Chamber and committees

And so say all of us. We have a limited amount of time, but I have a couple of short final questions. Mary Morgan and Caroline Lamb, if there are points that you feel as though you have not had an opportunity to make or that on reflection you wanted to make, please do not hesitate to put something in writing to us to capture anything that you think would be useful for our deliberations.

Mary, in your opening statement, you mentioned procurement arrangements and the legal framework and all that. You said that that was all back to normal. As the Public Audit Committee, we are always concerned to make sure that contract notices are uploaded within the legal framework and that they are published within legal timeframes. Could you confirm—with a yes-or-no answer—whether that is now the case?

As nobody else wants to come in on the environmental impact of the types of PPE that have been manufactured and used, we will move to questions from Willie Coffey.

Agenda item 3 is an evidence-taking session on the Audit Scotland report on NHS National Services Scotland and, in particular, the “Personal protective equipment” report.

All our witnesses are joining us online this morning. I welcome from NHS National Services Scotland Mary Morgan, chief executive; Carolyn Low, director of finance; and Gordon Beattie, director of national procurement. I also welcome Caroline Lamb, chief executive, NHS Scotland, who is accompanied by Richard McCallum, director of health finance and governance, Scottish Government.

As you are all joining us virtually this morning, I suggest that, if you want to come in at any point, you put an R in the chat box. I also point out that you do not have to push your own mute and unmute button—broadcasting will do that for you.

Our time is necessarily limited, and I know that Mary Morgan and Caroline Lamb want to lead off with statements. If you want to bring in anyone to bolster, substantiate or develop any of your responses, please encourage them to do so straight after you finish.

Without further ado, I invite Mary Morgan to make a short opening statement.

Good morning, Mr Mathieson and Mr Barron. I apologise for being so late and am sorry that I missed your answers to the earlier questions.

The committee wanted to look at business planning, which was highlighted in the Audit Scotland report. A medium-term financial plan was put together. Where do you stand with that and what steps have you taken to improve the financial situation of the commission?

You had my heart beating there. [Laughter.]

The next question is for both witnesses. When I read the report, one of the things that stood out was that there was a failure to properly involve the commission in setting the budget in the year that is under review in the Audit Scotland report. Mr Mathieson, before you became convener of the commission, you were the chair of the commission’s audit and finance committee—

I turn to workforce planning, staffing and so on. I want to hear your views on the progress that is being made in planning the commission’s workforce. Again, I accept that the organisation is not huge, but you will, nonetheless, need a workforce plan. Have you reached conclusions about whether the mix of the senior management team is correct, and whether you need additional resources in that area? Perhaps Mr Barron can comment first.

Thanks, Mr Beattie—that is helpful.

My other question, which is again directed to NSS, is a bit more general. Paragraph 13 of the audit report draws the conclusion that

“NSS is now heavily reliant on non-recurring funding to deliver services”.

We are now a week out from the Scottish Government tabling its budget before Parliament. The Auditor General cautioned:

“Reliance on non-recurring funding limits the ability of NHS NSS to effectively plan and resource future developments.”

Is that funding uncertainty real? Are there areas of your work that you have been forced to deprioritise because of that? What risks are entailed in doing that if that is what you have been required to do?

Thank you very much. If time permits, we will revisit some of those questions on the funding of NSS.

I see Gordon Beattie volunteering again.

Thank you. I now invite Caroline Lamb to make a short opening statement.