Chamber and committees

As we are on the subject of roads, I am not going to ask about a local bypass in my region or anything like that, but a broader and probably more profound point here is how you deal with competing interests. There is, of course, pressure for road building, road enhancements and so on, but such things might not be carbon neutral or carbon negative—they might be adding to emission levels. How do you reconcile the competing demands placed on you?

Okay. I think that cohesion is what we are after here. We are looking for cohesion in the operational side as well as the administrative side to make sure that we maximise the opportunities.

Is that capital or revenue, or both?

Time permitting.

Thank you. That was a very useful introduction to that area. It sparks off in my thought process the idea that we might want to have an evidence session just on that, because it is a big area, and it will get bigger over the next few years.

We are short on time, but the deputy convener has a final question or two about maintenance backlog and estate issues.

Thank you very much for that answer. We are right out of time. I apologise. You might be exhausted, but we have not exhausted our questions, and we might wish to put some of them in writing to you as a follow-up.

I thank Alyson Stafford, Alison Cumming, Peter Reekie, Alan Morrison, Alison Irvine and Morag Angus for their contributions. Their evidence has been very helpful, and it is part of a continuing dialogue that we have around many of those areas, which are very much of interest for the Public Audit Committee.

I draw the public part of the meeting to a close. The committee will go into private session.

It still seems to me that there were quite big delays between those different staging posts.

I will turn to another area that has been identified in a number of external examinations of the board, which is the culture of relations with staff. The particular recurring theme is that the views and voices of staff were not being listened to. Do you accept that finding?

I am an old-fashioned trade union person. When you say that you engage with your staff colleagues, do you mean that you sit down with the national health service trade unions?

Thanks for that answer. Graham Simpson wants to come in on that line of questioning.

Are there still five beds in four-bedded bays?