Chamber and committees

Thank you, convener. I appreciate the opportunity to ask my questions this morning.

As Karen Adam said, the strike was a defining moment in modern Scottish history and ensuring that we get the legislation right will be a defining moment for the Scottish Parliament.

I was old enough to be around during the miners strike. I was living in Stirling at the time and the Polmaise colliery was one of the flashpoints that precipitated the national strike.

I want to make a couple of points, if I may, convener. Bob Young introduced himself as the NUM chairman at Comrie, Alex Bennett introduced himself as the NUM chairman at Monktonhall, and Nicky Wilson, now the president of the union, was also very active. We need to understand that it was a clear attempt to decapitate the leadership of the union. That must be recognised in our approach to what happened and what we need to do now.

Alex spoke about his own experience. In preparation for today, I read the testimony of Cathy Mitchell from Kirkcaldy, because the families as well as the miners themselves were affected by what happened. 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. [Richard Leonard has corrected this contribution. See end of report.] The challenges were very real and that is why it is perfectly legitimate for us to look at compensation. Clear financial hardship and detriment were caused. I hope that we will address that in the course of our deliberations in the Parliament.

I will put my question to Nicky Wilson. One of the arguments that people have made against compensation is that we no longer live in an age where there is a unitary UK Government because we have devolution, so why should the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament be in any way responsible for what happened back then?

There is now a Scottish Parliament and there is no longer a Scottish Office—there is a Scotland Office. We no longer have eight police forces—there is just one. The National Coal Board does not exist in the way that it did. My question to Nicky is this: does that mean that an apology is impossible and that financial compensation could not be met?

Yes, it does. That was helpful. I presume that any money that is recovered as a result of the initiative goes back to the bodies that have been defrauded, and not to Audit Scotland.

My point is that although you have to pay a fee to get the data sets, and although you track the fraud, you do not get to recover the fee that you have to pay in the first place.

That would be helpful.

I have just one very quick question. I note that paragraph 68 of the budget proposal document, under the heading “Other administrative costs”, mentions an increase of £220,000

“in respect of the biennial National Fraud Initiative”.

Can Stephen Boyle explain how that figure has been calculated? Is the increase for recruiting additional staff or for bringing in additional services? Moreover, can you explain for our benefit under which of the various budget lines that expense sits in the table in appendix 2 on page 19 of the document?

I thank Roy Brannen, John Kerr and Andrew Scott for giving us their time and for answering our questions on the wide range of topics that are covered in the report.

I now close the public part of the meeting.

I finish by reflecting on my first question, which was to ask Roy Brannen whether he accepts in full the findings as well as the recommendations of the Audit Scotland report, and I think that he said that he does. However, I want to revisit a couple of points that came up during the evidence this morning. At one point, there was a suggestion that there was a failure of active engagement by the audit and finance committee in the drafting of the 2020-21 budget, but that is not how I read Audit Scotland’s report, which suggests that the audit and finance committee was sidelined and there was minimal involvement of the senior management team, outside of the finance director and the chief executive. That is what led to recommendations of a greater degree of key stakeholder involvement.

The other point that I come back to is the suggestion that some of the blurring of roles and responsibilities was the product of Covid and people stepping into the breach when needed. Paragraph 13 of the Audit Scotland report states that some members of the board

“excessively involved themselves in matters that would typically be the responsibility of the Senior Management Team”,

and says that large amounts of board time were spent

“discussing individual grades that new staff positions should be at within the organisation, including for junior positions.”

The report suggests that those criticisms are not just a function of Covid but predate it. Mr Brennan, can you give us any reflections on those points?

My final question is: could we receive a copy of the final framework document when it is signed off by the cabinet secretary, please?

Good morning, and welcome to the 12th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in this session.

The first item on our agenda is a decision on taking items 3 and 4 in private. If any member objects to taking items 3 and 4 in private, please raise your hand. I see no objections, so I take that as assent. Thank you.

The second item on our agenda is further evidence on the Audit Scotland report on the Crofting Commission. I am pleased to welcome our Scottish Government witnesses, who all join us online: Roy Brannen is the interim director general for net zero, Andrew Scott is the director for agriculture and rural economy, and John Kerr is the head of the agricultural policy division.

To get us under way, I invite Mr Brannen to make a short opening statement.