Seòmar agus comataidhean

Welcome back to the second half of this morning’s meeting. Agenda item 3 is our first consideration of the Audit Scotland report into arrangements for the delivery of vessels 801 and 802. I welcome to the meeting the Auditor General for Scotland, Stephen Boyle, who is joined by a team of three people from Audit Scotland: Antony Clark, interim director of performance audit and best value; Angela Canning, audit director; and Gill Miller, audit manager, performance audit and best value.

In addition, I welcome Rhoda Grant, who is an MSP for the Highlands and Islands and who is taking part in the evidence session remotely. Rhoda, if you want to come in at any point, please indicate that by typing R in the chat function and we will do our best to bring you in.

To begin, I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement. After his statement, members will ask a series of questions. If we do not cover all the ground that we need to this morning, we might need to have a second evidence session on this report with the Auditor General.

That ends the committee’s questions. I thank Caroline Lamb and Donna Bell from the Scottish Government and Nicola Dickie, who may have dropped off—if she can hear us, I hope that she takes our thanks for her evidence—and Sarah Watters from COSLA. We will reflect on the evidence that we have taken and decide on our next steps. Thank you for your co-operation and I hope to see you again soon.

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

I think that other members want to come in on that point. On the point that Gill Miller made, I direct this first to the Auditor General: why is there no documentary evidence? Is it hidden, is it missing or does it simply not exist?

As we are literally out of time, I draw the evidence session to a close. I thank the Auditor General, Antony Clark, Angela Canning and Gill Miller for joining us this morning, and I invite them to return at the earliest opportunity.

I also thank them for their evidence. We have a whole load more questions that we need to ask and we need to consider what our next steps might be, but I must thank the witnesses for their openness and willingness to answer our questions this morning.

With that, we move into private session.

We will go back to you, Craig.

Well, we all have lots more questions, which I think demonstrates the need for at least another evidence-taking session on this matter. I know that there are committee members who want to come back in, myself included; however, as I mentioned at the start of the session, Rhoda Grant is joining us remotely, and I invite her, in these last couple of minutes, to put her questions to the team.

In those answers, I did not hear anybody talk about going beyond commissioning or about conversion to more of a national health service model for the national care service. However, we are pressed for time, so I will move on.

We have covered a lot on the workforce, but I have a parting question on that. Caroline Lamb, you mentioned the uprating of the hourly rate of pay from April this year. Do you have a timetable showing where you expect rates of pay to go in the next five years? That is the time horizon that you spoke about for the 25 per cent uplift in resources.

Auditor General, I will take you back to the question that Craig Hoy put to you on written authority and ministerial direction. It is central to the debate about transparency, accountability and when decisions were made.

When I review the correspondence from 8 October and 9 October, I discern that written authority might have been at work. The email from Transport Scotland that reflects CMAL’s concerns about the risks associated with the contract says:

“The Board would wish the Minister to be appraised of these risks and to acknowledge to the Board that he fully understood the potential risk of assigning a contract to FMEL under these circumstances. The Board feel it is their absolute duty to point out the risk to their shareholder and in that respect would expect approval, should”

the Scottish Government

“wish this project to proceed, and to receive direction to that effect”.

The expression “direction” is explicitly used in that correspondence.

The next day, the reply is submitted. That letter to Erik Østergaard from the director of aviation, maritime, freight and canals at Transport Scotland, dated 9 October, says:

“The Scottish Ministers, both in their capacity as CMAL’s sole shareholder and more generally, also confirm that CMAL is authorised”—

Transport Scotland uses the word “authorised”—

“to enter into the Contracts and any associated documentation.”

Paragraph 10 of the letter says:

“I confirm that the Scottish Ministers”—

plural—

“have considered and approved the contents of this letter.”

It looks very much as though there was written authorisation and ministerial direction, but it does not appear to have been recorded, as is required under the legislation. Do you have any comment on that?

Thank you for that concise and clear opening statement.

Donna, do you want to add to that?