Meeting of the Parliament 04 September 2025
As I said, the sponsorship arrangements between the Government and public bodies have been completely reviewed. As part of that, we are ensuring that there are plural oversight relationships and that there is communication about what is happening at board level in all public bodies. If the member wants to ask about any specific public body, he can write to the minister concerned to get information. I have oversight of WICS.
Ministers have reflected on the Scottish Government’s role in relation to the issues at WICS. We have formally reviewed the sponsorship relationship and very much agree with the committee’s conclusion that it was, unfortunately, nowhere near as robust as it should have been. The issues at WICS should have been brought to our attention sooner. We recognise that officials should have taken a more proactive approach to potentially novel or contentious expenditure and, similarly, we recognise that the sponsor team should have been more proactive in supporting the WICS board to consider all the available options in relation to the departure of the former chief executive.
We have acted decisively to make changes, including by addressing all the actions that were identified in the internal sponsorship review. That has included publication of a revised framework between Scottish ministers and WICS in order to make the respective roles and responsibilities clearer and to ensure that there is a systematic approach to engagement, rather than an overreliance on any one individual. My officials regularly attend WICS board meetings as observers. We have further increased the capacity of the sponsorship team for 2025, and all its members have completed the required training.