Seòmar agus comataidhean

The point about business cases is exactly what I want to come to next. In its report highlighting the issues relating to Ferguson Marine, Audit Scotland said:

“It is not clear what discussions took place between Scottish ministers and Transport Scotland about the contract award. There is no documented evidence to confirm why ... ministers were willing to accept the risks of awarding the contract”.

In its submission, the Fraser of Allander Institute says:

“our first priority was therefore to understand how policy is currently made in the Scottish Government.

We expected to find a structured framework of processes which we could build from. We found no such framework. This concerning finding led to us unravelling the various processes and practices currently occurring across different parts of the Government.”

It goes on to say that, often,

“Business cases were performed to the minimum standard”.

We have heard, time and again, that, although these things happen, they happen in very different ways in different portfolio areas. I have no desire to talk about the details of Ferguson Marine—we will leave it to other committees to do that—but it strikes me that, although there might be rules, as Mark Taylor said, there are no consistent methodologies or standards for how appraisals, whether they relate to business cases or commercial decisions, are made from portfolio to portfolio, or even from decision to decision. Is that a fair conclusion to draw? If we were to do one thing, would it be to take a more robust approach to business case development and scrutiny? Would that be pivotal? James Black is nodding his head most vigorously, so I will go to him first.

I echo the convener’s points about the usefulness and importance of the report. One of the interesting things about the timeframe is that 50 years gets us very close to the global inflection point at which deaths will start exceeding births—I think that the United Nations predicts that that will happen at some point in the 2080s. This is therefore a global issue and not just a European or a Scottish one.

You said that you have taken the assumption on productivity from the OBR. Is the gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK purely down to demographics?

Thank you for that helpful clarification.

I understand the points that you made in previous answers about productivity not being a silver bullet. However, on the basis of what you say in the report, is it fair to say that the key parameters are the level of spend; the level of taxation; immigration, and therefore net population growth; and productivity? It strikes me that we have quite good measures on the first three of those things, but do we have enough focus on and insight into the last one? In particular, do we need to focus much more carefully on productivity per capita and the distribution of that productivity both geographically and across the population?

Ben, I wonder whether the point ties to what you said about the national performance framework, in that it exists and is the right thing but, actually, there is a need to think about how to systematically weave it in, and a good business case methodology would be one way of doing that. Is that a fair reflection?

What are James Black’s reflections? To put a different spin on it, is there a need to go beyond challenge and make sure that the approach translates down to a more granular level? That might not be challenge, but perhaps just testing as we go on. We could be challenging at the macro level, but should we continue to test at a more detailed level?

I think that my line of questioning will touch on some of the issues that the convener has already mentioned. Broadly, based on the conversation that we have been having to date, I have questions around how people in Government understand the categories of decisions, how consistently those are approached and whether there are consistent methodologies.

On that first point, it struck me that, when we are asking people in Government—be they former ministers or officials—about how they understand decisions, they almost automatically and exclusively talk about policy. If pushed, they might start talking about financial decision making, and, if really pushed, they will start talking about delivery. I think that the focus is very much in that order, and what they are not volunteering at all, which is quite striking given recent events, is anything around commercial decision making.

Does that chime with your understanding of the focus, and do you think that there needs to be a recalibration of the different types? Are they the right categories, or are there others that we should be asking about? I ask Mark Taylor to respond first, because the question feels quite Audit Scotland-y.

I will come back to that issue, but I am interested in hearing from James Black. Does the Government have sufficient clarity on its categories of decision making?

I will come back to Ben Thurman, because I would like to put the question to him in a particular way. First, I ask Mark Taylor whether he has anything to add to that or any insights from his work at Audit Scotland.

I have one final question. Consistency in approach is one thing that needs to be examined. You have all discussed challenge, but I wonder whether it is being conceived of and captured in the right way. In our discussions with officials, it struck me that, when we asked them about it, they pointed towards the use of external people on programme boards. That sounded to me very much like challenge at a policy level rather than necessarily challenge at the level of granular assumptions.

That is certainly the case in comparison with my experience of the commercial world, where you build in challenge at that more granular level in order to ensure that the assumptions are correct, because, ultimately, that is what ensures that you have a robust business case. Is that a fair reflection? Is that backed up by your experience of looking at those situations in detail?

Thank you very much. I had better leave it there.