Chamber and committees

Members have a number of questions and I ask that they ask all the questions that they have together.

We need to keep the length of answers to questions fairly tight, otherwise we are not going to get through everything. Diane McGiffen wants to come in on this.

Are they on the same theme?

Okay. Be brief.

I assume that the board is overseeing the evaluation of the robustness and effectiveness of remote working in terms of the quality of the work done and the wellbeing of the staff concerned. Is there a mechanism for reporting to the board on that?

Thank you. Do members have any questions that they would like to ask Alexander Sloan?

We have witnesses for agenda item 5, which is evidence on Audit Scotland’s annual report and accounts for the year to 31 March 2021 and the auditor’s report on the accounts. Members have a copy of the annual report and the accounts in their meeting papers.

I welcome to the meeting Professor Alan Alexander, chair of the board of Audit Scotland. Professor Alexander is accompanied by, from Audit Scotland, Stephen Boyle, accountable officer and Auditor General for Scotland; Diane McGiffen, chief operating officer; and Stuart Dennis, corporate finance manager.

Given that our witnesses are appearing remotely, I remind members that they should direct their questions to the Auditor General, who can invite witnesses to speak as appropriate. Should any of the witnesses wish to speak, they should type R in the chat function, and I will bring them in at the appropriate time.

I welcome our witnesses. I invite Professor Alexander and the Auditor General to make short introductory statements.

We have come to the end of our time for this evidence session, but there are still one or two questions that I would certainly like to ask and which we will send you in writing, if you would be so kind as to come back to us on them.

I thank the witnesses and suspend the meeting for a few minutes so that we can set up the next panel.

Thank you for that additional reassurance. I have one other question. Audit Scotland has made certain accounting estimates that are material to the overall income and expenditure in 2020-21. Work in progress of £1.287 million is included as income on the basis of a judgment of work completed but not yet charged to audited bodies. Audit Scotland also created a Covid-19 provision at a cost of £886,000, which is a judgment of extra fees that are payable to external firms due to the additional time spent on the audit of certain public bodies.

Those estimates require detailed consideration and scrutiny by the auditors, so I would like you to confirm that you are content with the judgments made by Audit Scotland and their disclosure in the annual report and accounts.

In that regard, I am on the audit committee of the National Mining Museum Scotland.

It seems that no one else has any audit roles that they wish to declare.