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Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 4 May 2021
  6. Current session: 13 May 2021 to 13 September 2025
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Displaying 1631 contributions

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Public Audit Committee

“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”

Meeting date: 7 March 2024

Jamie Greene

Before you do that, other members might want to speak about specific projects, which would give you an opportunity to elicit some of the detail.

I presume that, when you were looking at overall budgets five to 10 years ago, at the conception stage, buffer zones would have been introduced to cover potential rises in costs or inflationary costs—those could be rises associated with pure inflation or other associated rises. However, it seems that all the headroom has gone completely, and that that is the reason why you are now making prioritisation choices as opposed to wondering how to pay for things that have already been committed to.

Public Audit Committee

“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”

Meeting date: 7 March 2024

Jamie Greene

Let us face it: very few large-scale infrastructure projects come in under budget, and all governments suffer from things tending to overreach massively. It is a common problem.

However, I want to work out what on earth the Scottish Government will do next when choosing where to spend its money. It had a £5.9 billion capital budget last year. Although, arguably, that will reduce over the coming years, it is still a substantial amount of money, but it is clearly not enough to complete the projects that have hitherto been committed to.

The Auditor General was critical that it is unclear how the Government chooses to prioritise infrastructure spending. What process will the Government go through to decide whether to replace a prison or to build a national treatment centre, for example? There are clearly competing calls for both, depending on which objectives it is trying to meet.

Public Audit Committee

“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”

Meeting date: 7 March 2024

Jamie Greene

So will nothing be built at all?

Public Audit Committee

“Investing in Scotland’s infrastructure”

Meeting date: 7 March 2024

Jamie Greene

I am sure that we can delve into that further. That is a worrying response.

On the capital maintenance backlog, the one thing that struck me as really concerning is in paragraph 26 on page 18 of the Auditor General’s briefing paper:

“The Scottish Government cannot currently provide an overall figure for the level of capital maintenance backlog across the Scottish estate.”

Is that because the information is not available or because the number is available but is just too scary? We know, for example, that the national health service backlog is over £1 billion, and I have heard figures of around £500 million for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. I am sure that there are figures for the prisons, the police estate and the courts. That is before we even take into account things such as uncovering reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—in buildings, which is still happening almost weekly.

Are we looking down the barrel of a complete disaster in maintenance backlogs with which we will never be able to catch up? That is perhaps a question for Ms Stafford.

Public Audit Committee

Section 22 Report: “The 2022/23 audit of NHS Forth Valley”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

What are the key take aways, so that a member of the public who is watching this meeting can have confidence in what is happening?

Public Audit Committee

Section 22 Report: “The 2022/23 audit of NHS Forth Valley”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

It would be great to have any additional updates that you can provide.

It is interesting that much has been mentioned about workforce issues, and we have talked in great detail about the importance of executive leadership. The other key finding from the external review of corporate governance is about the

“root cause of many of the significant challenges”

that you face as a health board. The review states that one root cause is

“the failure to agree an appropriate business model for the delivery of integrated health and social care services”.

We have not spent a lot of time on that aspect this morning. Have things improved?

Public Audit Committee

“Decarbonising heat in homes”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

Appendix 2 of the report is on the delivery schemes. It seems to be a complicated and complex subsidy environment. There are a number of schemes. We have warmer homes Scotland, which is delivered by Warmworks. We have area-based schemes, which are delivered by local councils. We have Home Energy Scotland grants, which are delivered by the Energy Savings Trust, and so on. The number of households that are getting proper conversion of heating systems out of that is in the tens of thousands, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands or millions.

It seems to be quite a complex landscape, as other members have mentioned. Could it be simplified? The risk is that if you leave things to the market alone and people’s only exposure to accessing improvements is via the private sector advertising those schemes with a view to making profit in their own way, it becomes quite a dangerous environment for the consumer.

Public Audit Committee

“Decarbonising heat in homes”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

That is based on the assumption that we will have the people to do the work. As you said, there is a huge number of people out there who can install new gas boilers, but there will need to be a marked shift to installing new technologies and maintaining them on an on-going basis.

There has been a fair amount of pushback from the industry about what is on offer to incentivise it to retrain and reskill staff if the market does not exist. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, of course. Do you think that the Government is acutely aware of that? Do you think that the plans that it has produced to ensure that we have the people to carry out the transition are robust?

Public Audit Committee

Section 22 Report: “The 2022/23 audit of NHS Forth Valley”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

Mr Murray, did you say that you are the longest-serving member of the board or just the longest-serving member who is here this morning?

Public Audit Committee

Section 22 Report: “The 2022/23 audit of NHS Forth Valley”

Meeting date: 29 February 2024

Jamie Greene

Please do not take this question personally but, as the longest-serving board member here, you saw your health board escalated to level 4. That is one off from level 5, which is the most serious level and effectively means that the Government has no confidence in the board at all to deliver effective and safe care to patients. Level 4 is almost there. How could the board—collectively and individually—over a number of years have let things get to the stage at which the Government has had to intervene in such a fashion? Surely, the board, on an on-going basis, would be monitoring and auditing processes, outcomes and practices. If it was a private business, it is difficult to see how you would be sitting here this morning.