Seòmar agus comataidhean

Just for the record, I can reassure committee members that agenda item 5, which we will take in private, will be looking at next steps on how we may garner more information from either Historic Environment Scotland or the Scottish Government and the opportunities that are open to us to do so. We will discuss those later in the meeting, in particular around some of the areas that Mr Simpson has asked Audit Scotland about. Obviously, we will let you know if there is anything of interest, Auditor General.

I now invite Joe FitzPatrick to ask some questions.

We will backtrack a smidge. There are one or two technical issues that I would like to clarify with you while you are here, if you do not mind, Auditor General.

I am not sure whether Audit Scotland followed the evidence session on Historic Environment Scotland that was held by the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee on 6 November 2025. I am sure that you paid attention to it. Some comments were made during that meeting that I would like to reflect on here, and I will ask you for your opinion on what was said. I apologise that I have not provided the quotations for you to look at in advance, but I will do my best to paraphrase, if that is helpful.

In that meeting, the Scottish Government’s director for culture and external affairs, Mr Hogg, was asked about the issues around the appointment of the interim accountable officer. I ask you to reflect on this response. I am partly paraphrasing, although we may put the full quote into the Official Report. Mr Hogg said that he was reassured

“that there were no upcoming decisions that required the accountable officer to exercise oversight.”

He said, referring to the former chair of HES, that he had received

“assurances from the former chair that … there were no decisions that required the accountable officer to be in place.”—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 6 November 2025; c 7-8.]

He does not say whether he was satisfied with that response. Is it normal practice to decide whether there should be an interim accountable officer on the basis of reassurances that there is no need for one because there are no decisions to be made? That sounds like an extremely unusual reason for not appointing one.

Those are questions that we might ask the Government.

Again, I apologise for quoting directly from the Official Report of the CEEAC Committee meeting, but it is probably easier if I do so. Mr Hogg said that, at one point,

“the board determined that it wished to proceed to appoint an acting chief executive”

and that he

“met the candidate and interviewed them in respect of their suitability”

and took the view

“that the individual was appointable as the accountable officer”,

and he

“told the chair and the board that.”

The next line is interesting. Mr Hogg then says:

“The board subsequently decided not to proceed with that appointment”.—[Official Report, Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, 6 November 2025; c 8.]

It would seem to be an unusual state of affairs for a recommendation about the appointment of a senior chief executive that has been made by a senior director general of a Government department to be refused by the board. At this point, it comes down to a question of who is in charge. What would be the normal procedure or practice in such a scenario, where there is a conflict of views?

Thank you; that is noted.

My final question is a technical clarification. In the CEEAC Committee meeting of 6 November last year, there was a conversation about HES’s scheme of delegation to directors. I presume that that was an interim arrangement so that decisions could be made in the absence of senior leadership or executives. It is unclear to this committee whether that scheme of delegation would take precedent over the requirements of the SPFM.

With respect, we had an extraordinary amount of weather in the past couple of weeks. The benefit is that it brings great conditions for the mountain ranges; however, it presents issues around access across all the skiing areas. To play devil’s advocate, is that not simply par for the course for a mountain ski resort?

Let me just summarise that, so that we can be clear about what you are saying to us. It is not just the initial design of the structure that is at fault; in addition, the design of the repairs is partially at fault.

Thank you very much. That was all really interesting stuff, and we might come back to some of it before the end of the session. For now, however, I will ask Mr Beattie to put some questions to you.

Good morning, and welcome to the second meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2026. We have received apologies from our convener, Richard Leonard, so I will deputise in his absence.

Agenda item 1 is to decide whether to take agenda items 4, 5, 6 and 7 in private. Do members agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.

Many thanks, Auditor General. We have a wide range of questions, so we will get straight into them.

I will kick off—perhaps I am abusing my new position of power. I am quite intrigued by your opening comments. You used a number of phrases and a lot of terminology that, unfortunately, the committee has heard before in section 22 reports, on governance instability and unacceptable levels of governance in a public body. Based on your understanding, what is the root cause of this period of instability at Historic Environment Scotland? How did it get itself into such a situation at the time of your audit?

Thank you very much for that further update. Members have questions on many of the areas that you have identified in your report, so we will come back to you on them.

Auditor General, to go back to your summation of how HES got itself into this mess in the first place, do you understand it to be twofold in nature? There are internal problems with staff turnover and leadership at the very top of the organisation but, in parallel, there is a lack of oversight from the Scottish Government, given that HES is a public body. To put that in context, Historic Environment Scotland, which employs more than 1,600 members of permanent staff and has a turnover of £140 million in just one year, is also in receipt of significant amounts of public money by way of grant funding—around £70 million in the year that the auditors identified.

The importance of the role of the body and what it does on a day-to-day basis has surely been somewhat compromised by the instability and lack of leadership. Perhaps that has led to some issues of trust in the body from the public and those it assists on a day-to-day basis.