that 25% additional cost is after taking into account the savings on travel and so forth against the additional time taken to carry out the audit it's purely that is the additional time so we have then saved in travel and the firms have saved in expenses so whilst we're saying it takes longer to do the audit we have saved in those specific areas obviously so it's not actually a final figure no that's not entirely clear in the accounts looking at the additional costs and so on is that any part can be recovered from the organisation being audited and is the anticipation that that figure that 25% less whatever will be written off against the budget support given by the Scottish Government I'm happy to answer that the 25% was specifically in the 19 in the 2021 financial year that was the year when Covid hit and we then put that provision in the accounts to cover that in the audit year 2021 any remote costs were to be charged to the audited body and that was the arrangement that we had so in 2021 22 financial year but 2021 audit year we would recover any additional work that we needed to do piece additional costs go against the additional budget that was granted by the Scottish Government good just a couple of other things obviously there's been that some of the budget expenditure is a bit higher staff recruitment costs we've talked about staff recruitment one of the things that I'll look at Audit Scotland there's several different factors here that if you look at an organisation might cause concern firstly you lose most of your senior staff secondly your staff turnover is substantially higher and third a substantially additional number of trainees is taken on board is that anything in there that should cause us concern I don't think so chair actually I think and Professor Alexander might want to say a little bit more about the points that you raised yes there's been turnover at senior staff levels very clearly after a long period of stable leadership I'm trying not to read too much into that chair and I think in terms of my own appointment as auditor general but realistically I think there's there's a variety of different factors behind it so the commission will be familiar with the fact that we've had turnover at chief operating officer level where the former chief operating officer is now a chief executive of a high profile organisation in Scotland we've had a retiro from our executive team as well and I think those factors are all individual recruitment costs reflect the fact that we have gone out to the market to secure new executive team posts and have had a very strong successful campaign is it only the three posts that represent the overspend of 97,000 in the budget so there's also factors about so we've and also I think as we mentioned a few moments ago we have recruited to increase our organisational capacity so across a variety of posts and campaigns to bring capacity into our audit services and our PABV organisations firstly and then into parts of our corporate services so the volume of recruitment that we've undertaken is part of the component of our spending of recruitment costs a turnover I think we've mentioned it's a perfectly reasonable challenge that are these alarm bells as Martin mentioned we analyse carefully the factors behind individual levers in the organisation some of it's due to the senior staff that we've mentioned people taking life choices to exercise their ability to retire earlier than they might have done as a result of the experiences that they've had during the course of the pandemic and then also I think it is safe to say that it is a competitive challenging market that we're operating in that not just ourselves but all audit firms and that largely is the market that we're competing against are experiencing challenges and recruiting attracting talent into the profession and then retaining once they do so we're not complacent but I think it is safe to say we're keeping a really careful eye on some of these metrics as indicative of organisational health Alan you might want to say a bit more about that Can I invite the commission just to imagine for a moment that the pandemic didn't happen had that not happened Stephen would still have become auditor general and accountable officer on the 1st of July of 2020 and I think I hope I don't misrepresent him when I say that he would have wanted to move to change some of the management structure of Audit Scotland he and I talked about this very early on and I think you won't be surprised to learn that once we've brought the pandemic back into consideration neither of us thought that it would be a good idea to do that kind of major restructure while we were dealing with all the other things that the pandemic brought to us what we didn't know at that point was that there would be opportunity to make other changes the departure of the chief operating officer the retirel of the director of the Audit Services Group gave Stephen the opportunity to come to me first of all and then to the board with his proposals for how to reconfigure the top structure and I think it's fair to say that the board and in particular chair of the non-execs were really quite fierce in their examination of what Stephen wanted to do and in fact I think it's fair to say Stephen that some tweaks were made to what was being proposed which in the end was the proposal that the board agreed because those were posts that in terms of their membership of what was used to be called the management team which is now called the executive team those appointments are in the gift of the board therefore we had to be involved straight through we're also involved in the process of recruitment in terms of interview and shortlisting, longlisting and so on of that we felt had to be done carefully to the highest possible recruitment standards because we all took the view that this was a once in a decade probably opportunity to reconfigure and that was always going to be I think an expensive process because we've mentioned a couple of times this morning this is an incredibly tight employment market it was important therefore that we got assistance in identifying people who might want to talk to us about working for Audit Scotland it was a long very detailed process over a period of I suppose even four months between February and May and we think we now have the right team so we don't think we would have got to that stage without the investment that's recorded in the accounts that's helpful just one last question on staffing you've got perhaps a record number of trainees now what's your retention level on trainees I'll maybe turn to Martin I'll give Martin the detail on retention level just by being of context chair to see trainees it's the traditional largest entry point into Audit Scotland so people typically join us as graduate trainees although in recent years we also have entry points for school leavers into the organisation as well for those that can also embark upon studies towards a professional accountancy qualification straight from school that's been a real success for us as well and we're now operating 50, 51 trainees at various stages of qualification not to use a cliché but it's the lifeblood and it allows us to do a number of things as well as to secure high quality, motivated able people to come in and deliver our audit work it also helps us to address some of the more sticky long standing issues about gender equality ethnicity equality in the organisation as well we are more diverse at our trainee cohort of colleagues than we are at other ports of the organisation and building on that success we expect we'll see us to be a more diverse organisation in the years to come as well but Martin might want to say some more yes thank you so probably one of the biggest public sector schemes in terms of our trainee scheme it's one of the largest in this kind of field and as Stephen said 51 trainees currently on that scheme 78% of folks in the year 21-22 chose to stay with audit Scotland having qualified on the scheme and funnily enough just at the executive team a couple of weeks ago actually we considered a report from some colleagues that was actually at a kind of 10 year review of the scheme so that was a kind of big step back to see okay let's have a look at the scheme, how successful it's been what people who've been on the scheme think of it, what they've been telling us what the retention rates are all that kind of stuff so quite a substantial piece of work and from that we established that since 2011 we've had over 140 trainees been on that scheme and 77% of those that qualified stayed with audit Scotland so virtually identical to the annual rate that we can report for this year so we consider a very important part of how we get talent into the organisation and just to reinforce the point about widening access as well part of that review report that I just mentioned was also seeking executive team approval to start exploring options and perhaps entrance from college mond apprentice roots in so that we're actually able to provide more opportunities to a wider diversity of people and I'm sure that will be a thing that will be beneficial both to those people entering the scheme and undoubtedly for us as an organisation as well Thank you and really just one last question here part of your IT costs have been increased licences don't you bolt by licences or do you have to buy them individually for these additional staff I'll turn to Martin to see if we have that information chair part of the increased cost is the fact that we have more colleagues this year than we have done also and there's been a general increase in IT costs really building on the last year's annual report on accounts where the fact that we are operating in a hybrid setting meant that we've had to buy incidentals just to support people to work both at home and in the office and also out on site in terms of the IT licence if we have that information we can share it just now through Martin if not we'll come back in writing I could say a little bit more about that if it's helpful chair so it kind of depends on the licence that we're talking about licences aren't equal and of course it depends on what's the licence for what kind of system we're actually talking about the bulk of the licences are for the kinds of products that everybody, all of us use and the arrangement that we have for the majority of those licences is actually we've got a very flexible arrangement which means we can dial it up and down in exactly the way that we need and actually that we think provides better value for money than up with 20, 30, 40 licences sat on the shelf that aren't being used so literally we're able to kind of flex our licensing and therefore we pay on the basis of need rather than having surplus licences around but it absolutely is something that we pay very close attention to and indeed it's one of the areas that we actually get some external support from specialists in this area to ensure that we're getting the best deals that we possibly can OK Can I ask if any members have any other questions they would like to ask Can I ask if the chair of the board and the other general have anything they'd like to add I think the points that I wanted to make from a governance point of view have been made during the discussion so no, thank you In that case, thank you very much for attending the meeting and we'll have a short suspension while we seat our next witness Thank you I'd like to welcome David Jeffcoat partner for Alexander Sloan to the meeting and there's just a couple of questions formal questions to ask you one is for completeness and for the official record could you confirm that Alexander Sloan's received all the necessary information and explanations that it requires to form its opinion on the financial statements Yes, I can confirm that I'm able to do a short summary if you wish as well Absolutely, you're welcome Thank you very much chair and the committee I would like to give a summary of our work to accompany our audit opinion and our audit summary report Alexander Sloan was appointed to carry out the external audit of the financial statements of Audit Scotland for the year to 31 March 2022 We commenced our audit planning in January of this year and our audit field work in early May and I signed the audit report on the 6 June 2022 Our audit was carried out in accordance with international standards on auditing We carried out our audit remotely using a secure portal to request and receive information electronically and technologies such as screen sharing and video calls to make our work as efficient as possible and we thank Audit Scotland's finance team for their support on this I can confirm that the financial statements of Audit Scotland give a true and fair view at 31 March 2022 that they have been properly prepared in accordance with international financial reporting standards and the Government's financial reporting manual and in accordance with the Public Finance and Accountability Act 2000 I can confirm that adequate accounting records have been kept and that we've received all the information and explanations that we've required before issuing the audit opinion Audit opinion also confirms that expenditure has been incurred and receipts applied in accordance with the PFA Act 2000 As part of our audit work we are required to prepare an audit summary report to management and a copy of this is said to the committee This report summarises our response to key audit risk areas that require particular focus in an audit and reports on any weaknesses in the accounting systems and internal controls that may come to our attention during the audit Audit work on management override in particular in respect of the appropriateness and accuracy of bookkeeping accounting journals identified no issues to bring to the attention of the committee Audit work on revenue recognition considered the accuracy of recording income in the appropriate accounting period and was strongly linked to our auditing of work in progress on audits that had commenced prior to the year end Audit work concluded the work in progress data balance and credit balance at 31 March were based on robust assumptions were accurately calculated and we are satisfied that they are accounted for appropriately in the financial statements Audit work on accounting estimates included the consideration of provisions within the financial statements we are satisfied that provisions contained within the accounts including the provision for free rebates is appropriate the underlying estimates are accurately calculated and that sufficient disclosures have been made to aid the users in the financial statements we are also satisfied that the pension provision has been appropriately accounted for in line with the actuaries report but the disclosures are adequately detailed in note 3 of the financial statements and that the assumptions used by the actuaries in calculating provision are reasonable with regards any recommendations to the accounting systems or financial controls I can confirm that following our audit work we could not identify any matters we require to raise to the management or committee Finally, on behalf of me and my team I would like to record our thanks to the staff at Audit Scotland for their helpful and prompt assistance during the audit I am happy to take any questions from members of the committee Thank you for that and for those reassurances Just one thing we would like your assurance on Accounting judgments require detailed consideration of scrutiny by auditors and I would ask you on behalf of Alexander Smith to confirm that your content with the judgments made by Audit Scotland and the disclosure in the annual report and accounts noting that a provision for additional costs in the previous year was overstated by £497,000 The provision that was brought into the accounts last year was based on the information that was available at the time in respect of the that was to do with the additional audit fees that was based on the information that came from the approved auditors at the time the 25% figure that you talked about earlier so that was brought into the accounts last year based on the information that was there following negotiations during 21-22 that figure then came down so the accounting effect of that is basically a credit to that account so essentially SCU end up with a that being over provided for effectively last year but it sort of fixed this year if you like To what extent did you look at the 25% additional costs in terms of Audit Scotland's remote audits and how that impacted so this would have been actually last year's audit where that came into being last year to assess the appropriateness of that provision well it's still mentioned in this year's accounts so is there any comparative information that's in there so this was looked at last year as part of the audit and the reports from the approved auditors were looked at as part of that consideration last year as well and you were satisfied with those figures and how it was handled again this is last year's audit but yes we were satisfied last year and in respect to the substantial additional funds granted by the Scottish Government to Audit Scotland how did you analyse the disposal did you analyse the disposal yes so I think the additional funds you're talking about mostly relate to the pension IAS 19 pension costs of about 6 million not just that I mean the pension costs we understand and those are not revenue related it's the revenue related costs that Audit Scotland received in addition which were I think if I remember correctly a fairly closer record in terms of the size of the increase that it received so as part of our audit work we do consider regularity which is how expenditure is spent in very sort of high level terms and we look at the appropriateness of expenditure that's incurred we look at anything that might be significant as well or anything that looks unusual we had no concerns with that you were satisfied as to the deployment of these funds thank you can I ask members if they've got any questions no no do you have anything you'd like to add yourself no not at all no in that case I think we can perhaps close this meeting at this point and thank you everybody for attending Scottish Commission Republic Audit thank you