Chamber and committees

The last word goes to you, Janie McCusker.

We have been speaking about whistleblowing, for example. I am just asking whether, if there are cultural issues that mean that you are not able to retain staff at any level, you are able to monitor that.

I will pick up straight away on governance arrangements, which was one of the themes in that introduction. In the report, you say:

“The Scottish Government should: finalise governance arrangements for the Heat in Buildings Strategy programme as soon as possible”.

That is the expression that you use—there is a degree of urgency. That seems to be instructive, when we look at some of the dates in the report and the scale of the challenge that is to be met by those dates. Can you tell us what governance arrangements the Scottish Government needs to finalise at this stage?

Have you had an opportunity to evaluate the evaluation framework? Do you have any sense of whether the monitoring and evaluation framework that was published back in November will be up to the job that has been set for it?

The other thing is a delivery plan, is it not? I think that there is talk of the production of a delivery plan by the end of this calendar year. Do you consider that to be a reasonable timescale, or is it coming too late, when you look at the timescale and targets that have been set? What is your opinion on that?

One of the factors at play relates to the on-going consultation on the proposed legislation, which I understand will come before the Parliament before the end of the year, and concerns the housing market. There is an expectation that, if someone buys a property, a condition will be put on the purchase such that, within a certain timeframe, the new owner will convert. That could have some interesting consequences, could it not?

Partnership working is meant to be a hallmark of good working in the NHS in Scotland, and we are trying to understand the extent to which that has or has not been working.

We are against the clock. I will bring you back in, but first I will bring Graham Simpson in.

My question is: do you have systems in place to understand why nurses have left the health board’s employ, why the chief executive left the board’s employ—I know that it was retirement in that case—and why other people in senior posts have left? You are the new team. Were interviews carried out to capture and record the reasons why people left?

We are now bang out of time, and I am sorry that I was not able to bring you back in. If there is something pertinent that you want to draw to the attention of the committee, please feel free to capture it and put it in a written submission after today’s session. We would appreciate that.

I thank Amanda Croft and Janie McCusker. I wish you a happy post-Forth Valley NHS Board life. I also thank Andrew Murray, Kevin Reith and Professor Frances Dodd for contributing to this morning’s evidence session, which has been greatly appreciated.

I suspend the meeting to allow for a changeover of witnesses.