Chamber and committees

Paragraph 87 of the section 22 report says:

“NHS NSS has committed to ensuring retrospective contract approval and monitoring this through its established governance group.”

How is that progressing, particularly in respect of the contracts that are described and the issues raised about them?

Community Justice Scotland has highlighted some areas, as has the Auditor General. There seems to be a problem that must be addressed. Community Justice Scotland has the powers. I am not asking for it to be draconian, but if going behind the scenes, having a wee chat to people and trying to usher them down a particular path is not working—and it demonstrably seems not to be working—action needs be taken.

In that case, you also accept that there is an issue around accountability and lines of responsibility. It is therefore a question of what you will do to change what is happening now in order to ensure that those required outcomes are achieved.

I will ask more questions about that in a second. Page 5 of our Scottish Parliament information centre briefing shows the proportion of the population that has received the vaccine. Pretty much all the way down the line there is a discrepancy between those who got dose 1 and those who got dose 2. It is a not insignificant discrepancy, overall. Why is that?

Ah. It is a private paper. It shows that, by local authority area, there is a discrepancy of a few percentage points between take-up of dose 1 and take-up of dose 2. Did you encounter that during your audit? Did you note that?

Has that impact assessment been published yet?

I detect a certain amount of uncertainty in your responses over whether everybody understands their roles and responsibilities. Perhaps one of the issues is that the community justice partners still remain accountable through their usual accountability arrangements. Does that create an issue?

Actually, I would like clarification on something first.

You mention in the briefing paper that vaccines were allocated according to the Barnett formula, so I presume that they were allocated on a population basis. Were there any issues with that, given the fact that Scotland has different demographics and, therefore, different priorities for the volume of vaccine that would be needed at any particular time? Was that taken into account in any way and did you note whether any issues arose from it?

I turn to some of the points that Willie Coffey raised. Exhibit 4 contains some fairly detailed information, the source of which is, I understand, Public Health Scotland. Given our previous experience with data, are you comfortable that the figures are accurate?

Given that we want everybody to understand fully where they are and what they do and to work together cohesively, would Community Justice Scotland benefit from additional powers to support its role—for example, powers that would enable it to drive a more strategic approach to planning—and create a better, more disciplined line of accountability?