Chamber and committees

Thank you very much for that opening statement, Stephen. As you will understand, we have a number of questions on everything from the implications of the Sturrock report and the progress that has been made in addressing the issues identified in it to the funding formula and the recurring challenges faced by a health board that is operating in the most rural part of Scotland and delivering services that need to be accessible, as far as possible, to the population that it serves.

I will start by turning to paragraph 14, which is on page 5 of the report. It reminds us that NHS Highland moved down from level 4 to level 3 in the escalation framework. At face value, that is a positive development. Will you summarise the improvements that have been made, as you understand it, which have led to the de-escalation of the health board’s status? In so doing, will you give any assessment that you have of whether the board is moving in the direction of going down from level 3 to level 2? Are there still bigger challenges to overcome? I ask Stephen Boyle to open up on the evidence on that.

Thank you very much for the opening statement. I have a couple of questions to ask, before I invite questions from other members of the committee.

It is worth recapping where things were back in 2018-19. The conclusions of the 2018-19 report spoke about

“ineffective leadership, inadequate workforce planning, a lack of clarity over roles and responsibilities and poor relationships and organisational culture”,

which existed to such an extent that, in giving evidence to the Public Audit Committee’s predecessor committee, the auditor said:

“In terms of the findings and recommendations, I cannot think of another report that has raised such serious issues during my time in this role.”—[Official Report, Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, 16 January 2020; c 21.]

That is a pretty damning indictment of how things were.

When we turn to the report that has just been published, we see that there appears to have been a considerable turnaround. My first question is this: what has been the catalyst for such a transformative difference in the organisation?

Openness and transparency were previously identified as issues back in 2018-19, so that is a continuing area of interest for us.

My final question goes back to the 72 actions that came out of the recommendations, which the Auditor General mentioned. Of the 72, 71 have been implemented. However, the nature of the beast that is the Public Audit Committee being what it is, I want to ask about the 72nd action, which has not so far been implemented. Can someone explain why there has been a hold-up with it? Is it simply a matter of timing; is it contingent on other issues? What is the reason? I ask so that we have a better understanding of the outstanding action.

We have more questions on engagement, which will come up later in the evidence session. Colin Beattie has questions about board scrutiny.

Thanks, Craig. Pat, it would be useful if we could get that information, which would aid us in our consideration of the report.

Before I move on, I have something else to raise in this area. The Auditor General mentioned exhibit 1—the organisational chart—as something for us to have a look at. Mention has been made of the important additional resource that has now been put into the organisation through the appointment of a head of communications and promotions. When I look at the organisational chart, however, I see a chief executive, below which is a director of Gaelic education, a director of language planning and community developments, and a head of finance and corporate services. I do not see a head of communications and promotions. Are they not at the same level? Are they not part of that more senior executive management team?

It might be worth giving some reflection to that.

Sharon Dowey has a number of questions on roles and responsibilities stemming from the previous report and the latest report.

We want to further interrogate the board’s financial position in terms of not only its management but its sustainability.

We will move on to look in a bit more depth at the board’s financial management. Craig Hoy will pose a number of questions to probe that.

Richard Leonard has identified an error in his contribution and provided the following correction.

At col 20, paragraph 9—

Original text—

She talked about her husband John, who was blacklisted and convicted of obstruction in 1984 and fined £5, which resulted in him losing out on a £26,000 redundancy payment from the Frances colliery.

Corrected text—

She talked about her husband John, who was blacklisted and convicted of obstruction in 1984 and fined £50, which resulted in him losing out on a £27,000 redundancy payment from the Frances colliery.

I again thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask a couple of brief questions.

Language is extremely important, and the choice of words in this session has struck me. Jim McBrierty, you used the expression “infiltrators”. I presume that you do not consider Nicky Wilson, Alex Bennett and Bob Young to be “infiltrators”. How many of the 400-odd convicted miners that we are talking about would you classify as “infiltrators”?

The language that Tom Wood used, which I have heard him use before, really resonated. Tom, I think that you spoke about the coal board exercising extrajudicial punishment that you considered to be spiteful, disproportionate, excessive and so on, with people who committed minor breach of the peace offences being subsequently sacked and blackballed.

In those circumstances, what do you think that the most appropriate remedy is? You spoke about the lives that were changed, the lives that were lost and the course of people’s destinies being changed by that simple act, which you described as extrajudicial punishment. In those circumstances, do you not think that there is at least a case for some form of compensation to be paid to people?