Chamber and committees

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 12th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2022.

The first item on the agenda is consideration of whether to take items 4 and 5 in private. Does the committee agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Sarah Watters wants to come in, so I invite her to comment on that.

Craig Hoy has some questions on that matter.

Thank you. I will bring Nicola Dickie in. We view the briefing as focusing, quite rightly, on the value of the workforce, and we have some questions on that. The briefing addresses other areas, too, such as the voice of service users, how the whole commissioning model is working and whether it is delivering what we want to see.

We are under some time constraints, and we will come to those areas in time, but I want to give Nicola Dickie an opportunity to answer the question that I put, on the pragmatic approach and on what practical steps are being taken now.

Thank you for that opening statement.

The first lines of the update paper are a stark reminder of the situation that we find ourselves in. They say:

“In Scotland, 1,339 people died from drug-related causes in 2020—the highest ever reported and the highest rate in Europe.”

However, as you have just said, you view progress as having been slow. In the report, you say that there is

“a lack of drive and leadership by the Scottish Government.”

To what extent did the Scottish Government respond to the clear recommendations that you made more than a decade ago, in 2009?

Thank you. I thank the witnesses for their evidence. There are some issues that we will be keen to pursue. As I mentioned earlier, we hope to have a session with the accountable officers for particular projects that have exercised our interest.

I thank Geoff Huggins, Jonathan Ruff, Sharon Fairweather and Donald McGillivray for presenting themselves before the committee; it is appreciated.

I suspend the meeting while we change witnesses.

Thank you. We might return to those themes later in the session.

I call Sharon Dowey, who joins us on videolink this morning.

Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. I remind members, witnesses and staff that social distancing arrangements must be respected and that, if you move around, enter or leave the room, you should wear a face covering. However, you do not have to wear one while you are with us at the table.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. Do we agree to take agenda items 4, 5 and 6 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We understand that, and it would be helpful to return to it. One of the overarching questions that came out of the briefing—which many people looking at this whole area of public policy ask—is why, despite the fact that there are now new initiatives, it has taken so long, given that you were evaluating it all those years ago in 2009. During that time, things have not got better—they have got worse.

One reason why the committee has had an interest in major ICT projects down the years is because there have been some fairly notorious cost overruns and failed applications such as those in NHS 24, the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, the common agricultural policy futures programme and the police i6 project, which has been mentioned.

I want to go back to your point that there is an existing structure of accountable officers. The committee has previously said that a much firmer grip needs to be taken of the issue and that there need to be much clearer lines of responsibility. As I understand it from reading the list of Police Scotland IT projects, it has five or six on at the moment—well, five, anyway. There are projects on the unified communications and contact platform, digital evidence-sharing capability, the national integrated command and control system, core operational solutions and mobile working. Who has oversight of all those different projects?