 Well, good morning, and can I welcome everyone to this, the 12th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2024. The first item for consideration by the committee is whether to take agenda items 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in private this morning. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. Thank you. The public item on our agenda this morning is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland's work programme, covering the period April 2024 to March 2026. I'm very pleased this morning to welcome our witnesses, the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle. Good morning, Stephen. Anthony Clark, who's an executive director at Audit Scotland, and Mark MacPherson, who's an audit director at Audit Scotland. We've got some comments and questions about your work programme, Auditor General, but before we get to those, could I invite you to make a short opening statement? Thank you, convener. Good morning, committee. I'm delighted to discuss with the committee this morning my work programme, which includes my overall priorities and the planned audit work that I'll undertake over the next two years. As the committee knows well, the current operating context for the Scottish Government and public services remains challenging. Rising demands and a constrained financial outlook pose sustainability risks. The committee has of course explored many of these issues in its own current activities. It's never been more important that public money is raised and spent to best effect, and that we get the very best from public assets such as the people delivering public services, public land and buildings, use of technology and increasingly how we use its information and knowledge. This context is what drives my thinking about the future programme of audit work. Through our audits, we want to make sure that public services target resources efficiently, financial management is effective and public bodies report more transparently. Also that our audit recommendations have a positive impact. As set out in my work programme, I intend to focus on what public services deliver and how they deliver it. I will consider whether public spending is making a difference. As I have reported, public sector reform has not yet been delivered to the scale required to support future sustainability. That's why I will also be focusing on how public bodies are enabling change individually and also part of a wider system in which they operate. That includes how they are empowering people and communities, spending preventatively, reducing inequalities and making better use of digital technology to improve their efficiency. Public audit has an important role to play in supporting improvement and sharing good practice to help enable change. Some of the proposed work programme will be familiar to the committee, and I will continue to have an interest in climate change, health and social care, public finances and economic growth activities. The committee will also know that I report on the financial audits of Scottish public bodies, highlighting matters in particular of public interest, that the committee will again be familiar with through annual section 22 reports. Those naturally vary in number each year depending on the issues identified by appointed auditors. My work programme needs to be flexible and I plan to continue to use a variety of audit approaches, reporting products and report on the range of factors impacting on public services. In terms of consultation, I want to ensure that my work programme considers key areas of interest to the Parliament and focuses on those topics that will add most value in supporting effective parliamentary scrutiny. As ever, I am grateful for the opportunity to consult with the committee and I will use the feedback from yourselves and across the Parliament to refine my long-term priorities and work programme. Mark, I look forward to answering your questions and receiving any comments or feedback that you have this morning. Thank you very much indeed, Auditor General. Can I start by looking at some of those contextual factors that you have set out in your opening statement and the slides that you have sent us? You have identified rising demand for public services at a time of tight finances, deepening inequalities, not least because of the so-called cost of living crisis. You have spoken about the post-pandemic recovery, which is still a live issue for many parts of the public sector. You have mentioned climate change, but also the need for longer-term reform. I guess that our opening question to you is, how well do you think the Government and public bodies are responding and rising to those challenges? Those are the factors, convener, and absolutely that will inform the choices that public services make in Scotland both on an individual basis and then that longer-term approach. As a result of my opening remarks, we think that there are sustainability issues for the safe and effective delivery of public services in Scotland. We have stated that in a number of our reports, perhaps, most visibly in the overview of the NHS in Scotland, where we have again highlighted rising demand for services, the impact that it is having on the experience and care that patients are having. At the same time, we need to think carefully about reform into the future while dealing with those here-and-now challenges. That is what we want to weave into our work programme with the themes and context that you describe. Perhaps one of the specifics of the programme might be one example that captures the range of factors that is informing the work programme. We are thinking carefully about where we go next on social security spending in Scotland. For example, there is another related output that we will prepare towards the end of this year, which will be something of a scene-setter about the fiscal position that Scotland is operating in and the choices that it will make. We will produce that financial report at the end of the year. The committee knows, if I may make this example, that health spending in Scotland is growing and continues to grow because of the demand, the more complex requirements, but not far behind that. Again, informed by the Fiscal Commission's forecasting, we will be spending on devolved benefits in Scotland. As those two spending streams continue to grow, it will mean less money for other parts of public service. We want to look carefully about what benefit and impact they both have. We will do that through our continued programme of work on the NHS. As I referred to in the paper, we plan to do more specific work on the cost and impact of the devolved benefits arrangements in Scotland. We will continue that through some of our child poverty, which we will look at the Scottish child payment over the next couple of years. Next year, we will be reporting, and we will still flesh out some of the detail on some of the disability benefits, those devolved benefits in Scotland, which will capture some of that rising demand and inequalities that exist in Scotland. Stepping back, as we are able to as auditors, what impact and what bearing it is having on the significant sums of public spending that are going into that area? That is a helpful illustration. We might get into more of the detail of that. I was looking back to the session that we held last year on your work programme. The session started off with a discussion about the industrial intervention framework and Ferguson Marine. I noticed that Ferries does not appear in your outline work programme. I think that we produced a report around this time last year where we made some recommendations about the need to have a review at the completion of the contract to what went wrong, what happened, where the lessons can be learned and so on. At that point, you were expecting to carry that work out, but it is not mentioned in the work programme. I wonder whether you could update us on that. For absolute clarity, convener, the correspondence that I have exchanged with the committee reflects the position of myself and Audit Scotland. I will be carrying out audit work on Ferguson Marine, reflecting on the project to deliver Glenn Sannocks and Glenn Rosa. The reason that it is not reflected specifically is because of the uncertainty about the timing of that, but that is not in any doubt that we will be carrying out a performance audit at the conclusion of the launch of the two vessels. The work programme that we are considering this morning is from April... Well, it goes up until March 2026, doesn't it? So I suppose our expectation is that by March 2026 those two vessels will be serving the island communities of Scotland. You don't need to answer that question. Can I just... Yes, Graham, yes, of course. Just a point of clarity on that question. So you say, Auditor General, you'll start that work when the vessels are launched. Do you mean when the vessels are in service? So, Mr Simpson, we haven't specified a precise date for which we will commence the audit that reflects on the project to... Excuse me, to deliver the two vessels. I think that's something that we'll need to take a bit of time as we await the completion of the vessels. For reassurance for the committee, we remain actively involved and are tracking the progress of the two vessels, both through our wider performance programme but also through the annual audit of Fergus Marine Port Glasgow, and I think that that will inform when is the right time. But there is no doubt, and hopefully my reassurance is sufficient for the committee this morning, that we'll be carrying out that work as we've stated in our correspondence. OK, I think that's helpful, the record. Can I move us along to another area of work in the pipeline? And that is the work that you're expecting to do on care experience children and young people. Could you give us a bit more detail about that work and why you see that as a priority for you, Auditor General? Yes, very much so. I'll bring Mark in a second who will be leading some of that work, but both the Accounts Commission and myself, and I should say that much of my programme of work we will deliver jointly with the Accounts Commission. I think that reflects really, I suppose, again, what I refer to in my opening remarks, is that the system-wide nature of public service delivery doesn't respect some of the organisational boundaries, and that's very much the case for the programme of work to support the experiences that children and young people from a care experience background get, the success of domestic life, educational attainment, and then prospects once they leave the care system. The committee will know that this is a high-profile commitment that the Government has made through the establishment of the promise that it brings in the work of many organisations across Scotland to support better outcomes towards the end of this decade. So we'll be looking at that, we'll be looking at the organisation, the promise itself, the accountability arrangements and then the contribution that many public bodies are making, convener. Mark, can you say more about where we'll be going with that? I don't have a huge amount to add to that. I learned to say that obviously there have been fairly public discussions about the pace of progress around the implementation of the promise, given the high-profile nature of that commitment. It's important, I think, that Audit does take a look at the arrangements and see what progress has been made. The question is just exactly when we would want to do that. We've suggested mid 2025. That's based on what we think will be available at the appropriate points to allow us to conduct a detailed and robust piece of audit work. Anthony. I thought it might be worth mentioning the fact that this is probably quite an interesting test case for us of how World Public Service Reform is being delivered. As the Auditor General and Mark have said, this isn't just a matter for the Scottish Government, all the promise board or the promise itself. It involves councils, communities and the third sector as well. We know from quite a few pieces of previous audit work that there are real challenges in getting change to happen when you have to work in partnership with others, so we think it's been a good opportunity to really test how well that leadership at national local level is delivering. It also touches on a number of priority areas for the Auditor General and the committee, inequalities and improving outcomes. Given the well-accepted critique that we haven't yet delivered on Christie, this would be a good test of are we making more progress with Christie now than we had over recent years as well? Can I raise a related issue, which is you've also identified children and young people with additional support needs as an area that you want to focus in on. Again, could you give us a bit more detail about why you treat that as a priority area of work for Audit Scotland? Yes, very much so. Mark Antey, we want to develop my opening remarks on this. I'll give a range of factors, both in referencing the Morgan review, but also the on-going interest of the Education, Children and Young People's Committee in the Parliament, but how well, primarily, Scotland's councils are meeting their obligations to deliver services for children and young people with additional support needs. We know that demand for services for children and young people with additional support needs is growing, so we want to look at the totality of the arrangements. Again, I'll build on Anthony's comment about how the system is operating to best support those services. You'll see in the narrative accompanying our intentions, convener, that we make reference to the quality of information and data that is in place to support that delivery. A recurring theme of interest for the committee is that the provision of education service in this area, the ability of providers to make informed decisions, is so reliant upon having high-quality data. Tracing back to the investment that public services are making in this area, is it meeting the needs of learners? Is it delivering the impact and difference that is expected of it? That's our intention. Again, Mark can say more as he wishes. Just to add to the point about the increase in demand, there's also variation in demand, which may or may not be easily explained. We obviously recognise there's also a real spectrum of the needs that are likely to be in amongst the system, and that leads to a question about the variation in provision. It lends itself well to what I would call a classic performance audit piece of work. That complex spectrum of needs will obviously require us to get our heads around what that involves and how individual councils are responding to those across the country. Karen, in that work out, you will be, I presume, working with the Parliament's Education, Children and Young People Committee. Indeed, and Anthony White would develop this, but we're looking carefully at the timing of it. I think that we're given the fact that the reviews being undertaken by the committee and direct scope are significant and potentially overlapping with where we might have started. We want to really see the results of that review, first of all, before settling on our scope. We don't think it is one for us to step back from convener in light of that review, because it's important that there's an audit angle brought to this that the committee may or may not be able to provide. We're very mindful of that work, but we're just going to wait to see what they conclude before settling on our final scope. We've already given evidence to the committee on this topic as part of their inquiry, and it's pretty clear that the committee has an interest in the overall level of funding that's being allocated appropriately. There's a big question mark about the balance of funding between specific funding streams dedicated to specialist services as opposed to mainstream services that are provided by local authorities. The committee was quite keen that Audit Scotland would be able to do that. I'm going to move things along and invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to you. Thank you, convener. Auditor General got three broad areas that I want to touch on. The first one is over the years this committee has generally received section 22 and section 23 reports from you, which we are obviously in-depth audits, and we've based our scrutiny on these. Over the last, I suppose, couple of years, we've recently been getting briefings and blogs from yourself. So there's a couple of questions around that. One is what kind of balance do you anticipate in the future between your in-depth audits and the briefings and blogs? Given that this committee has performed scrutiny against those briefings and blogs, to what extent can we rely on the rigor of the principles behind it when we're taking this forward? It's a really important question. I'm glad that you've raised it, Mr Beattie. I'm sure that Anthony and indeed Mark might want to set out the structures and processes that we have in place firstly behind the scenes that satisfy the quality standards and assure the committee about the basis in which not just yourself will take scrutiny as a key role that that is, but really anybody using the report, the public, can rely upon the judgments that are included. Those standards apply, whether it's a section 22 report, section 23, or indeed some of the more recent products that we have used, blogs, online publications and briefings. I mean, I'll pass to Anthony in a second, the reason that we want to have a wider suite of outputs is that it gives us flexibility, typically on a blog or an online publication or a briefing, to raise a matter of audit interest and hopefully public interest, probably a bit more nimbly than we would be able to wear it a full-scale section 22 or 23. There is often an intention, Mr Beattie, on the back of a briefing paper or a blog to signal that this is our intent to undertake more in-depth audit work in a relatively short space of time thereafter. Is that kind of flow-through that I think gives us the opportunity to continue that audit work and the audit interest? None of that should detract from all of our work has to be safe, reliable and to the same quality standards. I might pass to Anthony as the director of who leads this work, just to set out how we go about that. It's a very good question, Mr Beattie. As the Auditor General said, when we're conducting our briefings, they do have to comply with auditing standards, the inter-size standards that apply to all of our performance audit work. It means that we need to satisfy ourselves that we've got a clear scope for the work. We've gathered sufficient, reliable audit evidence. We have a log of all the key judgments that we've made and the briefings, as are our performance audits, are subject to independent review as well, to satisfy the Auditor General and the Accounts Commission that the work is being done to an appropriate standard. So we're pretty satisfied, I think, that when we do the briefings, we can stand behind them. To be honest, we wouldn't put anything out in the public domain that wasn't of the highest possible standard. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, nor would Stephen if that wasn't the case. I think it's not surprising that the committee takes an interest in the briefings because we only do a briefing because there's a topic of audit interest there. There's an audit issue that we need to get our heads around and what field we need to report publicly on. So, therefore, it seems not surprising to me that the committee then wants to, on occasion, take evidence and gather further evidence on those matters. I guess the issue from the committee's point of view is, as the Auditor General said, often if a briefing comes out, it's signalling there's probably a more detailed section 22 report coming behind that. And it's then an issue for the committee as to whether to take action and allocate time for a scrutiny based on the briefing or wait for the full section 22 coming forward later on. I realise that that's a judgment for the committee at the time, but it does sort of create that uncertainty. I recognise the dilemma, Mr Beattie. I think what we try to do is, hopefully, allow for a sufficient gap that it doesn't feel like there's a too condensed an issue all at the one time. There's a live example that maybe helps illustrate some of our thinking around Scotland's justice system. It's mindful, of course, that the committee is still in the throes of taking evidence on the section 22 on the Scottish Prison Service and you don't interest in that. But you recall that, in 2021, there was a briefing paper that I produced on the criminal justice system in Scotland. At that point, we drew attention to the fact that the system hadn't progressed at the pace that was intended of the creation of the new bodies and the wider legislation. In today's paper of our programme of work, we set out that we want to do more work in the criminal justice and community justice arrangements, but thinking what's the best way to frame that isn't progressing as planned. There are choices, and it's really that option of choices that I want to have to how best to deliver products. I am mindful of not to condense a topic too closely together so that it cannibalises the gaps to the extent that it reduces the quality of scrutiny that the committee can provide. Have you had an instance yet where you've put out an all-good faith in briefing and then, when the full scrutiny takes place, that content of that briefing is modified? In terms of the severity of the impact that we appear to have. Let's bring colleagues in to support that, whereby we've reflected and said that we would have been better placed to have produced a full-scale performance audit on that topic. I think that it probably brings me back to think that we have options either through undertaking a section 23 report or doing an impact-style analysis of the work or taking it through the annual audit process. As you'll know, audit work never really stops on a particular topic. There's always scrutiny, there's always an on-going assessment. I think that the arrangements that we have give us the right degree of flexibility. As Anthony mentioned, we've not had a concern about the quality of a briefing or an online publication to the extent that we've had to step back or modify at the moment. If the question is basically to have we done a briefing and realised that the issue wasn't really an issue, that's never been the case. There's always been something worthwhile to see and find when we've done our briefing work. Having said that, when you're doing a piece of audit work, there's always a question in your mind about how big, how significant are the nature of the issues that you're investigating. I think it's probably fair for us to reflect that when we're doing our work we also look for the good as well as the bad. I think that there's a balance to be struck in terms of making sure that when we're doing our work we're looking for things that are going well and areas that we can support improvement. I don't think that we've ever found ourselves in positions to be to where we've conducted a piece of work and we thought, forgive me if I'm being colloquial here, why did we bother? That's not been the case. It's important to note that not all briefings will necessarily progress to a full performance audit at a full section 23 report. I think that's something that's worth us reflecting on in terms of how we're presenting information to the committee. Is this something where you will produce something later and then there's an opportunity to discuss when the right time is for the committee to commence Monday to old scrutiny. On other occasions the briefing may be sufficient and may be enough to really go into the topic for the committee and I think that's something we can liaison as we progress. Just coming back to the original question what sort of balance do you see in that in the future between the more formal section 22s and 23s and these less formal briefings and blogs? Section 22s, as I mentioned to an extent they take care of themselves so that if the appointed auditor raises a matter through their annual audit and brings that to my attention through well established processes that we have in Audit Scotland I'll make a decision whether to produce a report on the annual audit. In terms of section 23 in the balance with briefing papers I'd like as you'll know to expect Mr Beattie there's no formula that says that this is a percentage of one or the other. I think what we want to do is to ensure that we've got the right depth for the right issues so that for some products just we'll lend themselves to a full scale audit Mark's mentioned some already and I think as I've mentioned first response to the convener Social Security feels like a good example. So the committee will recall that from really the tracing back to the Scotland Act of 2016 and the plan to devolve more benefits to Scotland there was a programme of reporting that Audit Scotland then embarked upon of work through the annual audit and then reporting on how well the arrangements were developing and as I mentioned it's our intention to carry it further reporting I think that section 23 is the right product for that style of work given the scale of public spending that exists that it's a programme that's had a number of years under its belt but for other topics a briefing will also be as appropriate we've mentioned about the promise for example already so we're just thinking carefully about how we shape that and we'll always do that really on the scale of the issue the amount of public spending and what additional benefit one product will bring just to move on to another issue which is around Scotland's colleges and the approach on that obviously over a large number of years now Scotland's colleges have continually been coming forward with an issue but the issue behind them has sort of changed over the years the emphasis has changed over the years now always there's finances behind it and at that moment you're obviously expressing concerns about the financial sustainability of the sector the new funding model from the SFC and the ability the colleges continue to offer the courses that they need to offer their financial situation is obviously driven at the moment as it wasn't so much in the past by staffing staffing costs we've seen some fairly dramatic statements from colleges as to the percentages of the resources that are being eaten up by that or will be eaten up by that in the future now all of this is a very changing environment it's kind of fast paced it's things that have developed over the years and it's fast paced but you get where I'm coming from and how are you going to change the type of output that you're going to publish for this because obviously we're looking at entirely different things now and the old types of report that you produced on this were appropriate at the time to the issues at the time but we're in a new new world now so to speak how are you going to approach that I'm glad you raised it Mark and Anthony May were to come in on this point as well particularly who's leading our work on Scotland's colleges your characterisation of the environment is one I would recognise Mr Beattie that this is a very challenging dynamic context that Scotland's colleges are currently operating in and I value the committee's interest in your on-going scrutiny of the challenges that Scotland's colleges are facing it's not a system or a sector that all points in isolation of course and that there are currently plans for reform more generally of Scotland's post-school system is relevant to shape where we'll take our work to some extent and Mark can say more I was going to say a placeholder but I think that perhaps downplays the significance with which we attach to Scotland's colleges through our audit work you've alluded to an evolution of our reporting on Scotland's colleges for a number of years we produced an annual overview of the college sector in Scotland more recently we've continued to report but perhaps in a more accessible format that reflects I would say a growing desire of the Scottish funding council to discharge more of its responsibilities in terms of annual reporting in the sector so we've reflected that through our own work but we're not tied to a particular style of reporting on the sector maybe just without committing ourselves this morning if that's possible to one style of output over another is that our interest in the sector is undiminished given the important role that it plays in terms of social mobility tackling inequalities and the life chances that the sector provides across multiple communities throughout Scotland Mr Beattie so we're going to take a bit of time to get this right feedback from the committee and elsewhere we'll help to shape that but Mark will say more again about where that might take us I think importantly I'd emphasise the fact that as the other general has said we're not tied to a particular type of output and we're given thought to that in the past when we've had previous versions of the report we have touched into things like performance curriculum staffing in a bit more detail as well as regionalisation arrangements when they came in and mergers so there is capacity and flexibility for us to do something around that I think we know that for the past few years the primary driver in the sector or the primary challenge in the sector has been financial sustainability but you've seen through some of the comments that the colleges have made and those useful evidence sessions I think that the committee had with both the SFC and the director general of the Scottish Government as well as the colleges themselves really brought to light some of the real issues that colleges are facing so we will be reflecting on what is the appropriate scope of any output that we do in future on colleges Let me just turn to the last question I was going to ask here which is about the police and fire and rescue your best value reports actually I think are quite good I'm Scottish, that's my anyway they are and I know you're doing research and development work on policing and you're doing the best value audit on this Can you give me a bit more information about what research and development work is being done and the timescales you're working to in relation to the fire and rescue services because obviously both these emergency services are really vital for the country and the committee has a huge interest in them Thanks Mr Beattie We've got a background first and then Anthony and Mark can say more as they wish is that uniquely on the Scottish Police Authority and Scottish Fire and Rescue under the Police and Fire Reform 2012 act gave the Auditor General powers of best value on what are now central government organisations of Police and Fire in Scotland following that significant element of public sector reform Neither myself nor my predecessor discharged those best value powers yet and I think this has been a placeholder for what programme now for a few years and as I set out in the paper this morning it's my intention to carry out best value reporting on both Police and Fire over the current audit appointment term that's not my appointment but it's the current five year cycle of external audit appointments which takes us up to 2027 I should say Your predecessor committee of course Mr Beattie took much evidence on the progress that particularly the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland was making in terms of the quality of its service post reform I wanted to take a bit of time to allow that stabilisation to happen before going in to make a wider assessment of how Police Scotland the Police Authority and then the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service which has had a lower profile but still provides a vital public service so that's my intention you'll see from the paper we are signposting that we'll produce the first set of reports towards the end of next year and we're working closely with the appointed auditors of both organisations together with Anthony and Mark's team Anthony can maybe kick off in terms of the specifics of the work that we're taking to ready ourselves for that we're in very active discussions with both of the inspectors around this work because I have a clear interest and I think it's probably worth recognising there's a piece of work that has been done on the preparation and planning for police and fire reform so at that point we took a view that there have been good progress made in terms of planning for implementation but the question then was has it actually made a difference has the intention of creating a single police service and a single fire and rescue service led to better quality better performance and better use of public resources now feels like the right time to step back and start trying to form a view on that and that's the conversation that we're having with HMICS and HMFSI at the moment as Stephen said plan would be to get that work kicked off sooner rather than later because it will take a bit of time and it's not straightforward work and we've also got the reference points of the work that was done by the Accounts Commission around the previous police and fire services in Scotland as well to give us a bit of a reference of how was it then, how is it now what differences happened before passing to Mark is that all accountable officers of central government bodies of which is the Accountable Officer for the police is the chief executive of the Scottish Police Authority inherent to their role is a responsibility to achieve best value arrangements what that doesn't accompany that in central government in the way that it does in local authorities is a statutory element to that alongside audit reporting so there's work to do here for us and we think the timing is beginning to feel pretty fair-tile to do some public reporting on that fair work Julie, just a very practical point in terms of engagement, we're very closely engaged with HMICS at the moment because of the breadth of the work that they're doing and have done in the police over the last year or two and we want to work closely with them on shaping what the work might look like we're less advanced in the discussions on that engagement over the coming months I think I would just highlight the high level of public interest in both these areas and indeed the interest of this committee on them and I think I'd be hoping for something as soon as it's feasible to come out with this Yes, absolutely so we will be reporting as at the time scale of Signal 2025 probably for the first of these reports and then likely into the following year for the other If I may just reference back to your earlier question this will be so this won't be briefing papers these will be full scale best value audit and assessments given the significance of public spending and how material these public services are I've seen lots of nods around the table for that I think the strong view of this committee is that they should be a priority for the work that you do and it is a match of considerable public interest I'm going to invite Graham Simpson to put some questions to you Graham I just want to follow up on a couple of the areas that Colin Beattie touched on so he ended on police and fire and rescue service I just wonder about the level of detail of work that you're planning there so if we take fire and rescue service for example will you be looking at whether cuts in the number of assets that the fire and rescue services had affects its ability to fight fires particularly major fires in certain places are you going into that sort level of detail you could do the same work for police as well Anthony can say more about our methodology Mr Simpson but I think the real benefit that we'll get from this audit is that we will work with subject experts in terms of both inspectors the audit angle will always be rooted in what public money did the organisation get does it get what are its plans as intended against those plans does it have the right infrastructure in terms of effective decision making culture governance and so forth these are the hallmarks of which auditors used to arrive at a best value judgment but I think Anthony can say more about it but the performance is vital to that in terms of the use of resources which is another key aspect that captures best value just to echo what the original said Mr Simpson the fire and rescue inspectorate already publishes inspection reports on fire and rescue and one of the areas of interest that the chief inspectorate has been focusing on recently has been capacity and deployment and the risks around the level of resources that are available and some of the difficult choices that need to be made so I think it's quite likely that that would feature as part of our discussions with the fire inspectorate and possibly the reporting of the BV work on police and fire in the past slightly different models for police and fire the BV reports were joint reports with the police inspectorate but the fire and rescue reports were just reports published by Audit Scotland I suspect on this occasion these will be joint reports perhaps with those bodies but that's another matter of detail we need to work through creates complications in terms of governance and sign off and all those kind of things but we need to do what's right and that's not stuff that would get us in the way of doing joint reporting if we think that's the right model that's useful if we could just go back to colleges I think we're expecting to see a number of section 22 reports from you I wonder if you can give us an update on where you are with those I'm happy to I haven't settled on section 22 reporting on Scotland's colleges for their financial year 2022-23 yet I'm in active consideration as I await the finalisation of those annual audits some of those are taking longer than expected there are complex judgments that are being made by auditors but as referencing again the evidence that the committee took from the college sector particularly the Scottish funding council about the scale of challenges that are live we are seeing that being reported by the annual auditors and that's informing my thinking but I haven't settled on specific colleges on numbers yet Mr Simpson why are the audits taking longer than expected a number of reasons some timescale some started later than allowing for the completion of the previous year's audits and there are some challenging issues both in terms of the capacity of some finance teams to support the delivery of an effective audit and there are some live technical issues too particularly around pension accounting many of Scotland's colleges are members admitted bodies of the local government pension scheme and that's going through its tri annual valuation arrangements that have been received during the midst of the audit many auditors view as that's a material change that they require updated information that requires to be validated before they are prepared to sign off the auditors certificate so that's been a number of factors behind the delay and then there are some local complexities that are allowing that we want to take account of properly I've said this many times to the committee but audit quality matters more than the delivery of deadlines and auditors won't compromise on the quality of the judgments that they need to make with the right evidence so these are the factors that are live just now Mr Simpson okay so I mean can we expect to see some progress before the summer yeah very much hope so I think that the outstanding audits and Mark can have some of the detail on this if it's helpful we expect will be completed before summer recess and that any content section 22 will be reported publicly by that date as I do and I will be writing to the committee with regular updates on progress on my intentions anything to add Mark okay fine can I ask you you say you're going to do some work on looking at primary care the care provided by GPs what kind of things will you be looking at if you want to say more about that in a second I guess the sentence that I would highlight to the committee in shaping our thinking is really where health services take place in Scotland over 90% of health interactions take place in primary care and that is also informed by a regular reporting on the NHS about the need to move to a preventative model that's less focused, less reliant upon large hospitals in an acute setting the new general practitioner contract the GMS contract is now in place since 2018 we want to see how effectively that's working Mr Simpson so that will be at the heart of our audit intentions where we go next with the scope and methodology, Anthony can say as much as we're able to at this stage we're still at the scoping discussions with a stakeholder group around this piece of work Mr Simpson but as your general said the focus primarily is on whether or not the 2018 GMS contract is delivering what it was intended to deliver it was a fundamental shift to try and shift resources into primary care differently to help support the prevention agenda and improve health outcomes we know there have been some real issues and there still are some big issues around capacity in primary care there appears to be evidence of challenges in recruiting some of the multisynary teams that are at the cornerstone of delivering those different services so we want to explore how well that programme of change is being implemented and what the barriers might be and what might need to be done differently in the future but we still haven't finalised the scope that's a general thrust of what we're looking at at the moment but could I also urge you as part of that work to look at and we've raised this before in committee how easy or difficult it is for patients to actually see the GP because I think there's a bit of a mixed picture and different practices will have different policies on actually booking appointments that comes down to something as basic as that We're certainly quite keen to explore what we can get good evidence on access and availability of primary care services I think it's quite likely that will feature as part of our already interested in this piece of work but I certainly hear what you're saying loud and clear Mr Simpson who made a note of that I would add that as Anthony says we're just in the scoping of this audit but as the committee saw in our adult mental health services report we were very deliberate in our intention to bring in the experiences that people have of public services both from the specifics of it, lived experience and also where appropriate a human rights based approach to auditing as well Mr Simpson so we've not settled on it yet but that feels like a very important component of our thinking as we do so for this audit OK, that's useful I'm going to ask you now your work on sustainable transport and climate change so if we could start on climate change we're meant to be getting a statement today on climate change but was leaked so we know what's coming we know that the Government is going to say that they're going to ditch the targets which are set down in law does that help or hinder you in your audit work I'll maybe firstly resist commenting on a potential leak and understand there'll be a ministerial statement to the chamber today that will set out the Government's intentions around its climate change of the statutory targets and the annual plan you'll recall Mr Simpson we've recently produced two climate change related audits firstly on the Government's overall arrangements to support its climate change ambitions which made reference of course to the annual climate change plan and then also more recently on heat and homes how that work is progressing whatever change the Government makes I'm not sure in terms of both its ambitions for the interim targets in 2030 or indeed the annual reporting I'm not sure it really derails the wider ambition into the 2040s that there's a clear plan of intention of how it will deliver its climate carbon reduction ambitions and then which is relevant for our work on the use of cars and reducing car mileage journeys so that was one of the first aspects we were looking at but then the second one is really that assumption that climate change is here to stay and the extent to which public bodies and public services are adapting appropriately and as specific of that is our intention given the climate in Scotland is to look at how well are flood protection arrangements being deployed in Scotland so those two aspects that we intend to look at and of course we'll look with interest about the Government's decisions around its targets and use that to inform our future work here OK With regard to sustainable transport then what are you going to be looking at there? Are you going to be looking at so all kinds of transport cars trains you can see more The primary focus will be on reducing car travel that's the primary focus for the audit but we'll be looking at the extent to which planning is taking place at local level and regional level to try and get integrated transport systems because that's an important part of the mix really but the primary focus is on the target to reduce levels of car use Why are you not looking at all the forms of transport? We'll look at the connection between local planning to reduce car use and how it's linked with other investments or other modalities of transport but the reason we're focusing primarily on cars is because that is the biggest area of carbon emissions and that's where there's likely to be the greatest gain in terms of supporting Scotland's drive to meeting their zero The Government does have a target where it hasn't ditched that one yet but maybe they'll get around to that Are you going to be looking at the use of electric vehicles and the roll-outs of EV chargers or lack of? I'm very glad you asked that question Mr Simpson because we've had quite a lot of discussions internally about the scope of this audit and we will obviously be thinking about the role that electric vehicles can play in supporting the shift and the reduction in car use but the evidence suggests that that shouldn't be the primary focus of this piece of work so we are planning to do specific work on electric vehicles in the future It will feature as part of the context for this piece of work but it's not the primary focus of it Is that the focus of your work is simply are people using cars less? Yes Are people adopting what active forms of transport are them using more public transport what progress are people making at local, regional and national levels to live about that shift in behaviour and activity Okay, I could probably tell the answer that the answer is no there is no plan I think we want to see to be perfectly honest Mr Simpson and certainly the scoping work gives us some useful hooks to explore the extent to which there is good activity at local level to make those shifts happen and if it isn't happening, well clearly we need to shout it out and identify what needs to be done better in the future Okay, I look forward to seeing that My final question is we've spoken to you previously about how you track your recommendations in terms of how government responds to them and what action is taken as a result of the many recommendations and I should say unlike Mr Beattie I think your reports are excellent not just quite good, excellent so as a result of your excellent recommendations how are you actually doing the progress of that Anthony you can come in on a second first I thank you for the feedback we we thought carefully about this and you're right we've had very helpful discussions with the committee building on the work of the predecessor committee that audit work has an impact and I've referenced this a couple of times on the remarks of Mr Simpson and that's central to our strategy that was produced the reasserted that last year between my self-accounts commission and supported by Audit Scotland to Public Audit Scotland the audit work with clear audit recommendations is producing an impact ultimately through to better public services so we're very focused and committed on that on one end of the spectrum it is for public bodies to either accept or reject an audit recommendation and that's very obviously a feature of questioning that the convener asks of witnesses before you on the expectation that we go through the regular clearance process that they are clear understood and hopefully accepted for public bodies to implement them and then for us to track and report on how well that is happening so we currently have a project impact and insights that we are reporting and committed to report publicly at least twice over the five-year duration of our strategy and we'll be giving regular updates to the committee and their own annual reporting about the progress that's been made alongside that I think it's been a helpful development particularly from the Scottish Government's perspective that its own audit and assurance committee has much clearer and stronger arrangements for which it is tracking its progress against audit recommendations and we'll be reporting further on that through the audit of the Scottish Government later this year so I feel that there is more happening there is clearer progress that is being made and again if I may pass on to Anthony he can say a bit more about this is that audit perspective function and some of our work here is moving towards a bit more real-time auditing but on the point about have recommendations been implemented that is a retrospective analysis so we will go back sometimes two, three years to see what happened to that recommendation and we'll continue to engage and report publicly as appropriate on that Anthony as the auditor general said we've introduced a much more systematic approach in recent times to follow up on the progress that is being made against recommendations obviously it's really important that the recommendations are accepted and as the auditor general said picked up as part of the clearance process but accepting a recommendation and acting on it are two different things so we're probably more interested in many ways on what action is being taken colleagues have been doing work with audit teams to gather evidence on tranches of audits so we do a cycle we allow an appropriate period of time before we start to check whether progress has been made we need to give people time to gather their resources gather their act on things and the evidence is pretty positive for us in terms of the action that's being taken we're seeing I think real progress in audited bodies based on the reports that we've looked at recently getting better at being clear on what it is they're trying to achieve also we're seeing evidence of public bodies getting better at putting systems in place to gather evidence on improvements that we're asking them to make and the other bit of this is quite important for us is obviously we're precluded from passing comment on matters of public policy but inevitably the points we make, the issues we identify can be useful in terms of informing policy thinking and service development across the public sector as well and I think we're seeing good evidence of the briefing on drug and alcohol for example and the work of the task group and I think we've seen good evidence of the social care briefing helping to inform some of the thinking around the national care service as well so we feel we're making good progress there's been a technical change we've introduced as well which is part of our audit processes we now require audit teams sorry they sound a bit dull to fill in a template a recommendation template but it requires the teams to be absolutely clear what do you want them to do about it how will you know when they've done it and how are you going to check whether or not that's actually happened and we have conversations with the audited bodies around that template as well which gives us more confidence that people are buying into the recommendations we're making in the report not at all complacent on this there's obviously more to do but I think we've made some good progress in terms of putting in place really robust processes around recommendations don't worry okay, thank you very much I have to comment that it's not uncommon for accountable officers from public bodies to tell the committee at 5 past 9 in the morning that they accept all of their findings and recommendations and by about 20 past 9 that they are denouncing or renouncing some of them but anyway Willie Coffey's got some questions to put to you right, thanks very much just briefly on that point there Stephen, if I may how does the public see the fruits of that particular follow-up work and recommendations for example, say the public went on to Audit Scotland's website and picked any report and then per se it was a couple of years ago for example, how do they quickly and easily see the follow-up and the work that was done as part of the recommendations to get a sense of whether the recommendations were carried through Anthony can play best place to comment on this Mr Coffey but it's so important because it's all well and good does making a recommendation or indeed as the convener suggests stating publicly as Anthony mentions, what happens next is much more important so Anthony, what do you think? We're not at the point at the moment Mr Coffey of putting that stuff in the public domain but that is our ambition to do very very quickly because we're now more confident that we've got the process in place that allows us to have confidence in the evidence of the progress that's being made or not being made around the recommendations so that's something we're planning to do really quite soon, I wouldn't want to put a time scale on it but it's certainly something we want to do and you know that we're very keen to share this stuff with the committee again, I think we've had private discussions around this stuff, we'd be very comfortable I think, moving into a public discussion space around this work with the committee if that's where you were minded to go I would add Mr Coffey as well as the development of the arrangements there's a couple of other specifics that can give that public reporting and maybe confidence to the committee so section 22 reports for example will regularly say that here is an issue, the recommendations that the auditor has made almost always results in a follow-up report from me publicly to the committee and says, and here's what happened next over the course of the following year and then the other product that Audit Scotland has used many times is an impact report so a specific piece of work typically on the back of a larger scale section 20D report and say well what happened a number of years later I think what we're looking to do through this project is to evolve that into a more regular systematic style of public reporting and it's connecting it doesn't it so that someone say from the public can visually see there's a report that was done two years ago there's the actions, recommendations that we must be able to connect the two up and see pretty readily that the work has been done and it's been effective almost like an epilogue to your excellent reports perhaps and there's a really important point around that I think we talk about relevance and impact we want our reports to have a life beyond publication date that it sees an impact on the delivery of high quality public services to people who are using them and public money is well spent so this is how we think we can best bookend that I should say for us there's an important learning point as well I mean I think we need to accept that sometimes recommendations won't be accepted and sometimes progress against them may be slower than we would like if that is the case we need to understand what's happening there and we need to find better ways of influencing and shaping change across public services and if the problem lies with us in terms of how we frame the recommendation we need to be able to accept that and learn from it as well absolutely thank you for that can I turn to the work that you're doing on digital exclusion we know your reports coming so I don't know how much of a game you want to give away but could you just give us a little flavour of the issues and themes that you're covering in this Stephen and I might fall off with some questions of course thank you Mr Coffey yeah this is a live audit that we have a joint piece of work on behalf of myself and the accounts commission and the roots of it are as we've all seen and are witnessing the pace of change and the delivery of public service and how they are using technology that pace will be right for some people but not for others Mr Coffey that is importantly considering the extent to which people can continue to access public services that are using digital technology more than they had been so we're in the final throws of that audit at the moment and we'll be publishing over the next few months to set out the extent to which public services are delivering all that is required of them in an environment that has to change at the same time so it's quite clear and indeed has set out its ambitions in terms of the pillars of public sector reform that adoption of digital and digital technologies will very clearly be a part of that but public services of course provide a safety net to members of the public that they have to still be able to access them in an appropriate way and maybe not an affair comparator Mr Coffey but public services aren't banks so banks are changing their model of public service delivery as commercial entities that's not necessarily the model that public services can mirror so we're looking at all of that and also as we touched on once or twice already this morning looking to reflect people's lived experiences of digital access digital exclusion in their lives too so we look forward to briefing the committee over that over the next few months have you looked at the benefits that we gained during the Covid experience that came as a huge shock to everybody clear benefits from the whole digital transformation and digital engagement that suddenly became possible particularly for the Parliament are you covering that issue to see whether we're retaining the best of that or are we giving that up and going back to the way we were in short yes we are I want to say a bit more about the specifics we're looking at for example about some of the specific approaches that came to life during the course of the pandemic and have stayed with us back to Mr Simpson's question as part of the GP access near me it was a very important feature of that so we're looking at aspects of that service transformation in this report too it's not one or the other it's the point of digital access or digital exclusion it is here to stay it will continue to transform public services but public bodies have a duty to make sure that they clearly communicate that and that their transformation is accessible for all people who rely on the service I don't really have much to add to that to be honest Mr Coffey I think Stephen's given me a really good overview of what we're finding in the work and just lastly on that digital issue the journey that we make towards inclusion why the digital agenda there has to be a parallel participation for people that can't participate for one reason or another in the whole digital side services have to be available to people that aren't in the digital world don't want to be can't afford to be and so on have you looked at that to make sure that that balance is there that's been a really important theme in the work Mr Coffey so when you get the report we'll be able to take you cos I wonder Stephen if I could ask you a broader question about how the Government spends its money and you yourself throughout your report and your slide you talk about reducing inequalities it transcends almost everything that you've reported on when you look at inequalities whether it's poverty or ill health or access to transport and access to the job market will you be looking at how the Government spends money perhaps even regionally in Scotland to try to ensure fairness and appropriateness of spend to try and tackle these inequalities throughout Scotland very much so Mr Coffey we're looking at the themes that are shaping the decisions that I'm making and the prioritisation that I've made through this work programme access to services improving life chances tackling inequalities are at the heart of the audit work that I want to take that is meaningful and has an impact on what remains very scarce public spending resources that there may be a couple of examples that maybe will help inform where we go and the committee's interest I alluded to earlier that we're planning to undertake a performance audit on the Scottish Government's overall arrangements how it's supporting fiscal sustainability and the progress that it's making on public sector reform quite broad-ranging but really that prioritisation that still is to happen Mr Coffey in terms of the pace of public sector reform and how Government is performing in that area there are many aspects that are also relevant to Scotland's colleges for example and we're also a specific piece of work that's slightly tangential on the work of the Scottish National Investment Bank but we're thinking where we go after that in terms of the work of enterprise agencies and then tracking closely what's happening with the skills agenda in Scotland too so a pipeline of work yes and then more to come thereafter OK Could I also try a question on the funding model that always causes arguments and disputes and everyone's scared to touch it but by and large if you look at an authority that's losing population they get less money and if you look at an authority that's getting more population they get more money but you could argue that service delivery for an authority that's losing population they still have to deliver the same level of service even if they're losing population but it's a tricky area to get anywhere close to the local authority funding model but is it something you've ever had a go at and would be able to do some work on? I'll bring Anthony in on this one Mr Coffey because it feels like more like territory for the Accountants Commission than it does for me as the Auditor General given you're right it is and it can be a contentious issue in terms of the local government funding allocation model what I haven't done as Auditor General is look at how the Scottish Government prioritisation effectively choose to allocate funding across different budget heads I think the report I mentioned of progress on fiscal sustainability and public sector reform will be of interest and potential relevance in this area but as Auditor General I haven't and I don't have any direct plans to look at the specifics of local government funding model I think it probably is more if there is an audit angle specifically is more for the Accountants Commission and maybe for Anthony to say further The Auditor General is quite right this is a matter of great interest to the Accountants Commission in terms of the overall quantum of funding that local authorities receive and how well they use it there's been a live discussion I think and it's still on going around the nature of the funding model and whether or not it's sufficiently agile to reflect the changing circumstances as you can imagine in these circumstances many people have given a lot of thought to the model that we have at the moment and I'm minded almost to use Churchill's comment around democracy and how the funding model no one's yet found a better model than the one we have at the moment even though it has many imperfections and upsides as well as downsides we're probably more interested at the moment around the progress that's being made around the Verity House Agreement and the place around future models of accountability and funding for local authorities and when the position gets clearer on the Verity House Agreement I think that the Auditor General may want to take a view on that and report on it And lastly from me just finally on the growth deals are you continuing to monitor progress with the spend and the growth deals and possibly also the levelling up funding which is the replacement of the European Union funding are you getting anywhere close to that or is there some kind of perspective on what's happening? On those two parts take them in reverse there's been little developments regrettably Mr Coffey in terms of the progress around growth deals so far I think you've had correspondence try to remember when it's over a year ago I think now convener from both myself and the Accounts Commission that restates our interest in this area that we'll be tracking and reporting about the annual audit or at an appropriate point more generally to satisfy the committee and Parliament's interest in this area and on growth deals we've recently reported some outputs on progress in this area we'll give that further consideration about particularly looking about what comes next in terms of growth deals financial investment Mr Coffey in a very tight fiscal environment so very much on our radar but we haven't yet got a specific to do further yet Thanks very much for that Okay thank you very much for a final set of questions and observations I'm going to invite the deputy convener Jamie Greene to put those to you Jamie thank you convener I've got four quite meaty airs to cover and really not a lot of time to cover them which is unfortunate but you mentioned your opening comments I appreciate there's some on-going work around the prisons and prison populations or man numbers, the sorts of issues that we've delved into a lot also looking at court case backlogs and other live issues and I appreciate, I get the impression you're becoming a watching brief on those but I'm interested more in what extra additional audit work you might be doing in the justice sector there was some mention of community justice on that To be absolutely clear we're very focused on this area of public service delivery tracking of course the committee's on-going interest following the section 22 report on the prison service and I'll take a view as appropriate how best to follow up that in terms of public audit reporting we have live interest following up our community justice briefing paper from 2021 the differing views I think it's fair to say about the legal aid services in Scotland what I've engaged with colleagues very recently on this is thinking perhaps similar to our work on the NHS is how we are developing our audit commentary on Scotland's justice system which I think is laid bare this is an interconnected system and single points of failure can impact across the system so we're just thinking carefully how we best target our audit resource in this area Deputy convener but those two areas are live and I think waiting to see what happens probably on the back of the committee's own work on the Scotland's prison service before we settle definitively on where we go next you mentioned legal aid that's clearly an area of dispute between the sector that all the warnings seem to be the sector that's on its knees that we're facing down the barrel of real big black holes in terms of legal representation which does actually prove quite a worse worrying perspective from a democratic point of view whereas the Government think this is a discussion around fees for example so are you just looking at the monetary value that government gives to the sector or are you looking at wider issues such as workforce issues that may come down the line we hear anecdotally that it's an aging workforce and fewer entrants and so on so how much level of detail will you go into when you're looking at legal aid Mark and say more Deputy convener but we haven't scoped out the work specifically but all of those factors are relevant that we will consider before settling on the type of work that we can intend to carry out and as with anything where we've not decided to scope anything could be within scope I will say though that I think that our discussions with the Scottish Government in relation to some of those areas of dispute but we await to see the outcome of all that more discussions going on more involvement I think of those in the sector but we're keen to keep a close eye on that to make sure that things do change progress is always a subjective analysis of negotiations on the community justice what work will you be doing I appreciate that your predecessor did an initial report into the establishment of community justice Scotland off the back of its establishment through the 2016 act and obviously the Government itself published a national strategy for community justice in 2022 will you be looking at responding directly to progress made on that strategy again we haven't settled specifically on it yet I produced a briefing paper in 21 on the progress on community justice arrangements and really it's touched on that that hadn't progressed as intended against the requirements of the legislation I think we would carefully, as with all these things prioritising where we can best have impact on public services deputy convener so community justice is a very relevant part of the success of the overall community justice system so we had initially thought about doing a wide-ranging piece of work on community justice arrangements but I haven't settled quite on that yet if that's going to be the right contribution to the justice system at the moment if we do intend to do so we'll very much look at the progress that's being made what I'm slightly guarded is that I don't necessarily want to repeat a story that's already known in the system but I'm thinking carefully probably the next four or five months before we settle definitively on what audit work we'll carry out that's helpful one of the main issues is following the money there are so many stakeholders involved in delivery that have both statutory and non-statutory duties in delivering community justice it's very difficult to find out where that bigger budget goes unless it's directly attributed to a single agency such as community justice we also, as you're aware we've done a lot of work on the input or the use of the private sector and justice and I won't go into that today because I think there'll be other opportunities to look at that and the use of companies like Circle, GAME etc but in the interest of time I'll probably park the justice questions for now I said they're quite meaty unfortunately the next one's a national care service we're pleased to know it's obviously been a point of controversy both politically and among stakeholders but moving on from that I'm quite keen to see what work Audit Scotland will do around its auditing of the preparations and then potential implementation from it, particularly from financial point of view and that is particularly relevant because as we know the finance committee of this Parliament had quite grave reservations about the financial memorandum associated with the legislation and this is on a cross-party basis so I'm hoping that that will feature I'll take in our second deputy convener I think it's very much part of our audit interest I think I alluded to earlier that we have models of audit response to a company large-scale developments in responsibilities coming to the Scottish Parliament particularly the model that I think is most appropriate here is the devolved benefits arrangements Audit Scotland produced a number of reports as progress was being made in the establishment of Social Security Scotland and I think that's broadly similar I would imagine our audit response to the development of the national care service in Scotland will go for a variety of reasons that you're allowed to I think we probably thought we would have done more audit work in this area before now and it's applicable to both myself and the Accounts Commission who currently oversee the work of integrated joint boards where we will go next together joint audit on both the developments that are being implemented and then at the right point that they deliver as intended so I suspect this will be a programme of work that will be continued beyond my term of office as the auditor general I think that's reflective of a large-scale programme significant value of public money before passing the antenna maybe just say that you mentioned the finance committee's interest we also responded to call for views on the financial memorandum and just again the importance of clear numbers supported by information transparently reported and that's something that will be captured in our audit work going forward just to say we're committed to three phase approach phase one as Stephen said would be the planning risk assessment for implementation of the national care service phase two would be when it's implemented was actually a bit on time to budget up and then phase three would be longer-term outcomes has it actually delivered the intended outcomes in terms of improved quality of service outcomes, efficiency prevention all those kind of things that's the framing of our planning work in this area I think that there's maybe just a general worry and that's that when there's organisational change such as this particularly consolidation that there are certain things you can't afford to wait a couple of years to wait and see if it's bedded in and it's worked. You know we talked about Police Scotland decentralisation you may need to wait a couple of years for that piece of work but when you're looking at care there's more immediacy to it because it's sort of life and death if you like so I think there's maybe a public expectation that we can't afford to wait four or five years for analysis If I might quickly say after this meeting I'll be going to the Accounts Commission to brief them on the integration joint board 2024 report that we'll be publishing later this year on behalf of the Accounts Commission which is a summary of the financial health of Scotland. We're doing that work because we believe that there are some important issues around social care which Stephen, as a general commissioner, reported on. We need to focus on improving workforce issues getting better commissioning making sure that people are more effectively involved in decisions that affect their lives and that's the kind of stuff that will wake up on the ongoing work alongside planning for a national care service. The only thing I would add, Deputy convener, is that you're quite right that I think in terms of national care challenges in Scotland reflected that whilst national care service might offer longer-term solutions there were very real challenges in the sector here and now including audit recommendations that accompanied that. It's a multi-track approach from audit in this regard about both the Accounts Commission's work on IJBs and then audit work that will jointly undertake on the progress of the national care service into the future. The case work that MSPs get regarding social care issues is probably symptomatic of those current and ongoing issues so I look forward to that work. I'll maybe save the next issue till the end because I think the other issue I was going to come on to in my fourth section is social security and tackling poverty I think it's very linked to social care so I'll maybe just go straight into that. I was quite struck in your opening comments that you said that in addition to the very large chunk of money that the Government has to spend on health care, primary health care particularly that devolved social security and benefits are fast creeping up to be the second largest cost to government given that a number of benefits are now devolved that weren't hitherto. Could you elaborate a little bit more about any thoughts you have, concerns you have and particularly what work you might do to get back at that? I'm delighted to do so. It's our intention to look at two aspects of it really, the building on audit reporting that we've already undertaken and the progress of the establishment of the agency itself what benefits are now being paid in Scotland forecast growth in benefits as well and then what that means for firstly Scottish budget in the round and we'll reflect that in the report that we'll produce at the end of this year on Scottish budget and sustainability and public sector reform and then a couple of specifics that we'll follow thereafter on devolved benefits arrangements firstly an intention to do some work on the disability benefits in Scotland about the cost the number of people who are claiming disability benefits and then the forecast growth and work deputy convener but I am interested in some of the accompanying arrangements for disability benefit arrangements in terms of employability schemes and skills agenda that sits very closely alongside that and to follow probably in 26 stroke 27 revisiting our work on the governance arrangements to tackle its child poverty reduction ambitions and what role the Scottish child payment specifically is having in that so we've not settled on the scoping of these works but given the significance following the Scotland act that devolved benefits are having in the country and their financial implications we think they merit some close and significant audit work just on the on child poverty so is it your opinion that you will do work to assess whether it's the level of money that's paid where it's the right type of benefit whether it's if the benefit when paid is then therefore used in a way that does improve outcomes or you know it's very difficult to quantify whether you actually get a positive outcome from simply increasing the amount for example you're right there's complex and I think we're mindful of the right boundaries here ultimately but there are policy decisions in here too about you know the type of benefit I think our interest from an audit perspective is what was spent and did it make a difference is it quantifiable so the timing is quite important because the Government is doing their own analysis and their own reporting against the various milestones so we'll think carefully and engage with Government about their own reporting and then when is best to have an audit response so I think what we're signaling here is that this will come towards the end of this pipeline of audit work and will you be doing any comparative analysis between the demographic situation I guess in Scotland i.e. if we're sitting across the four nations of the UK with relatively for example low unemployment there is a baseline of people who rely on social security and how that compares to other parts of the UK i.e. is there any disproportionality in terms of you know how much it costs Government to deliver a sort of baseline of social security in Scotland? These are relevant factors and Mark and Anthony can develop as they wish. Often we find that the comparability of data and information can be a challenge in making direct and informed comparisons where we're able to do so particularly for this type of audit work that lends itself to that because those benefits, whether under different names and different conditions, were being paid before they were devolved to Scotland so looking to take an audit view of both the cost and as I've mentioned you know are they making a difference as intended so all these are relevant factors okay that's all very helpful so our parks are screwed you could spend all morning talking about that and you have already mentioned public sector reform as well which is built into quite a lot of the lines of questioning but I did want to just maybe pick up on that going back to a piece of work you did on Scotland's workforce which I think is very relevant to public sector reform obviously we there are a lot of working adults in Scotland who are directly employed in the public sector both either through devolved and a mixture of devolved and reserved public sector functions but it's in the region of around half a million plus and I know that number has been increasing in recent years and that's quite a substantial chunk of the workforce actually you know comes at a cost to public agencies I was interested to see that around 80% of all public sector workers work in the NHS of local government and that the rest of public bodies mop up the rest of those jobs is that something you see increasing does that pose any any flags to you for doing some audit work there and what work will you be doing around public sector workforce reform so we will be looking at this the government's progress to delivering its public sector reform ambitions in this report that we'll produce towards the end of the year maybe come back to workforce in a second but also looking at the other pillars of public sector reform in terms of use of the estates and progress around digitalisation therein our briefing paper on Scotland's or Scottish Government's public sector workforce touched on many of these areas and the progress that is being made from that paper what we will do as we finalise the scoping of it is to think really carefully about the direction of travel because some bits will be policy led by the Governments so the Government's already committed to growing the NHS workforce so we'll look at parts of that through this report we're probably more likely as we follow up on the NHS overview I'm always careful of the boundary about whether as much of this will be policy led but what we want to see is as the Government sets its own ambitions for reform what does that mean for the workforce is the Government able to deliver on its intentions about the affordability of public service delivery in the round and as you allude to public sector workers makes up the significant component of public spending in this area the resource budgets tend to reflect that because not only have many of those bodies received inflationary pay rises which has perhaps eaten into some of the resource budget that was unexpectedly so given events of the last few years but the issue around other improvements digitisation, reforming public service and access to public services I get the impression reading numerous reports over the years and my eight years here that we seem to be quite slow and uptake of many of these that largely reason for that would be given is that that usually involves heavily up-fronting capital investment and of course as we know that that's a bonus contention at the moment and many of the spend to save projects which may have been mooted in public sector bodies have been put on hold or cancelled altogether and there are numerous examples of those does that then pose a risk down the line that if we're not spending on capital now to make those necessary digital technological improvements and prove access to public services we're simply carrying on down the road of doing things as they are and we'll end up in five years with very slow old fashioned mechanisms and infrastructure That's exactly what we want to explore the extent of which the various levers for reform either are or aren't in place and some of that will take funding whether it's about capital to support infrastructure changes or technological changes whether it's finance available to facilitate changes in the workforce if that's the Government's intention or otherwise we want to explore whether these arrangements in the round are in place but I think we've been pretty clear in our reporting in terms of sustainability that the current setup is challenged in terms of sustainability as it has grown incrementally and what plans are they clear are they set out, are they costed are they affordable to make the public sector reform changes that we think are needed The interest of time We have run way over time but thank you very much for giving us full answers to the questions that we've put and having an interchange with us about some of the ideas and suggestions the committee has got for where we think you should direct some of your resources We are going to bring the public part of the meeting to a close I thank Auditor General Yu for leading the evidence this morning and I also thank Anthony Clark and Mark Macpherson for the insights that you've given us which has been very useful indeed and I will now formally draw the public part of the meeting to a close and move the committee into private session