Seòmar agus comataidhean

Before Vicki Bibby comes in, I am interested in the extent to which you can predict that. Is there much variation between teams in the organisation? Some teams might like to meet in person all the time and will, therefore, need quite a large budget. Is there discretion in that regard? Do you budget for everybody meeting everybody all the time, with cost savings being made if teams prefer to meet online?

It feels as though it is difficult to pin down these costs. You were 69 per cent under budget last year and 83 per cent under budget the year before that. It feels as though Audit Scotland does not have a handbook or expectation in relation to how to deal with the matter. Is it about early engagement with new organisations that you will have a relationship with? When does that engagement tail off? What are the expectations for in-person meetings and online meetings? Do you maximise the budget by assuming that there will be in-person meetings all the time and think, “If we spend 69 per cent less than the budget, who cares?”? I am sorry to seem a bit flippant, but that is what it looks like from the outside.

Will you be able to give a degree of certainty that you were not able to give last year?

There will probably be no surprises next year.

On a related point, your other accommodation costs for last year were 21 per cent over budget, so you clearly did not anticipate those costs. Can you explain what those costs were and why there was a significant increase?

I want to focus on the external quality review that the ICAEW conducted. I am aware that it looked at eight audits, five of which got a good bill of health. The other three, which were conducted by Audit Scotland’s in-house teams, included significant criticisms. Without repeating all the findings of those reviews, what were the reasons for those criticisms? What learning has taken place, and what actions have you put in place to weed out the organisations whose audits showed poor performance? We must bear in mind that only eight were looked at.

I feel as though there is a similar picture with travel and subsistence costs, in that further explanation is perhaps needed. Those costs amounted to £280,000, which was 69 per cent under budget. That is quite a significant underspend. Again, it feels as though there is a bit of a trend. In relation to what your expenditure will probably look like in the year ahead, I am trying to understand why you requested quite a big budget that was then underspent.

The wider context is that, later in the meeting, we will come on to areas in which you are overspending. The overall budget seems to have quite a lot of flex in relation to underspends and overspends, but what you requested for travel and subsistence costs was clearly not what was needed. What was the story behind travel and subsistence? Again, it felt as though we had quite a clear understanding of where you were going in that regard last year. The return to in-person meetings and audit work was quite tentative, so I am interested in the story behind the figures.

Good morning. I would like to focus on some of the variances in operating costs. On rent and rates, for 2024-25, you requested 54.4 per cent more than you spent, and you spent only 14 per cent more than you spent in 2023-24. I remember that, last year, you gave the commission some quite granular information about your property costs and your strategy for accommodation. I felt that we had a clear picture of that, but your budget request does not match up with what you have spent. It feels as though that is a trend and that we come back to the same point year after year. I hope that I am not being too unfair, but the figures are quite stark in showing that you do not spend what you ask for. I am trying to understand the reasons for that trend.

You also mentioned systemic issues. Were any such issues identified through the scores of three that revealed poor quality?

Could I ask Douglas Lumsden to clarify something when he winds up? Is the amendment only about overhead lines? Over the years, I have spoken to a number of farmers who have gas pipelines going through their farms, and that has, at times, had quite a significant impact on the productivity of the soil. Sometimes it takes many decades for that soil to lose its compacted, degraded state and to return to productivity. I am not entirely sure where the fixation on overhead lines is coming from, given that lots of energy infrastructure can pass over farmland and might well have a significant impact on an agricultural tenant.

I reflect on the fact that the alternative to pylons is undergrounding, and in that case you are talking about motorway-sized trenches potentially going through sites of special scientific interest and special areas of conservation and running across riverbeds.

Energy infrastructure has an impact. I am just not sure why overhead lines are being targeted—well, I kind of know why they are being targeted, but I am just making the case. I am speaking up for the environment and the productivity of our farmland, which appears to have been ignored in the amendment, but maybe I am wrong.

Excuse me—I am choking on my sandwich. My understanding is that, in the past, there has been informal culling of goats in those communities. Despite the fact that this natural capital company is now applying for a formal licence to do this, my understanding, which might or might not be correct, is that there has, traditionally, been some culling of goats in the area.