Chamber and committees

Surely there is nobody in the Government more familiar with what is in that Teneo report than the director-general economy. Why would he sit two weeks ago where you are sat today and say that work was on-going, that he was having discussions with Audit Scotland and that he hoped to release at least some of the information in that document?

That includes the rationale for the request for written authority. That is quite a narrow focus. Gregor Irwin falls back on the use of the word “narrow” quite a number of times in his evidence to the committee and in some of the written information that we have seen. That rationale is quite a narrow focus, is it not? Why would that preclude even some of the Teneo report or even some of the information that was the basis for that decision—as you said, the decision was very unusual; it was the first time that there had been a written authority since 2007—being provided?

I said that Willie Coffey would ask the final questions, but Graham Simpson has indicated that he wants to come in with a brief one.

Thank you very much. I will get us under way and really home in on the compliance issue. When we received the section 22 report last year, there was concern that governance arrangements were way off what they should have been in relation to publication of minutes, internal audit procedures and, even, the convening of meetings. Big alarm bells were ringing at that time.

In this report, you are saying to us, in essence, that stabilisation has occurred and compliance with codes of good governance is in place. It is mentioned in the report that compliance was in place “by 31 July 2022”, which is very precise. Did things happen in advance of or in the lead-up to that date, or was that when the change took place?

The £800,000 was spent predominantly on paying lawyers to carry out the investigations, as I read the report. Where did that money come from? Did the college have reserves that it could draw on? Presumably, that was an unanticipated outlay that would not have been budgeted for.

I will ask about the process of written authority. We were told that not only you but the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister were involved in the decision to issue written authority. Were the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister involved in the decision not to release the report?

We may return to some of those themes, but we are quite tight for time, so I will ask the deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, to put some questions to you.

Was the May 2027 date one of the conclusions of the Teneo report?

Even in redacted form?

I welcome everyone back. We move to agenda item 3, which is consideration of a section 22 report entitled “The 2021/22 audit of South Lanarkshire College”.

I welcome our witnesses for this evidence session. We are joined by the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle. With Mr Boyle are Rebecca Seidel, who is a senior audit manager at Audit Scotland, and David Hoose, who is a partner at Mazars LLP, which is the organisation that carried out the audit.

I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement before we get into questions from committee members.