Chamber and committees

As I mentioned earlier, we may well invite the Scottish Government to give evidence to us on the consolidated accounts, because we would be keen to get a bit more detail from it about the area that you just mentioned, as well as about what its plans are.

I will move on to expenses associated with litigation. In previous years, the committee has taken an interest in the payments that have had to be made to former directors of Rangers Football Club: £60 million-worth of unplanned spend—as it is called—were paid out from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and the settlements left a large hole in the accounts.

This year, the payment that you have highlighted is considerably less than that—I think that it is £0.34 million, with provision for a further £7 million. Where are we in the trajectory of those cases and those settlements? Have they all been, or almost been, settled? Do you expect any further claims?

We have had a long and detailed session. There are areas that we would ask you to clarify for us, Auditor General, and it is pretty clear that there are some outstanding questions that we should direct not at you but at the Scottish Government, so we will have to consider how we can best do that.

Thank you very much, Auditor General, Helen Russell and Carole Grant, for your willingness to give us such comprehensive evidence this morning. It is greatly appreciated.

I close the public part of the session and move the committee into private session.

Item 3 is consideration of the 2023-24 audit of the Scottish Government’s consolidated accounts. I am pleased to welcome the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle. He is joined by Carole Grant, who is audit director, and Helen Russell, who is senior audit manager, at Audit Scotland.

Auditor General, we have quite a number of questions to put to you this morning. However, before we get to those, I invite you to make a short opening statement.

Okay. Other committee members want to come in, so I will bring in Graham Simpson for one quick question before I turn to the deputy convener.

If I were to go to a local authority in the area that I represent, would I find that it had already mapped local resources and produced an overview of the third, public and private sectors?

Are you saying that you accept that finding or that you do not accept it?

I turn to James Dornan, who—to prove that our technology is working—joins us online.

Thank you. That clarification is very helpful. We might come back to you to check on the progress of that work.

So do you now have detailed actions? Have you designated who is responsible for them? Do you have timescales and monitoring arrangements?

Mr Huggins, you spoke earlier about “a major success story” but, on the subject of digital exclusion, I infer from what you said that you think that it is the ageing population that is digitally excluded and that, over time, that will diminish, as though you think that people are going to die off and the problem will go away. However, that is not what the report says, is it? It says that age is a factor—of course it is, and everybody understands that—but the introduction to the report says:

“Digital exclusion is strongly associated with poverty and people with certain protected characteristics.”

My question is for the director general. What is the Scottish Government’s position? Is it that you think that the problem will diminish over time because older people are going to die, or do you see that there is a real and present issue because of people’s impoverishment and protected characteristics, which will continue to exist and to be a challenge, and on which the Government needs to show some leadership?