Chamber and committees

Good morning. Deputy First Minister, as you know, we took evidence from 15 former ministers and former civil servants. The former ministers represented three different political parties who have been in Government over recent times. They were unequivocal in their views that, at times, too much decision making is rushed, unclear and unstructured. Do you agree?

Permanent secretary, I want to take you back to the start of your short statement. You said that the third aspect is leadership of the civil service. It was put to us by former members of the civil service that one of the problems with the current civil service is that there are too few people who have ability in relation to commercial expertise. Do you agree with that?

Okay. So you do not disagree that there has been an issue there.

I am not sure that I accept that, but let us try to keep the politics to one side.

Four committees of the Parliament have raised serious concerns about the proposals for a national care service, because they do not feel that the evidence has reflected the views of people on the front line. Certainly, this committee heard serious concerns about the lack of information in the financial memorandum, and we still have considerable concerns about that. Does that not flag up to you that serious issues have arisen for the Government because it has not consulted all stakeholders effectively? As I say, that has resulted in the very unusual situation—certainly in my time in the Parliament—in which four committees have serious concerns. We still do not have an accurate financial memorandum.

Ironically, current civil servants made the case that, on issues such as Covid and Ukraine, decision making was actually quite good because those situations were so desperately urgent and serious that things worked out pretty well. The pre-Covid and pre-Ukraine former ministers and former civil servants argued very forcefully that far too many decisions were not good because they were so unstructured.

This morning, the gender recognition situation and issues around ferries, BiFab, Prestwick airport and the census have been flagged up. We can add to that the deposit return scheme, highly protected marine areas and the national care service—the list of concerns about effective decision making by the Scottish Government goes on. In all those cases, I am sure that the Scottish Government argues that it could have done things better. Our concern as a committee is that the Scottish Government is perhaps not listening carefully enough to stakeholders who are on the front line of delivering those policies.

As I say, the Scottish Government’s record on a lot of those issues has not been very good. Do you accept that?

Deputy First Minister, former ministers and former civil servants said that some financial rules that we have as standard practice for decision making have been found, on occasion, to be “optional”. It is a concern for the committee that proper practice for the financial management of policies is sometimes not adhered to. Is that a concern for the Scottish Government?

Thank you for that. I urge you to reflect on what the Auditor General has said about public finance and the need for additional scrutiny and transparency, because, as you know, he has not been very comfortable about that.

It was put to us in the context that, when it came to various procurement issues—whether in relation to Burntisland Fabrications, Prestwick airport or various other things—it would have helped if there had been more civil servants who had experience of the necessary decision making.

It was unstructured.

Good morning. A key issue that has been exercising committee members’ minds throughout our evidence sessions relates to how much clarity of purpose there is when it comes to decision making. If there is not that clarity, it is very difficult to get good-quality decision making. How easy do you find it to set in motion that clarity of purpose? Do you have a good understanding of what clarity of purpose is when it comes to decision making?