 Dan Maen nhw gan ein cyffindig ddyn nhw. Rydw i'n gweithio gweithio'r clywedau y gynglant mor cyfnodbeth wedi gweithio tyllud rŷu y Cymru. Felly rydw i'n ddweudoddiad, rydw i'n ddwylliant oherwydd y parlymenau rhoi sefydlu cyffindig o'r newid. Beth rydych yn gweithio ar gyfrifiadau a'r clywedau o'i gweithio ar gyfrifiadau, o greu ni, i ddwych i'r greu ei fasio. The first item on our agenda is to agree to take items 3 and 4 in private. Is that agreed? The second item on our agenda is to consider an audit Scotland section 22 report into the national records Scotland office. We have a number of witnesses with us this morning. I take the opportunity of first of all welcoming the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle, who joins us in the committee room. We have also got remotely, but I am glad to see joining us, Graham Samson, who is a senior auditor, Asif Hazib, who is a senior manager of audit services, and Dashi Sanzakumaran, who is the correspondence manager, performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland. You are all very welcome indeed. The Auditor General usually invites in his colleagues at the appropriate juncture, but if any of you do want to come in and haven't been spotted, you can use the chatroom function and put R in there. I also extend that invitation to Willie Coffey, who joined us remotely as well this morning. I will bring Willie in as we go through the meeting and the questions. We have questions, but I would like to invite the Auditor General to give us an opening statement. I am presenting the report on the 2021 audit of the national records of Scotland under section 22 of the Public Finance and Accountability Act 2000. NRS is a non-ministerial department of the Scottish Government and it is responsible for Scotland's census. The census is a vital source of information about Scotland's people and households. It is a large and complex programme, covering all Scotland's estimated 2.51 million households and 5,500 communal establishments. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, ministers decided to defer the planned 2021 census until 2022. I have prepared this session 22 report to highlight some of the challenges that NRS has faced in delivering the census programme, including disruption to the original rehearsal timetable. I also report on the programme's use of project assurance reviews. In February 2021, one of those reviews assessed that NRS would have been ready to go with the original census in March 2021. Shortly thereafter, however, at the start of the pandemic, NRS carried out a detailed options appraisal to assess whether the census could go ahead in March 2021, as planned. However, considering the risks, in particular to data quality in Scotland, it was assessed that those were too high. Unlike the Office for National Statistics, which manages the census in England and Wales, NRS does not have access to additional sources of administrative data that would have enabled it to fill gaps in census returns, caused by a low response rate. The auditor has highlighted that the decision to delay the census will cost an additional £21.6 million on top of the original £117 million budget. The Scottish Government is funding those extra costs, but it is important that NRS continues to closely monitor and manage programme spend. Scottish Government assurance reviews report that NRS improved its project management and delivery over the project, and that it is now on track to deliver the revised date of March 2022. As with any major ICT project, NRS will need to maintain momentum and closely manage and monitor risks over the final stages of the project. As I myself and my colleagues are delighted to answer the committee's questions this morning, thank you. We have quite a number of questions that we want to put to you and your team based on our reading of the report and the wider context in which it sits. Part of that wider context—you mentioned it in your opening statement—is our concern about ICT projects not necessarily delivering on time and on budget. As a passing reference in the section 22 report, it mentions that this is one of the biggest ICT projects in Scotland. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about what shape that takes. Is it an in-house ICT project? Is it a new capital project? Or are we just talking about the operational side of it? I will do my best to start. I invite colleagues to supplement my response. We refer to it as one of the largest ICT projects. The committee, in the reports that it receives from the Scottish Government as part of the major ICT projects, updates the receipt, have identified that as one of the significant projects. ICT projects take a different shape and form. The overall cost envelope that we refer to in the report of £117 million is analysed in a range of factors. Some of that will be ICT components, but, as ever with many ICT programmes, much of that is staff costs in terms of development activity, coding and so forth, as well as the typical aspects of licensing of software and so forth. There are a range of different components to what makes up the project. In terms of its significance, yes, we cite that convener, but what we also say in the report is that we think that that differs from previous reports in terms of successful ICT programmes on the basis that we have seen how the programme has interacted particularly with the assurance reviews that, where it has encountered challenges, the assurance reviews have helped and been able to steer the project back on course nonetheless. A hugely significant and complex programme nonetheless. Are you saying that you are satisfied about where things are with the ICT programme in terms of the skillset that is required to oversee and run it in terms of its operational implementation? When we look at the census carried out in England and Wales, that was a digital first census, was it not really for the first time? I wonder whether your assessment is in Scotland at a stage where we could carry out that digital first assessment, or are there still any deficiencies or inadequacies? The intention for the census was to be a predominantly digital census. In terms of some statistics around that, colleagues can keep me right on that, if they will, but in previous census Scotland also deployed a field force, so we will all be familiar with people going round doors, supporting completion rates, accuracy of responses. Historically, it was around 7,000 people who had been deployed to deliver that part of the census programme. The intention for the 21 census was that that number would have halved to 3,500 people, which is still significant, but certainly an indication of a much broader digital first convener in terms of the delivery of the census. I do not think that we are saying that there are deficiencies. It was undoubtedly a large complex programme. We do refer to in the report that there were aspects that were challenging in terms of the delivery of the original planned rehearsal, that there were changes in leadership during the lifetime of the programme, significant aspects that we identify in our 2017 report on the successful factors around the delivery of ICT programmes. However, I think that the wider picture of the report is that, as with all large complex programmes, it had challenges, but that those were addressed during the course of the programme. However, it is maybe worth coming back to some of the differences between Scotland's arrangements and those elsewhere in the rest of the UK. However, there had been early difficulties before the pandemic struck. When I look at the audit report from 2018-19, it speaks in there about a census recovery plan. Three years out, two three years out from the expected date the census was going to be carried out. There have been some underlying problems even before we got to the pandemic. I think that is fair, isn't it? There is no doubt that there had been challenges in the delivery of this project. In and of itself, I think that there is some mitigation for a large complex project that is not entirely unexpected that there would have been challenges. I think that what matters more is how those challenges were dealt with. The example that we refer to in the report, and I may ask to say a word or two about this, is that the census rehearsal was delayed. It aligned with one of the project assurance reviews that gave a red rating. A recovery plan that you referred to, the convener, was implemented and then a delayed rehearsal subsequently took place. It evaluated on-going project assurance arrangements alongside that that led to the judgment that they could deliver it. However, I will pause for a moment and invite us, as the appointed auditor, to say a word or two more about those circumstances. The rehearsal was delayed. It was successfully carried out digitally, based on three local authorities. Based on that, the assurance framework gave it the go-ahead to carry out the census. That is helpful. I will return to quite a lot of the themes around staffing, support and some of the implications for the delay. A couple of quick questions from me. One is that, obviously, the delay has meant that data will be delayed in reaching public sector planners, those people responsible for delivering services, which the census is in no small measure designed to inform that decision making. Have you made any assessment of the impact of the delay on the planning decisions that public authorities will need to make? No, convener. We have not done any detailed work on the longer term implications of what that might mean. In terms of a 12-month delay, there will be implications for budgets, resourcing, delivery of public services, no doubt. That is probably a matter for NRS and the Scottish Government to determine what the implications of those are, and it is an interest to the committee perhaps to pursue directly with those organisations. We may well have the accountable officer in from NRS at a future evidence session. That might fall into the same category as that, but I wonder whether your team has a view, Auditor General, on what the implications would be. Were there to be any further delay to the census, and the census has planned to go ahead in March 2022 for reasons that we could speculate about, but it does not go ahead? You are right, convener, with the circumstances that we are all witnessing that the predictability that we used to have is not there. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that there could be a further delay, and the circumstances are that the Scottish model still relies on a component of a field force. We have seen that, in arriving at the decision to defer when the pandemic struck, NRS and discussion with the Scottish ministers presented a range of options as to how it might deliver an alternative census. I suppose that it will be a matter for discussion between NRS and the Scottish Government if it is a delay again or whether there are alternative options to proceed. Clearly, a further 12-month delay would not be desirable, but it may be a factor in NRS's own contingency planning as to how it would deal with that and what it meant for future planning of delivery of public services. You mentioned the options appraisal. All that I have seen in the public domain is two sides of A4. Have you had access, as Audit Scotland, to what presumably would be a much more detailed analysis that was put to the census programme board or the board of NRS? Have you had access to a much more detailed report? Will the committee be able to get access to that? I will ask the team to come in just to say about what we have seen coming through the NRS programme board that is responsible for the management of the programme. In terms of the committee's access, I am fairly clear, convener, if it is something that the committee would wish to see the detail of some of the what lay behind the programme board's decision making and associated advice, it is something that you would be, I am sure, appropriate to pursue directly with NRS. If we have any of those details, we can discuss how best we can share that with the committee, but I will ask Darcy just to comment on what we have seen. We do not have the detailed options appraisal report, but we have seen numerous reports going to the census programme board and also to the economy and the Scottish Government reporting on the decision making process and the implications for that. We have seen more detail that is in the summary that is published on the website, including details of the financial implications for the delay and more about the reasoning behind the decision to delay in terms of data quality and the impact on that if it had gone ahead in 2021. Thank you. I think that if we can get access to that more detailed work, it would be useful for us to do that. Colin Beattie has a number of questions next that he wants to ask. Colin, over to you. I would like to explore a bit more about the management of the census programme, but before I do, we recall that, in the past, we have had section 22 reports previously on this particular organisation. A lot of what was around ICT at that time, a lot of what was about management. Given that we are talking about this being one of the biggest ICT programmes that the Scottish Government has under way, have any steps been taken to give additional support with that memory of what happened previously? Just on the back of that, if we see a lot of the section 22 reports coming forward, a lot of them have been for similar organisations, such departments that seem to be a little bit too remote, in some ways, from control. Again, coming back, this is the biggest ICT project. What was done to provide the extra support on that? In all those points, Mr Beattie has seen that additional support was provided by the Scottish Government in terms of expertise through two aspects. One would say that the additional support through the assurance reviews were undoubtedly helpful. We have seen that the assurance review findings have ranged, so we have now started at red at one point that we have referred to for the rehearsal with recommendations and then to various stages of amber. Most recently, amber agreed, so that in itself is a key component of the delivery of a complex project. We have also seen NRS itself taking appropriate leadership interventions at the right points. One of the assurance reviews, for example, found that there needed to be additional leadership around the programme. At that point, the chief executive of NRS stepped in himself to become the senior responsible officer for the project. He could not recruit someone to take that position. That was the third point that I was going to make. The programme had a change of director leading the project, so in difficulties in retaining, recruiting to that post, the chief executive took direct responsibility for that. That is an appropriate step for the leader of the organisation to take, but the organisation has also supplemented that with additional skills and brought in expertise from external providers to support the running under the delivery and project expertise of the project. All of that tells the story of a programme that has had challenges over its lifetime, but the greater scheme of judgments around the programme is that it has made the right decisions at the points of challenge. Let's talk about something that the convener touched on. We were talking about the impact of Covid-19 on the census programme, which is substantial, but, as you yourself said, there were challenges to the programmes that were identified before the pandemic. Can you give us a bit of detail on what those challenges specifically were and what the steps were that were taken to meet them? Two things. I want to say a word or two about the rehearsal for the census. It was the initial red flag, and it was a red assurance review about the delivery of that. The other thing that we just touched on in discussion, Mr Beattie, is the changes in leadership. I will start with Darshie, but I might want to say a word or two more, just to give the committee a bit more detail. Thanks, Auditor General. There were a number of issues that were flagged when the programme was initially marked red. One of those was around preparedness for the rehearsal. Not all of the components required for testing the field workforce had been procured at that point. There were risks to the delivery of the rehearsal as planned in October 2019. It also identified deficiencies in programme governance and problems with resourcing and accessing the right level of field resource, particularly around programme management and some of the operational skills required. There were also some finance risks. Subsequent to that, the recovery plan was implemented and a number of steps were taken. The Auditor General has already mentioned some of those. The chief executive took on responsibility as senior responsible officer. He also commissioned an external programme and project management consultant to review the programme governance and implemented a number of changes following that. The chief executive also took over as chair of the census programme board. He brought in a wider range of people on to the board. He brought in people from Scottish Government finance and staff from ONS and NISRA on to that group to bring in their expertise. He also brought in additional resources on to the programme, including a new head of commercial and contract management, a new finance lead, additional programme management resource and cyber security expertise. He brought in a number of changes to try and address those deficiencies. By February 2020, the rating of the programme had changed. It was judged that they would have been able to proceed in 2021 with the census as planned had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic. Those deficiencies that were identified in the programme sound remarkably familiar in terms of other ICT programmes. It does not sound like it is anything new. You would have thought that they would have been addressed from the beginning as opposed to coming out during the rehearsal. Are they not similar? Are they not the same problems that come up again and again? It is hard to argue against that, Mr Beatt. There are parallels in terms of the findings that Audit Scotland made in its 2017 report and some of the early circumstances that we are reporting here. There is perhaps something of an overlap in timescales. In exhibit 1, we set out the timescale of the programme. This is a programme that went back to 2015 in its infancy through to present day. It is not to say that there were opportunities for learning or anticipation of some of those issues at the start. What we see differently in the project, as opposed to some of the more recent examples that the committee has seen of deficiencies in ICT projects, is that the organisation has learned and intervened so that, although there were challenges, it has been able to steer a complex programme back on course. There was nothing for us to see here that had it not been for the pandemic. It would have delivered it on timescale and on budget. That probably brings me to the Scottish Government's technical assurance framework. Those reviews are intended to improve the delivery of such programmes. Can you tell us a bit more about the assessments that were made and how they were considered? I will start again. Darsha might want to come in again to say a bit more about how the technical assurance framework reviews are overseen by the Scottish Government's directorate of internal audit and assurance. That arrangement had previously been carried out by the Office of the Chief Information Officer of the Scottish Government when those departments merged with internal audit are now overseen by the directorate of internal audit and assurance. It is intended to review progress against key milestones of the project and flag up any risks. The committee will be familiar with aspects of gateway reviews, which look to assess the delivery of key milestones and risks. It has been a feature—I would say a welcome feature—of this project. Arguably, you might say that some of that has been in parts reactive and intervention when aspects of the programme have steered off course. In overall terms, we would cite that the technology assurance framework, the gateway process, has been a really positive feature of this programme. However, I will pause as Darsha, if there is anything that she wishes to say about some of the specifics of the rating systems and what that has meant, and any recommendations that have flown out of the gateway reviews. Darsha, what we have seen with the process of the TAF reviews is a mixture of different kinds of reviews. What we refer to is go live dates later on in the process, and there are health check reviews. All of them assess where the programme is against planned milestones. Since the original rating of red back in 2019, what we have seen is that the subsequent reviews have come about that there has been constant progress with each subsequent review. The most recent one that was carried out at the end of November is that we have seen the findings from that, and the programme is now rated as amber greed. That is consistent with what would be expected of a project of this scale and complexity at this stage. The review team said that they do now have a high level of confidence that the programme will be able to go ahead as planned. What we have also seen with these reviews is that they are used as the basis for assessing progress with the programme, by the census programme board, by the Audit and Risk Committee. NRS have taken those reviews seriously and used them to implement changes where necessary and make good progress on the recommendations. The report states that the appraisal, which was undertaken by NRS, concluded that any of the options to deliver the census in 2021 would represent a significant risk to data quality. What were the options that were being considered? Were all those options decided because of the drop-in response rate that was anticipated, and where there is reference to potential bias in data, does that refer to the distortion caused by the drop-in response rate? I will do my best answer that. We are drawing from material that we have seen from NRS, and it might be that NRS, in terms of its thinking behind its statistical analysis and methodology, might be a better place to go into some of that in a bit of detail. What we have drawn from Mr Beattie's paragraph 9 to the report, we set out what the various options of the appraisal and just for the record, they were going to continue with the original census plan, allowing online completion but without the field force, aspects of online and paper, with no field force or only paper, with no field force or delay. It is that point of the presence of the field force being key to giving assurance to NRS around the data quality issues that they deemed that there was not sufficient mitigation in place around data quality without the presence of the field force. It is maybe in terms of overall data quality, but perhaps completion rates as well. As I mentioned earlier, the rehearsal was undertaken in three local authority areas, West Nells Glasgow and Dumfries and Galloway, and the completion rates for there were around, if memory serves me correctly, just over 20 per cent completion rate for an online-only exercise of the rehearsal. Both concerns around data quality and overall completion rate would appear informed the judgment that NRS and ministers took, but in terms of the specifics of how the methodology might have been disrupted, NRS would probably be a better place to give you that detail. In England, they went ahead with their census. Part of the justification of that appears to be that administrative data from other public bodies were used in England and Wales to supplement data gaps, but the report says that that was not available for Scotland. Is it that NRS was unable to access the data? Does the ONS not have the necessary data for Scotland? What was the reason behind that? Darshan might want to say a word or two more again. The circumstances for the delivery of census through the census-taking bodies across the UK are such that the ONS is responsible for England and Wales, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency responsible for Northern Ireland and the NRS for Scotland. The methodologies used in England and Wales and by extension aspects within Northern Ireland allowed for the use of data held by other public bodies such as HMRC and DWP. NRS has shared with us that it did not have those options. We are aware that aspects of the reason behind that, such as data sharing arrangements and the quality of data held by other public bodies for Scotland, were barriers to NRS having administrative data. Clearly, that is significant. It is part of the crux of the matter and the report that enhanced the divergence in approaches undertaken in Scotland and the rest of the UK and the additional cost as a consequence of that. I will say a pause before I invite Darshan to come back on that. It was just to ask for clarification whether the information was actually refused, perhaps for data protection purposes or whatever, or is it that the data does not exist for Scotland as a separate database? Darshan may be able to answer. I am not sure that we have heard that there was a refusal, but the data was deemed not to be accessible either through it did not exist or that data sharing arrangements prevented its wider sharing. Darshan may be able to give a bit more detail. Our understanding is that prior to the pandemic, quite a number of years before ONS had started a long-term project to try and arrange the data sharing agreements necessary to be able to access these other sources of administrative data from the DWP and HMRC, for example. This has been a long-term project. At the point at which they were making the decision about whether the sensors could go ahead, they had not yet completed it, but they had got to a stage where they felt that they had enough access to be able to supplement any gaps in the census data if they needed to. Currently, Scotland does not have those arrangements in place. My understanding is that they are in the process of trying to get access to those other sources of data. Again, as I said, it is a long-term project and they are still in the early stages of that, but I think that you would need to confirm with NRS exactly where they are in that process. Because of that, not having access to the data meant that there were no options for NRS in terms of having other sources to supplement any gaps in the census data if they arose. Just one last question. Obviously, there is a cost to the delay when it is not inconsiderable, but are there any other disadvantages that Scotland has disadvantaged in any way by that one-year delay? I think that, as the convener touched on, Mr Beattie, there is a delay in terms of the provision of all of the rich data that comes from the census and the delivery of public services. It is something of a theoretical risk. I think that there is perhaps a longer-term thinking as well. That will come into the Government and Parliament's thoughts about when to undertake the next census, whether it is a nine-year gap and to revert back to the 31 or 21 timescales and so forth, or whether to make it a 10-year period. Perhaps—this is really a question for staff decisions—to have a view on whether to come back into sync with other parts of the UK or whether to sustain a 10-year cycle for public engagement in the census. Those would be what I would offer as potential considerations as some of the risks that finances, no doubt, would still be managed through to the delivery of the census and the evaluation period thereafter. Thank you very much indeed. Craig Hoye, I am going to introduce Craig Hoye to ask some questions. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Mr Boyle. I would just like to maybe just probe a little bit deeper into the additional costs of delaying the census to make sure that the costs are because of a delay and not that the project was going off kilter prior to that. A new report tells us that moving the census from March 2021 to 2022 will cost an additional £21.6 million, which is about 20 per cent of the overall cost of the programme. £14.4 million of that increase is due to an increase in the cost of goods and extending supplier contracts. Could you perhaps provide more detail of those costs? Do you have any concern that perhaps the way that those contracts were framed means that people effectively are perhaps now sitting there being paid for doing nothing rather than producing more as a result of the delay? Thank you, Mr Hoye. Graham Samson has got some of the detail and the analysis behind the additional £21.6 million, and I will ask Graham to come in in a second or two. You are right when you say that NRS's communication around what is behind the cost refers to contracts and goods services. We discussed already this morning that NRS has accessed external support for the delivery of the project, whether it is an ICT project management expertise. Those will be contracts that were in place that would have had an anticipated conclusion date that would have had to be extended. Whether those ought to have been anticipated, as the committee will be familiar with, is that many public contracts have in place an anticipated original term and then allow for a plus one or a plus two in some circumstances. Factors behind those contract extensions will be part of that discussion that has led to the additional cost. In terms of the detail behind that, there will be aspects of staff cost components, but I will invite Graham to take the committee through some of the detail behind those additional cost increases. Mr Samson, I think that we cannot hear you at the moment, but we will try to fix that. You might have to start again, I am afraid. No, we are still not able to hear you. I wonder, Craig, whether you want to press on either with supplementary to that question or on to your next question, or whether Stephen Hughes might want to come back in. I will try to add a bit more detail. We have seen some analysis and I think that the NRS are tracking those costs. They are reporting them and subject to their governance arrangements through their own Audit and Risk Committee. The most recent assessment refers to the cost for the online collection instrument, the data collection operational management system, some of the printing and paper, but predominantly costs for extending contracts for project management support and internal staff costs. A range of factors, if we can come back to the committee in writing, if it is helpful, just to give a bit more specific analysis behind that cost. If I may, Mr Roy, one of the things that we mentioned in the report is the need for careful management of some of these additional costs. At the time of publication, we referred to that earlier on in the year that there was a £1.5 million further cost pressure in terms of this, but this is being managed down to half a million pounds additional costs. We understand that that is still the case. Challenges cost pressures are remaining, but broadly within the overall frame of the £21.6 million that was mentioned. Had the census gone ahead in 2021, there would have obviously been costs for Covid-19 mitigations. Do you have a view on what those additional costs and expenses might have been and would you ordinarily have expected the NRS to have quantified them? As you know, we report in section 22 that NRS has not quantified those costs as to what the additional cost of delivering a census during a pandemic might be. What we are saying there is that it is not a case of an additional £21.6 million or nothing. There would have been additional costs regardless. Whether those costs were able to be calculated with any degree of reliability so that it would inform decision making, I think that it is a difficult one to say, perhaps, for NRS to express a view on, but when we see the options appraisal, the analysis, we have not seen any costs of what it might have cost to deliver the pandemic during 2021 in the midst of the pandemic. Again, perhaps a line of inquiry that the committee would wish to pursue with NRS itself. You referred to the other £1.5 million in financial pressures, which you have said from the religious to half a million through mitigation actions. Can you give the committee some impression of what those mitigations actions are and if they are on-going? Also, do you have any certainty at the moment that those actions will bring a financial balance in the forthcoming financial year? I will try to see if Graham can supplement a bit of the detail of what he has undertaken on the £1.5 million down to half a million. To answer your second part of your question, you are probably not able, and maybe we would not even expect NRS to give you that category of assurance that they can deliver it on budget at this stage. I think that there are too many variables at the moment. I know that we have mentioned it a number of times already this morning that it still remains a large complex project, although it is really positive news to see that the latest assurance review suggests that it is now in the amber-green status. It does not detract from the fact that it is still going to need careful management through to the census day itself and beyond. However, to see if Graham can just say a little bit more detail on what they have done to manage the cost pressures on year. I apologise to Graham Samson. We are not sure whether it is our end or your end, but I am afraid that we cannot hear you. I think that the undertaking by the Auditor General to perhaps provide us with some written evidence, which I suspect that Mr Samson might be asked to write, would be useful to us. I apologise that we have not been able to hear you, but Craig, do you want to continue? Just a final question. You alluded earlier to another possible delay to the census. Do you know whether or not anything has been done in the interim from the first delay till now to look again at those contracts to make provision for a delay that might not impact the finances of NRS quite in such an extreme way as the first delay seems to have presented? I think that that feels like a potentially significant risk, Mr Hoy. We have seen the additional cost incurred as a result of the extension of some of those contracts by virtue of the first delay. In the event that the census is not able to happen in March 2022, whether it is Covid or other circumstances, and the fact that we have already heard from Darcy say that the routes that the other census-taking bodies took in terms of accessing other administrative data sources that allowed them to deliver the census, that that is not available yet to Scotland, would suggest that they would be in the same circumstances that we are currently facing of extension of contracts and additional financial costs. I think that the detail of that and confirmation would need to come from NRS, but it is clearly a significant financial risk if that were to come to pass. I have a couple of questions that go back to some of the points that have been made in passing. You mentioned, in general, the census programme board. The first question that I wanted to get clarification on was, is the census programme board for Scotland only? That is correct, convener. Just a little bit of detail in the report, but it is chaired by the chief executive of the national recorders of Scotland, with representation from its non-executives, the Scottish Government, but also representation from other parts of the UK census-taking bodies. We know that the Office for National Statistics is also represented on that body, but it is a Scotland-only census body. I think that you said earlier that, as a result of the need to try and tackle or to recover the census exercise, management consultants were brought in. I do not know whether that is causing the effect, but there was also a decision taking around that time to widen the membership of the census programme board. You said that that was to include the O&S and Nizra at the Northern Island body that oversees the census. Were they not on the programme board already? You can say a little bit more detail about the timeline of the membership of the programme board, convener, but you mentioned the important role that consultants played in terms of the delivery of the project. The support that they provided to the leadership of the chief executive was a key part of bringing in some of the expertise that NRS was not able to access. How that then translated into the membership of the programme board. I will just check in with Darcy, if she can give that information to the committee. I think that I am right in saying that O&S and Nizra were added to the membership of the programme board around 2019. That was when the membership was expanded to take on more representation from Scottish Government finance and to cover the wider expertise within NRS that had been brought in on programme and project management and so on. I do not have the details of what the membership looked like prior to that. We need to check with NRS to confirm. Convener, we can come back to the committee in writing with that detail. I think that that will be helpful because one of the words that we have heard an awful lot over the last two years quite understandably and quite rightly is the word unprecedented. However, the sense is not unprecedented, so you would have thought that perhaps as a result of previous exercises, good practice might have been to include representatives from the O&S most obviously as well as Nizra on any programme oversight board. I think that in terms of the project governance arrangements that we have touched on this morning, it was the first census that NRS was responsible for delivering following its creation from the merger of the National Archives of Scotland and the General Register Office for Scotland. You rightly say that census are new events in Scotland. Perhaps the biggest change for this census was the presence of a much more significant digital footprint in the delivery of the census. Importantly, NRS assured itself that it had the right level of digital skills to deliver the project. At points, we would suggest that it didn't, but it took the necessary interventions to do so. I just want to go back because I think that Mr Beattie was pursuing a really significant line of questioning. Was NRS refused access to HMRC data or DWP data or not? Was it requested or not? I think that Daishi said that that was because O&S had started earlier on in putting together data sharing agreements with those bodies. Daishi then said that NRS is now starting to do that. I guess that the question arises then why didn't NRS start at the same time as O&S to do that as a matter of good practice? Secondly, will we have in place in time for the census in March 2022 data sharing agreements that would allow for the enrichment of the data that is collected through digital and other means as a result of the exercise when it takes place in March? Taking those questions in reverse order, convener, Daishi suggested in her responses that NRS won't have those data sharing agreements in place in the early stages. It's our assumption that that won't be the case. NRS will be able to confirm that to the committee if you wish to pursue it with them. It's also a question for NRS as to why its arrangements for a contingency of accessing alternative sources of data through administrative data weren't operating to the same timescales as other parts of the UK. Building on Daishi's point, it looks like NRS started that exercise at an earlier stage or it was a more central component of its statistics collection methodology than was the case in Scotland. The merits or demerits of those NRS would be a better place to advise the committee. I think that Daishi does want to come in just to give us a bit more detail on that. Daishi, if you want to address the committee. Thank you. It was just to add that my understanding is that the ONS project to get access to these other sources of data is a larger project than just relating to the census. It wasn't one that they initiated with the main aim being to have access to this data to supplement the census data. It was a wider statistical data collection project, which had the advantage that it would also mean that they had access to this data for the census. I don't know exactly when Scotland started to get involved in these discussions about taking a similar route, but NRS would be able to provide you with more detail on that. Thank you very much, and we will put those points to NRS when they come before us. I now want to turn to Willie Coffey, who is joining us remotely, but he has a number of questions that he wants to put. Thank you, convener, and I hope that everyone can hear me. I just wanted to firstly ask the Auditor General about whether we are intending to do most of the census bill online. Is there a legal obligation to complete a census? How can that obligation be fulfilled if people do not have access to IT to complete it online? It is in NRS's intention that most of Scotland's population will complete the census online. Addressing the obligation that is upon all of us as citizens to complete it, is not exclusively online, so there will still be provision for people to complete the census in paper. There is sufficient support around that. The remains part of the NRS plan is that there will be a field force of 3,500 people who will be able to support households that need it in the completion of the census, either on paper copy or using alternative devices. I think that there is a range of ways that will allow everybody that is able to participate to do so. Will they extend the deadline if people do not feel that they can complete it online and so forth, and how do they get the paper version and all of that stuff? Will there be an extension to the deadline to accommodate that issue? I am not sure that I know the answer to that, Mr Coffey, whether there will be a provision in the arrangements for March 22 to extend completion rates to allow for any circumstance that people find themselves in. If I may, I will turn to colleagues. Perhaps Asif might be able to say a wee bit more about how NRS intends to manage the events in the days around the census. In terms of the deadline, are you aware that the census is taken at a point in time on the date and the households that are expected to complete who was in that particular household at that point in time? I am not aware if there could be any deadlines to when they would need to complete. You are not expected to complete the census in the form at that point. It clearly could be done the following day or the following week. In terms of support, the field force would be available either to go back to households to see if people had not completed it if they needed additional help. I am not sure if the actual deadline other than what is the normal deadline that time allowed to complete the documentation as in previous censuses. It is just always one of our concerns, convener, that people who are not within the whole digital arena can still participate and do not feel that there is a barrier being placed on them in order to complete the process. I think that we will just have to see how that progresses and to close. I wonder, Stephen, if I could just ask another couple of questions on the technical assurance framework that Colin was leading on earlier. It is simply to ask, I think that Darshie said that the current status of the review on the framework is amber green. What are the amber parts of the review and do we have any concerns in there? Could you start with that, please? An amber green assessment at this stage of the project is very high levels of assurance, Mr Coffey, in terms of a complex project such as this. We refer in the report that when the ONS went live with their census earlier this year, that their assurance framework had given their review an amber rating. Scotland has been offered even higher levels of assurance. At the earlier stages of the most recent technical assurance review judgment prior to the one that has just come out over the course of the past few days was amber that included recommendations for NRS to follow through on. Darshie can say a bit more about some of the detail of what those recommendations were, but what the latest taff has said is that almost all those recommendations have now been implemented. In making a judgment on the different scales of assurance from red amber and amber green, our permutation that the assurance framework decides is typically accompanied with recommendations and specifics of what now needs to happen to move to the next stage of the assurance framework. Mr Coffey, I will ask Darshie to say a bit more about the recommendations and what we know has been implemented in the space between the two latest reviews. The definition of what an amber green rating means is that successful delivery appears probable, but NRS will have to pay constant attention to ensure that risk is not materialised into major issues threatening delivery. That is essentially what we would expect from the programme at this stage. I think that it would be unusual for a programme of this scale and complexity to have a green rating at this stage when we are still some months off the census going live. The most recent review made three recommendations, two of which are to be on-going until the census goes live. One of them was to focus on contingency planning for the go-live stage. Another one was to increase focus on communications with stakeholders and messaging. I suppose that some of that relates to your previous question about people responding if they do not have digital access. I suppose that part of NRS's approach will be to make sure that they communicate effectively with stakeholders and the public to make sure that people are aware of their options around completing the census, as well as why the census is important. Finally, there is a recommendation about preparing a delivery plan and operational readiness checklist and making sure that those are maintained in the run-up-to-go live. There are no significant risks that would threaten delivery that has been identified at this point. It is really a close case of carefully managing and monitoring the situation, particularly with regard to finance and resources issues that have been identified before, to make sure that everything is managed and that nothing escalates prior to delivery. Perhaps I will ask you, even, on the IT side of all that. We have heard the members talking about that and it has come to the committee over a number of years. Are you satisfied that, in terms of the IT aspects, we have the skills, experience and the IT leadership that are needed in the project, to deliver it successfully for us? Drawing on the work of the other assurance reviews and the judgments that Asif and colleagues have made in the annual audit, Mr Coffey, we think that the project has had the skills that it needed to deliver a large complex project such as this. It has accessed many of those skills through external sources, not unusual in and of itself, but that does attract a premium in terms of price. In doing that through consultants and so on, that, as opposed to deploying or employing their own staff, will be one of the factors behind the cost of delivering the census. Asif, one of the findings that we made in the 2017 report is that it is important that there is, in paying that premium, sufficient knowledge transfer exists that public bodies themselves benefit in the longer term from access to those skills. I do not think that we are able to make a clear judgment on that yet. NRS would be in a place to say what it means for the future, given that, if we are in something of a hybrid-style census for 2021 and now 2022, what it means for the next census and their thinking about whether it is a purely digital census and whether the knowledge transfer remains in Scottish public bodies from the experience that they have gone through in delivering the census. That is an important part of NRS thinking as to what comes next. Okay, thank you very much for that, Steven. Back to you, convener. Thanks, Willie. I'm going to turn now to Sharon Dower, who's got a number of questions that really follow up the lines that Willie Coffey is being pursuing. It's looking at some of the recruitment challenges that you've had. The report states that the recruitment challenges were due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, creating longer lead times for the Scottish Government's recruitment process. The last session of session 5 committee had heard that there already were issues with the lead times, particularly for digital staff. For example, two to three months, compared to around two weeks in the private sector, can you tell us the extent to which Covid-19 impacted on recruitment times? We maybe don't have some of the most up-to-date statistics to share with the committee. The team may know that detail, but it might be something that either we'd be able to come back to the committee in writing or the Scottish Government can provide. I don't think that the tracks from the overall purpose of the point, Ms Dower, is that the volume of recruitment that the Scottish Government has gone through to deliver its services during the course of the pandemic has meant that it has brought people into the Scottish Government and its public bodies at a high level of volume. Its resources to deal with that throughput haven't been such that they were in a position to do so with a real pace that it was needed. Some of the delays that we refer to in the timescales here have been seen across other parts of Scottish public bodies. It is particularly so in digital skills. This is a fast-moving market. Those skills are in demand not just across public bodies but in the private sector, too. The two to three weeks that the previous committee referred to may even be circumstances that are quicker than that. All of that brings risk, because you are losing talent and people that might say that, if they are caught in delays of public bodies arrangements, they will inevitably have offers elsewhere. It is an important part, not just of NRS but of all public bodies that the Scottish Government's arrangements is able to reflect the circumstances in the market. We are not advocating that public bodies do away with necessary checks. We all want to be satisfied that people are coming into public bodies provision of sensitive private information that has been dealt with properly. Nonetheless, I think that there feels a misalignment at the moment between the pace that the market is moving and the rate at which public bodies through the Scottish Government arrangements can bring people into those posts. I think that the process is so long at the moment that, by the time the Scottish Government gets around to offering a job, everybody is already taking a job elsewhere. That obviously adds to the issues. One of the good examples that we had during the committee roundtables that we heard from Scottish colleges is that, because of their long lead time, they were around 12 weeks. However, in NHS Edinburgh we had heard that they had managed to reduce the process down to four weeks because of issues with the pandemic and the need to recruit staff quickly and at pace. Are you aware that the Scottish Government is actively seeking to adapt and change its recruitment processes? Yes, we know that the Scottish Government is reviewing its arrangements and is looking to accelerate the process by which it brings people into the organisation. What we have not done is undertake any audit work on those arrangements as yet. At the moment, I would say that it needs to be a clear priority. The learning that the NHS has gone through in Edinburgh and in other parts of Scotland, if that presents a clear business risk to public bodies at the moment, the pace at which they can get people in, that learning is shared and the experiences in the NHS ought to be shared and translated into other parts of the public sector. Finally, the report tells us that the national records of Scotland is aware of the on-going risks around resourcing and has undertaken a number of exercises to explore other routes of bringing in the necessary skills. Including discussions with other UK census-taking bodies, are you aware of the outcomes of the discussions that have been held with other UK census-taking bodies? I am not sure that I have the latest position, so, again, I might turn to Darsie in particular if she is able to update the committee. Thank you. I know that NRS has brought in a number of staff from ONS in Israel on secondment. I do not have the numbers of how many, but I know that there are staff who have been involved in the delivery of the 2021 census, who are now working on secondment in NRS. Okay, thank you. I just want to pick up on that last point, because I was looking in the last couple of days at ONS's summary of how the census had gone in March 2021, and a document that it published in October said that the main points were that the census 2021 exceeded expectations with 97 per cent of households across England and Wales taking part. The talk about the fact that the use of cloud architecture allowed us to scale up to meet the very high demand experienced on census day, and it was digital first for the first time in the census in England and Wales. It basically said that the system did not crash, even though we were receiving just under half a million census submissions per hour at the peak. It also said that the success of the census 2021 digital service shows that large government digital services can be securely delivered in-house using cloud architecture and agile development. I wonder whether you have any reflections on that. I think that that all suggests, convener, of the delivery of a very successful project on time. Particularly that it has been able to cope with such volumes in the space of a single day is very impressive indeed. The last question, Ms Dowie, is that as well as that there is knowledge transferred from the consultants that National Records of Scotland continues to benefit from the experiences in other parts of the UK. It is a positive development that there has been some secondees from NISRA and ONS into NRS, but it clearly matters that those connections across the UK and other census-taking bodies are shared and that NRS benefits from that. I think that that is a point well made. If I can conclude with the concluding paragraph from the section 22 report that we are discussing this morning, and this came out just 10 days ago, didn't it? The final sentence of the report reminds us that significant risks remain in the conduct of the census 2022, and it is of the utmost importance that NRS continues to monitor and manage them. NRS should also ensure that it continues to act on the outstanding gateway review recommendations. I expect the auditor to continue to monitor NRS's progress with delivering the census programme and its management of on-going financial pressures. I think that our final point, Auditor General, would be that we would welcome as a committee an update on that monitoring work and just to ask you whether it is your intention to produce a follow-up report to Parliament so that we can return to this in the future. Asif and Graham, through their annual audit of NRS, will be reporting publicly on the judgments that they reach over the course of the summer of 2022, and very clearly, hopefully, after the census that has taken place. I have not reached a definitive position yet on whether I will undertake a further section 22 report. I will be informed very clearly by the judgments that Asif reaches and perhaps any further considerations or evidence that the committee takes on that topic. Can I draw this evidence session to a close in doing so? Graham, I am sorry, we were not able to hear you to Asif, who we were able to hear from, and Darcy for joining us online. We very much appreciate your time and your contributions this morning and thanks as always to the Auditor General, who has joined us in committee. With that, can I draw to a close the public part of this morning's deliberations and go into private session?