Chamber and committees

The fact is that we know if an error has happened only when it is identified. You are just talking about estimates. Are they figures that we should be concerned about? Are they figures that have somehow have to be accounted for? How does it work?

Do we have an actual figure for how much is written off? We are not talking about a write-off figure here; it is just an estimate of what the losses might be, based on past experience. Do we have an actual figure for that? We obviously have figures for sums recovered and actions taken, but some is irrecoverable. How do we identify that?

I will direct my questions to Paul Lowe; if it is appropriate, he can bounce them on to others.

On the face of it, the financial impact of £21.6 million seems like a lot of money. You have mentioned that some of that was used positively to invest in other preparations. I am struggling a bit with that, because we see that the increased supplier costs are £14.4 million, because of the extension of supplier contracts and an increase in the cost of goods. What goods are so significant that they contribute to that £14.4 million, and how has that been turned into a benefit, when it is the suppliers that are getting the increased costs?

I am still struggling a bit with the positivity around this. You had a bit of extra time, which gave you a chance to spend more time enhancing and improving delivery of the census. I presume that that had a cost in itself, and that it is rolled up into the £14.4 million.

You still have not answered the question about what the goods are that are so significantly increased in price that they warrant a mention.

You are telling me that the original specifications for delivery of the census were underbudgeted, because you are saying that you found out that some things would take longer and added it into the cost subsequently. It appears to me that your original costing was not accurate.

You were talking about the coding of pieces of paper.

You mentioned it specifically and said that the exercise that you did showed that it would take longer than you anticipated. That must indicate that you would have had a budget overrun had the census gone ahead as originally planned.

My understanding is that it is notoriously difficult to comply with some of the European Commission’s requirements, and that a lot of countries hit that problem.

From memory, in past circumstances where there have been similar suspensions, it has turned out to be the delivery agency that has failed to comply, and the Scottish Government has been left to sort that out. Is that the case again?

What are the implications of the ESF programme ending in 2023? If the Scottish Government has not been able to clean it up and reclaim any funds, does it simply become a dead loss? If so, are there other financial implications behind that?