The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 2547 contributions
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Willie Coffey
Good morning to you all. I have some questions on building standards in general but, first, do you think that the changes to the building standards that were introduced last year deliver higher levels of fire safety? What evidence can we draw on as a committee to demonstrate that? I will start with Calum.
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Willie Coffey
I should say to Calum McQueen that I was going to come to John-Paul Breslin anyway, but I thought that I would give him a chance first.
Is the Wallace monument not over 18m?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Willie Coffey
Do you see there being a kind of checklist of things that should be there—almost like an MOT certificate of construction compliance? We are all laypersons when we buy a house. If I was buying a new house, I would not know whether there was sound insulation, so we rely on the professionals to tell us that a set of things is required and for that to be signed off, in a sense. Do we have that kind of system yet?
Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee
Meeting date: 18 April 2023
Willie Coffey
Nigel Sellars, do you have anything to offer in that regard? I realise that I have not come to you yet.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
Good morning, Ian. My question is about restoring public confidence, which you mentioned in your remarks. We know that advice has been given to you that you cannot revisit complaints that were made in the past. Other members have raised that matter with you previously.
Do you not think that there is an obligation, for reasons of natural justice and to restore public confidence, to re-investigate complaints that were clearly not handled appropriately? There could be a potential feeling of injustice because, as stated in paragraph 19 of the Auditor General’s report, complaints had not been investigated in compliance with the legislation. On balance, do you not feel that greater weight should be attached to that aspect of restoring public confidence than to advice that you might have received not to revisit those complaints?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
I have a final question for you, just to get your views on the table. What lessons have been learned from the process of the concluded investigations and so on that will deliver and restore the public confidence that you have mentioned a few times?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
I have a supplementary question on the digital exclusion work that you are going to do, Auditor General. I am pleased to hear that that is going ahead. Will it extend to examining the models of interaction that can often cause exclusion to widen? For example, when people try to get information from or interact with their energy supplier online, they often talk to a software bot rather than to people. It is difficult to negotiate your way through that kind of stuff. Will you spend any time considering the models of engagement that, in my opinion, widen exclusion?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
My next question was going to be whether that advice could be shared, either in private or public, with the committee, so it is very much appreciated that that is possible. Just to emphasise the point, are we being told that that direction overrides the requirement—the duty—to deliver justice to people who have raised complaints? I would like to separate the complaints that were dealt with in which the complainant was unhappy with the outcome from the complaints that were not properly investigated. How on earth could that direction supersede those? That is what I find difficult to understand.
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
Auditor General, how can the public be assured that a difference has been made? It is one thing to deliver recommendations—to agree with them, say that you are implementing them and then actually implement them—but how does anyone determine whether performance has improved, or whether a difference has been made in the quality and value of public services? That has been a recurring issue at the Parliament’s audit committees over many years. How do you plan to square that circle—if you can—to show the public that differences have been made? How can we evidence that?
Public Audit Committee
Meeting date: 30 March 2023
Willie Coffey
Do you ever see a day when Audit Scotland will say, “We looked at that organisation and made those recommendations, but it hasn’t made a blind bit of a difference to public performance, outputs or outcomes”? Are there any spectacular examples of improvements? Would you see yourselves getting into that territory so that the public could get that information from you?