Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the 15th meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. The first item on our agenda is to take evidence on the national performance framework.

I put on the record my thanks to all those who took part in the workshops relating to our national performance framework ambitions into action inquiry last week. I hope that everyone found the events in Dundee and Glasgow useful and interesting. I certainly did, and colleagues to whom I have spoken certainly did, too.

To build on last week’s discussions, we will return to taking formal evidence in our inquiry. Our witnesses today are Dr Ian Elliott, senior lecturer in public leadership and management at Northumbria University and honorary chair of the United Kingdom Joint University Council—we have only an hour and a half for this session; I thought that I was going to spend most of it reading out his qualifications—Dr Max French, lecturer in systems leadership at Newcastle business school, Northumbria University; and Jennifer Wallace, director of Carnegie UK. Good morning. I welcome you all to the meeting and thank you for your written submissions to the inquiry.

We will move straight to questions. The Auditor General for Scotland said in a blog on 7 September that Scotland is suffering from

“a major implementation gap between policy ambitions and delivery on the ground.”

He went on to say:

“I am not convinced that public sector leaders really feel accountable for delivering change”.

What do the panellists feel about that?

I see that, in the section of your submission entitled “Soft power strategies”, you talk about

“galvanising stories which capture the public interest and communicate its values, rather than merely list statistics”.

Can you talk us through that a wee bit?

A basic thing that I referred to earlier is the fact that you have to go on to the old website to look at the Official Report. Surely that is a nonsense. I do not think that it is just a coincidence that, since the new website has been launched, for the first time in more than 20 years, members now get sent the Official Report every day. One might suspect that that is done so that we do not have to use the new website. Surely—

I understand the need for a software upgrade, but I find it surprising that hardware is being replaced.

When the committee went out to hold workshops last week, we found a huge amount of enthusiasm and energy for the NPF, but the issue is how widespread that is. Your research and, indeed, the Scottish Leaders Forum action group are important in identifying where there are issues.

Ms Wallace, you said in your submission:

“While there are some sectors and Directorates where the National Outcomes are more visibly embedded, there are many places where other statutory duties or non-legislative frameworks are seen to take precedence.”

Can you give some examples of that?

Thank you very much for that very helpful opening statement.

The first point that I will touch on relates to structure, effectiveness and working practices. The civil service is reserved under schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, but

“devolved administrations operate as a single organisation, which is designed to encourage cross-government working”.

When devolution occurred, it was agreed that there would be

“a new, more flexible structure designed to focus the activity of government on collective rather than departmental objectives”,

with a

“relatively compact governing structure”.

Do you feel that that has succeeded? I realise that you have been in post for only a number of weeks and that you are probably still looking at things, but how different do you feel the structure here is from the UK structure, and how do you intend to develop further a distinct Scottish civil service identity?

You have touched on delivery. I am intrigued by the idea of a delivery executive. Could you talk to us about it for a couple of minutes, please?

I am intrigued by the direction of travel. On 8 March, Emma Congreve of the Fraser of Allander Institute said:

“when it comes to the big decisions being made on the budget and on the spending review, things are still very compressed and a little bit too siloed”.—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 8 March 2022; c 19.]

On 9 November, when we heard from Professor Jim Mitchell of the University of Edinburgh, Stephen Boyle said:

“It is not clear whether”

Government has

“yet moved on from what appears to be quite a risk-averse approach in harnessing innovation and learning from failures.”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 9 November 2021; c 28.]

In the context of the collective working that we discussed, how do you respond to that? I realise that that latter comment was made before you came into post, but how can we move on and take an approach that is not high risk but—how can I put this—at least less risk averse and more innovative?

“Scotland’s Open Government Action Plan 2021-25”, published on 25 March, aims to

“promote Open Government values of openness, accountability, transparency and involving people”.

In response to another question earlier, you said that you did not take a defensive position. However, as you will be aware, the committee wrote to your predecessor, Leslie Evans, on 9 March expressing its disappointment that she had failed to engage with the committee regarding its invitation to give evidence. I think that it would be fair to say that your response to that was quite a defensive position. I think that that view is shared by all members of the committee. For example, you said:

“as civil servants, we must always appear on behalf of or to represent the views of our Ministers, and not in a personal capacity, always consistent with the Civil Service Code”.

However, the protocol between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government in relation to the handling of committee business notes that:

“A committee may invite officials alone (i.e. not accompanying a Minister) to attend a meeting for the purpose of giving oral evidence on any relevant matter which is within the official’s area of expertise and for which the Scottish Government has general responsibility”.

Do you accept that latter comment? In hindsight, do you not feel that it would have been better if Leslie Evans had come along and given evidence? That would not have been on what was discussed at committee last year; rather, given her many years of experience, we could have reflected on some of her successes in the job and had some pointers about where the civil service could go in the future.

I call a five-minute break so that members can get coffee and so on before Professor Roy steps up to the plate.