Chamber and committees

I will probably come back to you on that. I can see that Graeme Cook is dying to come in, but I will go to Peter Hunter next.

The nub of the matter is that the 2014 act has made some good changes. We can see that. However, certain aspects of the matter are not necessarily about changes to legislation or regulation. We have a number of organisations that did not exist before. Scotland Excel is huge now, compared with what it used to be. We have other organisations in the centre of excellence. The frustrating thing for many—it comes back to my playing devil’s advocate—is the question whether the process is too weighted towards the lawyers and the accountants making decisions or whether we are listening to all.

The most frustrating thing of all is when we know that there is good practice—which is good for human beings, as we have heard—but we also know that we are not exporting that good practice and ensuring that we are getting the best that we possibly can from contracts to deliver for people and give folk the flexibility and autonomy that we have talked about before. Graeme Cook said that it is often driven by budgets, and the reality is that getting it right for people in terms of whole-life costs could save us a lot of money, because, in addition to the human cost, crisis costs us a lot of money. How do we export best practice?

Graeme Cook, how can we get best practice exported?

Good morning, panel. I will play devil’s advocate a little and maybe expand on some of the issues that Maggie Chapman has drawn out.

I apologise to the lawyers and accountants among you, but one thing that we have heard—I have heard it as a constituency MSP for years, and I heard it as a local authority elected member before that—is that, when it comes to procurement, the front-line staff know exactly what is required, but then the lawyers and accountants get their hands on it and the tender document changes dramatically. We end up with a tender document that results in bids being accepted for something that might not be what the front-line staff want, whether that is a fire engine or the contracting of care services.

How do you respond to that? To expand on what Ms Chapman said, do front-line staff have a key role to play in procurement, or are they now shoved to one side?

Peter Hunter mentioned the Granite Care Consortium. Some folk would say that the contract that it has is not a typical framework contract, for the simple reason that it allows for much more flexibility and autonomy for front-line staff to step up and step down care. In my opinion, that is the right thing to do, because—to go back to the point about the whole-life costs as well as the human costs—who better than the folk on the front line to go into Mr and Mrs Smith’s house and say, “Do you know what? They are not great at the moment. It’s time for us to step up delivery”? Others would argue that, under other contracts that have been awarded through frameworks, front-line staff do not have that flexibility and autonomy. How would you respond to that, Julie?

Finally—this is a statement more than a question, convener; it is an appeal, really—folk should go away and think about how front-line staff can be involved in exporting best practice. We are missing a trick. Although I hear you saying that there is local autonomy and flexibility, lots of folk do not feel that that is the case any more. If they are not feeling that way, we all have a part to play in considering that.

I apologise for being a bit late today

I will concentrate on some of the things that others have said about bureaucracy during the course of the inquiry. A lot of folk have said that things work well until the lawyers and accountants get involved in the tendering process. I apologise to any lawyers or accountants who are here.

In my council experience, which is a while back now, I definitely saw aversion to risk, especially in my early years, before the formation of the Aberdeen city and shire joint procurement unit. Do the aversion to risk and the bureaucracy still exist, or have they lessened over the years?

Do you feel that you have a choice as to whether to do that, or do you sometimes feel pressured to join the national frameworks?

Thank you.

Melanie, do you wish to comment?

So, ultimately, do you feel that you have choice, but you still feel pressured? I am not putting words in your mouth.