Chamber and committees

So that was the clear inference. Were you invited to that event, as non-executive members of the board?

I have a final question for Mr Østergaard. In your opinion, given your experience, do you think that the ferries will be fit for purpose?

My understanding is that CalMac cannot refuse the ferries, for example; it will be required to operate them. We have received evidence from people that suggests that there will be problems because of the length of time that it has taken to build the vessels. You do not see that.

Thank you very much indeed, Bill. I should have declared my interest as the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers parliamentary convener. In that capacity, I might dispute some of your views about the settled patterns as they will be in the future compared to coming out of the pandemic.

Willie Coffey is trying his best to get in, and I am going to give him the last word before I conclude the meeting.

This morning we are primarily concentrating on transport projects, especially road and rail. Again for my information, could you explain a bit more about the targeted review of the capital spending review, which sounds to me like a review of a review? What is that comprised of? How are priorities are set and allocations awarded at the end of that?

Good morning and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. The first item on our agenda is a decision on taking business in private. Do members agree to take agenda items 4 and 5 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I should have said, Mr Shackman—my mistake—I introduced you as being from the Scottish Government. You are in fact employed by Transport Scotland.

I am anxious to bring Willie Coffey in. There are only 60 minutes in this hour, so I am afraid that I will have to cut you off at that point, Colin. If we have time, I will you bring back in, but I want to bring in Willie Coffey, who has a series of questions to ask.

Thank you. If I take an example and look at the table in the report that tells me that, for example, the rail franchises got £441 million of public money and I contrast that with what I can see appears to be the moneys paid to local government for the drop in councils’ income from lettings, fees and so on, I see that the railways get twice as much as the whole of local government, if I am reading it correctly. The wellbeing fund got £34 million. How was that distribution determined? What tests were applied? What evaluation was applied by the Government in advance of the award of those funds? We all recognise that things were done—to coin the phrase—“at pace”, but nonetheless I presume that there needs to be some understanding of why one provider got so much and another got a different amount, and why some things were given greater priority in the allocation of resources than other things.

To be clear, Martin McLauchlan spoke about data being expected within the next few weeks, but that is different from the broader evaluation that Ashleigh Madjitey spoke about. Are these two separate exercises?