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That is understood. Obviously, there are some very high-profile areas of the public sector in which requests have been made for double-digit increases in pay and staff. I am not expressing a view on that; I am simply stating a fact. However, that leads to the question how much money you will have to budget for and to ask for. There seem to be a lot of known unknowns in that, but it is a well-established process. Is that a fair description?

That is helpful—thank you.

I am looking at the audit performance in terms of audits completed on time on a sectoral basis—we have touched on that, and you gave us an indication of some of the reasons behind it—and I note that there has been quite a stark drop over the past couple of years. If we look back to 2018-19, nearly every major sector was delivering audits on time. Looking at the chart, I guess that the figures were north of 95 per cent across local government, the NHS, central Government and the FE sector. In 2022-23, however, the numbers dropped considerably, with some areas performing better than others. The NHS was sitting at 74 per cent, at the high end of the spectrum, while the figure for local government was as low as 29 per cent. That is a stark difference.

Will you expand on what has happened over the past couple of years? Obviously, the pandemic is the number 1 factor and the buzzword there, but there was a drop in 2019-20, which was before the pandemic really hit. The numbers were already starting to fall in relation to the targets. I give you an opportunity to expand on that a little bit.

Thank you.

That is fine. You do not need to go into too much detail on that today. It is really just to double-check that public money is being spent wisely.

One thing that you pick up on in your annual report and something that you admit is that the ratio of people in the organisation who have declared that they have a disability seems to be relatively low in comparison with other organisations or indeed the national average. Can you tell me what you are doing to improve that?

I am sure that there are lots of disabled people who are very well educated in the technical space who might disagree with that point, but I understand the gist of what you are saying.

Presumably, it is the case that some of that work is blended anyway, with some of it being done by external auditors and some by your staff. Do they work together in that way, or are they very distinct in that respect?

I understand, and I understand that this forum is probably not the place to go into policy matters, but I felt as though there was more to get out of you this morning. It sounds like the content of a good book—certainly one that I would read—so I hope that you write it.

Thank you for your forbearance, chair.

I accept the point that it is not the job of the auditor to assist the body in the preparation of accounts—and rightly so. That opens up questions that are perhaps more for the permanent secretary, for example on how the Government can support those bodies in preparing accounts, which would make your job 10 times easier.

My final question is directed towards the outgoing chair of the board. It would be remiss of me to let the evidence session end without referring back to your opening comments, which were quite stark. You made three specific points in your opening statement, but number 1 on that list was your wider analysis of the direction of travel of many of the public bodies that Audit Scotland audits. You used some interesting and specific phrases—quite stark ones—and I noted them down. I thought that you might want the chance to elaborate on your point before we end the session.

For example, you used the phrase

“business as usual is not an option”,

you talked about “radical” change and you said that certain things are “no longer sustainable” and so on. You clearly have your own personal views on that. In general, that is quite worrying language to hear. Could I give you the opportunity to share your thoughts on how you have come to these stark conclusions?

I have two supplementary questions. I will draw my line of questioning to a close by taking you right back to both of your opening statements. Auditor General, I will start with you. You mentioned something that I picked up in the opening pages of the annual report, which is the challenges that you face with other public bodies not preparing their accounts on time or properly. You expand on that quite eloquently on page 1. You seem to imply, and you can correct me if I am wrong, that many of the challenges that you face in concluding audits on time are a direct result of other public bodies—to use the phraseology in your report—facing

“significant disruption, including those who monitor and report on their own bodies’ spending.”

What is the issue, and how can we support those public bodies more?

I have no relevant interests to declare.