Chamber and committees

Thank you—that is much appreciated.

Colin Beattie has a series of questions on leadership and culture and some of the other big issues that are raised in the briefing.

I see that Antony Clark wants to come in. Perhaps he will be able to answer Colin Beattie’s question.

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the seventh meeting in 2022 of the Public Audit Committee. I remind members, witnesses and staff that social distancing rules are still in place. Please respect those and wear a face covering when moving around the room or entering or exiting the room. However, face coverings can be removed when you are seated at the table.

Under agenda item 1, the committee will decide whether to take agenda items 3 and 4 in private. Does the committee agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

We have questions covering the range of issues that are raised in the briefing, which is extensive and raises matters of concern. Not least of those is the fact that about £5.2 billion of public expenditure is currently invested in social care, yet we have the issues of concern that the report highlights and draws us towards. You say that we have increasing demand and demographic changes, and that there is still a lot of unmet need.

I want to begin by looking at the sustainability of the social care system. You make it clear in the briefing that, although the Parliament in this session will legislate for the creation of a national care service, there is a degree of urgency around the action that is needed to tackle some of the unmet needs and some of the challenges that social care providers and the social care workforce face. In fact, at one point, your briefing says that the system is “near-crisis”. Is the Scottish Government putting sufficient resources into social care?

You mentioned commissioning, the workforce and reward, and we have a series of questions on those issues, which we will come to.

First, a striking thing about the briefing is that you say how important it is that service users’ perspectives and voices are seen and heard. There is a suggestion that, at the moment, those are not seen or heard as much as they might be. Are you aware of work being carried out by the Scottish Government that seeks to bring in the views of service users, their families and people who receive care, so that, in turn, they can inform the strategic planning of social care in Scotland?

Thank you, Antony. That was helpful.

Another piece of legislation that Parliament passed on which you also reflect in the briefing is the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, which provides for rights for unpaid carers. In your briefing, you reflect on a survey—from 2019, admittedly—that was carried out by the Coalition of Carers in Scotland. We should, of course, bear it in mind that there are 700,000 unpaid carers, so we are talking about a huge part of the population. The survey found that of those 700,000 people—or, I presume, a sample of them—

“only 16 per cent ... knew of the Act and what rights it provides; 33 per cent had heard of it but did not know what it was about; and 51 per cent had never heard of”

the act or the rights that it bestowed. Does not that highlight an issue that clearly needs to be addressed? What, as far as you are aware, is the Government doing to address the fact that, although there is an act of Parliament that gives unpaid carers rights, many of them are ignorant of those rights?

Sharon Dowey has a series of questions to put.

Antony Clark mentioned change and reform being on the agenda, and Craig Hoy has a final series of questions about what the future holds.

Thank you. Mr Hoy, I fear that you veered into an area of policy and ideology there, which is certainly not the remit of this committee.

Auditor General, this is a debate that the whole Parliament is going to engage in over the next few years, but I think that you have made the point repeatedly this morning, as well as in the briefing, that there are some urgent issues that need to be addressed alongside the Parliament’s deliberations on the reform of the system.

You also mentioned your interest, which we share, about what happened to the £500 million cash injection and how much of it went into social care commissioning. If you get to the bottom of that, we would appreciate your sharing that with us, because we are anxious to track where the money has gone.

We also heard about skills development and about the innovative things that Edinburgh College shared with us in a round-table discussion that the committee held late last year. Next week, we will have the director general for education and justice giving evidence on the planning for skills agenda. We clearly have quite a lot of shared interests. What is going on in the care sector is absolutely central to what is happening in the planning for skills work that the Scottish Government is leading on.

I thank Antony Clark and Shelagh Stewart, who joined us online this morning, and, as always, I thank you, Auditor General, for producing the briefing and answering our questions on it.

Agenda item 2 is consideration of the “Social care briefing” that the Auditor General for Scotland and the Accounts Commission published at the end of January. I welcome committee member Willie Coffey, who joins us remotely. We are joined in the committee room by Stephen Boyle—welcome, Auditor General—and remotely by his team: Antony Clark, who is interim director of performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland; and Shelagh Stewart, who is audit manager in performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland. You are both welcome.

I say to Antony, Shelagh and Willie that, if you would like to come in at any point, please put an R in the chat box function and we will endeavour to bring you in. I am quite sure that the Auditor General may well defer to Antony and Shelagh to provide some of the evidence that we will be looking for.

I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement.