Chamber and committees

I go back to the substantive point that a disclaimer has been issued. Again on 29 June, when the Auditor General appeared before the committee, he emphasised that the issuing of a disclaimer is “a serious matter”.

Mr Paterson, you issued a note to accompany the papers today in which you spoke of a “demanding timeframe”—that was your expression. When I look back at the evidence that we took last year, I see that Sarah Jane Hannah confirmed that, even back in the 2012-13 audit—although she was not working in the organisation at that point—Audit Scotland had flagged up the possibility that there might be a requirement to have a fixed asset register. When I look back to November 2019, I see that Scottish Canals looked for a year’s delay at that point, but we are now nearly four years on and the work is still not completed.

Will you comment on that? Why are you still seeking an understanding of the “demanding timeframe” that you face, when it appears to me that you have faced it for quite some time?

Do you accept that no minute of that was produced or found?

The former First Minister said to us:

“Officials have been unable to locate a note of this meeting”.

Okay. I know that Mr Brannen was absolutely clear about pinning responsibility on Mr Mackay. As a committee, our observation was that, at the time of the decision, there appeared to be more hands on the tiller than just Mr Mackay’s. As you say, minister, we know that it was not a ministerial name on the contract, but it did require ministerial authorisation, which makes it important to us to understand who was responsible.

As I say, we are interested to find out what lessons have been learned from that and how we can get more clarity on what was actually a very important decision and one that has become more important with hindsight, as things have progressed.

Well, the Government was the only shareholder involved. Anyway, that would be helpful.

I will turn finally to Graham Simpson, who has some more questions to put.

As I have mentioned the workforce, I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests and my membership of the GMB union.

Do you have any reflections on the role of the workforce and the extent to which it has been involved or, conversely, sidelined in some decisions? Our sense has been, certainly when we visited the yard, that it was absolutely underlined that the workforce had a clear view of how the construction project should have been undertaken, in relation to the configuration and reconfiguration of the yard, but that was ignored. Do you now have a view on the weight that should be attached to that voice?

I think that we were told that it was a special adviser.

I will move on to another area in which there has been public interest, and that is who, in the end, was responsible for signing off the contract. Mr Wilcock alluded to the 200-odd documents that the Government has released, which included email exchanges in which John Swinney’s officials spoke about banana skins, for example. There seemed to be, and still appears to be, some confusion over who, in the end, signed the contract off. Was it Derek Mackay, Keith Brown or John Swinney? Has the Government drawn any lessons from that observation of the committee?

Yes, but it is not even clear, Ms Irvine, whether Mr Mackay was on holiday and therefore Mr Brown signed the authorisation, for example. All that I am saying is that there continues to be a degree of confusion about that process and where the authorisation lay.

I will bring in Mr Beattie, who has some questions that develop the theme of Transport Scotland’s role.

One of the areas where we suggested that there could be a revision is the public recording of decisions. In this case, the CMAL board was overridden by a shareholder authorisation that has an equivalence with a written authority. I wonder whether you could respond—in writing, not right now—with the Government’s position on the public recording of instances of shareholder authorisation being required.