Seòmar agus comataidhean

Again, I think that we will come back to that issue.

You said earlier that one of the central recommendations of your report relates to the very unequal impact that Covid-19 has had. At paragraph 58, you reflect on your “NHS in Scotland 2020” report from last year. You note that you relied on data that was provided by National Records of Scotland and the Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory, and you conclude—fairly starkly, I thought—that

“Those from the most deprived”

backgrounds

“and from some ethnic minority backgrounds were more likely to die from Covid-19.”

You go on to state that

“Further data has shown that disabled people were more likely to have died from Covid-19”,

and that

“Adults with learning disabilities were also at a greater risk of being hospitalised or dying from Covid-19.”

That is quite harrowing, is it not? To be frank, it is something of an indictment of our society that that is a feature of the pandemic.

You go on to say, a couple of paragraphs later, that you reviewed the situation again this year and found that there was a

“disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on certain groups”.

You say that that has led the Scottish Government to address that situation in some measure by focusing on tackling health inequalities. However, you go on to state:

“but there is no overarching strategy.”

Do you want to say a bit more about that?

I will move on now, as we want to ask questions about the “NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026”. I ask Willie Coffey to come in.

On that note, I draw the evidence session to a close. Thanks very much, Auditor General, for the evidence that you have led, and thanks to Leigh Johnston and Derek Hoy, who have also contributed this morning. It is greatly appreciated.

I close the public part of the meeting.

I am conscious of the fact that Roy Brannen is on the panel and that the Scottish Government’s role was mentioned in that question. Do you want to come in?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of “The 2020/21 audit of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency”. I am pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning, all of whom join us online, as does our deputy convener, Sharon Dowey. I welcome from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency: Jo Green, acting chief executive; Stuart McGregor, chief finance officer; and David Pirie, executive director, evidence and flooding. From the Scottish Government I welcome: Roy Brannen, interim director general, net zero; Helen Nisbet, director, defence, security and cyber resilience; and Kevin Quinlan, director, environment and forestry.

As we are quite tight for time this morning, I would appreciate succinct questions from committee members and succinct answers. On 31 March, the committee will take evidence on major information and communications technology projects in general, at which point we will look at some of the wider read-across from the cyberattack that SEPA sustained and the lessons that we need to learn. I encourage people to be as disciplined as possible, but I hope that our line of questioning will take that into account, too.

Jo Green and Roy Brannen should feel free to bring their colleagues in, if it will be helpful. If those who join us online want to come in at any point to give evidence in the conversation that we are having, they should type R in the chat function, and we will pick them up at the appropriate time.

I invite Jo Green, who had hoped to attend the meeting in person this morning, but is joining us virtually, to make a short opening statement.

As I mentioned, some of those broader themes will be picked up in the evidence session that we have planned for 31 March.

That brings us to the end of our short evidence session on the report on SEPA. I once again thank Jo Green, acting chief executive of SEPA, Stuart McGregor and David Pirie, who joined us visually and by audio only at points. Thank you very much for the evidence that you have given us, which has been valuable. I also thank Roy Brannen, Helen Nisbet and Kevin Quinlan from the Scottish Government, who also joined us. If there are any points that, on reflection, you feel that it would be useful for us to have, by all means submit them to us in writing—we would receive them gratefully.

I briefly suspend the meeting so that we can have a changeover of witnesses.

Thanks, Mr McGregor. That is helpful.

I want to go back to a point that Jo Green made a few minutes ago. Jo, you told us that the public register is the one service that is not currently available as a result of the cyberattack. For the layperson, will you explain what information is captured in the public register and what we cannot see that we normally would be able to see? When do you expect the public register to come back online?

Okay. Make your opening statement, director general.

Whether they are errors or mistakes, they have been quite long-running errors and mistakes, have they not? That is why there are many aspects of the report that give the committee a good deal of concern.

I think that you said this earlier, Mr Griffin, but for the record could you confirm that you accept the recommendations and the action plan that are set out in the Audit Scotland report?

Is there a reason why it was so late?