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On that note, I thank Stephen Boyle and Mark Roberts for their evidence this morning. It has been extremely illuminating and very helpful for us to understand your priorities and work programme, which will, in turn, feed into that of the committee. I thank you for your time.

Surely not.

Thank you.

Yes. I was going to say that we should build that issue into our work programme and return to it, because it is clearly a matter of concern and interest. Auditor General, is there a register of public bodies in Scotland that take part, or that do not take part, in the national fraud initiative?

Thank you. That was a very helpful introduction to this morning’s session.

I will begin by reflecting on some of the lessons from the previous session. This is a new committee, but we need to understand where there are underlying issues of which we need to keep fully abreast. In looking at the legacy report of the previous committee, it struck me that it identified recurring themes that seemed to be common in instances in which organisations had not met the performance standards that were expected, or where something more fundamental had gone wrong. The previous committee spoke of

“leadership challenges, poor workforce planning, weak governance arrangements”

and failures—which were sometimes catastrophic—with information and communications technology projects. The committee also reflected on the absence of key data and the failure to properly measure outcomes.

Will you explain how you plan to keep abreast of those themes, and how you expect to be able to continue to explore them in the future work programme?

Good morning. I begin by welcoming everybody back after the summer recess. I remind you of the Parliament’s rules on social distancing and the requirement to wear a mask if you are moving around or entering or leaving the room.

I also begin the new session by reminding the committee that our task and our job is to be the people’s and Parliament’s guardians, when things go wrong to get to the bottom of it, when public money is wasted to hold people to account and when lessons need to be learned to follow up to make sure that they are. I see the committee as being a critical part of a healthy and functioning democracy, and I think that it is even more important in the months ahead, at a time when there is renewed pressure on our public services, burned-out national health service staff, a backlogged justice system and young people who have missed out on education, that we stand up and ensure that we are led by evidence and facts without fear or favour.

The first item on the agenda is a decision on whether to take item 3 in private. Do members agree to consider our work programme in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I am sure that we will come back to that and keep an eye on it.

I am sorry to dwell more on the negative than on the positive, but the other area of the annual report that struck me was the section a couple of pages later that refers to professional training for audit and included the pass-rate statistics. In 2018-19, the pass rate was 85.7 per cent; in 2019-20 it was down to 84 per cent; in 2020-21 it had gone down to 79 per cent. I think there was a previous suggestion that the variation might have been due to the introduction of a new exam a couple of years ago. Why is the pattern like that? What are you doing to address it? Do you have insight into why the pattern has been going in that direction?

I do not have an declarable interests. However, I draw the commission’s attention to my voluntary entry in the register of members’ interests.

One of the things that struck me from the report was on page 20, on internal and external quality assurance review. The conclusion that was drawn that

“only four of the 11 financial audits we reviewed achieved our target standard of quality. Of the remainder, three were graded ‘improvements required’ and four were graded ‘significant improvements required’”.

The commentary also refers to “mixed results”. Will you give us more details of those mixed results? What are the particular areas for improvement, what is their seriousness, and what is the work plan to address them?

Again, that is a well-made point. There will be new funding instruments to support agriculture and replace EU structural funds, the European social fund and so on. Some of the details still remain to be seen, but I absolutely think that it should be the committee’s job to scrutinise how that funding is being applied and whether reforms or improvements could be made. It is important that we understand that a huge change is taking place as a result of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union and what that means for the landscape that people face.

I thank members for their contributions. It is important that we got some of those points on the record in public session. As previously agreed, we will discuss our work programme in private. I think that we are all clear that the legacy paper from the session 5 committee will form an important starting point for us in considering what our work programme will be in the short-term and medium-term future.

I look forward to a constructive and productive working relationship with members, and I bring the public session of the meeting to a close.