Chamber and committees

I bring Willie Coffey back in. He has a point to put.

However, are some of these things not pretty basic requirements? I am looking to you, Auditor General. It seems to me that the report points out that details of planned actions are

“vague and do not include intended completion dates”.

Neither is there any estimate of “expected impact.” That is pretty rudimentary, is it not, if you are carrying out a programme of work that is designed to bring about transformative change?

For completeness, you said in the report:

“The GCE Programme Board does not have risk management arrangements in place, despite a recommendation from a 2019 internal review that this should be a priority.”

That was identified as a priority in 2019, but here we are in 2023 and those are still not in place.

Thank you very much. I am sure that we will return through the next hour or so to some of those questions on where there are gaps, where there is a lack of clarity and on how things are working.

I want to begin with a question on governance arrangements. We are really interested to understand, from the work that you have done, your sense of the extent to which cross-Government collaboration is taking place in order to progress both climate change actions and the management of competing priorities. We take evidence on issues such as Government expenditure on major capital projects and are now beginning to interrogate more the extent to which they contribute positively, or maybe even negatively, towards those net zero goals. Could you address that question of cross-governmental collaboration?

Thank you. It is helpful to get that on the record.

I will now invite the deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, to put some questions to you.

My experience of such things is that it would be useful to understand whether it is an engine room or a talking shop.

On a similar theme, you draw attention in the report to the deputy director network, which you describe as a

“key climate change governance body”.

It seems to operate informally, so I again ask the basic question: does that network produce minutes?

Thank you. I will move things along now and invite Craig Hoy to put some questions to you.

I will continue with the theme of risk management in the final series of questions that we want to put you. Towards the end of the report, we read a reference to an exercise that took place in summer of 2022 inside the net zero directorate, which took part in what you describe as a risk housekeeping exercise. The result of that housekeeping exercise was the conclusion that the net zero directorate demonstrated a maturity level of novice to organised. My understanding is that that means that the directorate had only just started to implement processes that were in line with Scottish Government guidelines. It was at a very early stage—a novice stage—in that regard.

Do you have a concern about that, given that this is the directorate that is supposed to be showing leadership and driving forward this agenda across the whole of Government?

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 15th meeting in 2023 of the Public Audit Committee. The first agenda item is for the committee to consider whether to take agenda items 3, 4, 5 and 6 in private. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.