Chamber and committees

I will move things along now and invite Graham Simpson to put some questions to you.

However, the cabinet secretary told Parliament that she was informed at least a week beforehand. I think that she was told in February that there were murmurings about the performance of the chief executive and then, a week before he was sacked, she was told about it. Was she merely the recipient of that advice? Was there no active role played by Government in that decision? Could she have intervened to stop it, if she had believed that that was the right thing to do?

But the chair of the board is appointed by ministers.

I am tempted to ask whether he is going to be flying backwards and forwards every weekend. How regularly would you expect somebody in that position to draw down the expenses that they are contractually entitled to?

How much is the budget for the strategic commercial assets division?

The committee has previously considered due diligence on Ferguson Marine over the situation with the construction of vessel 802. You outsourced to Teneo the report on that. You will, of course, be aware that it has been of recurring concern to the committee that that report was covered by a non-disclosure agreement—at the instance of Teneo, I think. The committee has a broader concern about the extent to which your reliance on external consultants means that there is no public scrutiny of the work that they do, which is paid for by the public purse.

Okay. Would it be right to say that the division does not have a stand-alone budget, for example?

So, the staff are not all together in one office.

You mentioned the expenditure for the year 2023-24. What was the expenditure in 2022-23? Is expenditure going up or down, or is it staying more or less the same?

How do you measure whether the consultants are performing well or not?