Chamber and committees

Good morning. I welcome everyone to the 28th meeting in 2023 of the Public Audit Committee. The first item on our agenda is for committee members to decide whether to take item 3 in private. Is the committee content to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much.

I turn to the people who are joining us remotely.

Our principal agenda item this morning is agenda item 2, which is further consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland and Accounts Commission report “Adult mental health”. I welcome everybody to the meeting—we are very pleased to see you. The committee is taking evidence today in a round-table format, which will allow for a more freewheeling session in which we will draw on the experience of the witnesses and the people whom they represent, both in the room—which I will come to shortly—and online.

For those of you who are online—which is the majority of you—if you want to come in at any point, please request to speak via the chat box; that will assist us in making sure that you are brought in when you want. I also ask you to keep your audio and camera on at all times. Your audio will be operated through the Parliament—we will turn on your microphone for live audio when you want to speak.

As is customary for the round-table format, I begin by asking people to introduce themselves and their organisations. We will go round one by one, starting with Jo Anderson, who is with us in the committee room.

Thank you, Meriem; that is very helpful.

Thanks. The expression that the Auditor General used was “slow and complicated.” Do you think that that sums it up quite well?

I will ask Jo Anderson to answer that. I will then bring in Peter Kelly on the same general theme and others who might have a response on the GP gateway point that Graham Simpson raised.

That is helpful.

I will bring in Meriem Timizar next, because I am sure that she will pick up some of those themes.

I thank Peter Kelly and the other contributors for those answers. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, we will not be able to take everybody who wants to come in on every question. I shall exercise egalitarian principles and make sure that everybody gets a reasonably equal amount of time. I apologise to those who wanted to come in on that question, but I will move things along and invite Colin Beattie to put some questions to the witnesses.

Both Simon Porter and Peter Kelly indicated that they want to come in on that question. We will go to Simon next.

In the time remaining, I will invite Graham Simpson to lead a discussion on an area that the committee is keen to get your views on.

Before I do so, I should say that we would very much welcome any written submissions that you want to provide the committee if you feel as though we have not covered some of the ground that you wanted us to cover. We have been really up against the clock this morning. We have been presented with a lot of rich evidence, which we will be keen to look at in more detail and reach some conclusions on, but we would really appreciate it if you could provide a written submission on anything that we have not covered.