Meeting of the Parliament 04 September 2025
I begin by thanking my colleagues in the Public Audit Committee, and the committee clerks, whose hard work helped to produce the report. The report is about more than just one public body that has gone wrong; it is about trust—trust that public money is spent fairly and wisely and that Parliament can effectively hold public bodies accountable.
The report’s findings are worrying. For example, the spending of some £77,000 of taxpayers’ money on a Harvard Business School training course was not subject to proper assessment and control procedures. That is simply indefensible. That money could have been spent on our public services—on teachers or apprenticeships—rather than on a costly business course. That may sound like a small amount of money in the grand scheme of the Scottish Government’s budget, but it represents the yearly wages for three entry-level nurses. I am sure that we all know which of those options would offer better value for the public.
There were also incidents involving gift vouchers for staff being issued beyond agreed limits, non-compliant spending on recruitment, very generous hospitality with expensive meals and air travel, and staff pay-offs that were not properly authorised. Those were not simple mistakes or one-offs. They all point to the growth of a culture where responsible monitoring by the board was lacking and management oversight was weak or incompetent over an unacceptably lengthy period. That period ran into several years, during which neither internal nor external audit challenged breaches in either policy or processes. I would encourage the audit process to be revisited so that lessons may be learned to ensure that such a blatantly unacceptable situation does not arise again.
Households across the country are feeling the pinch of the cost of living crisis and cutting back on their outgoings, and they rightly expect public bodies to do the same. Instead, they have seen news reports of irresponsible spending and lavish entertainment. That is why the Public Audit Committee strongly recommended strengthening the WICS board, tightening financial and governance policies and ensuring robust whistleblowing protections.
I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has listened and responded, but we must not grow complacent. WICS has revised its policies and brought in new board expertise, but vigilance is essential. I am pleased that updated policies will require any international consultancy work to receive ministerial approval and that both the Auditor General and the Scottish Government will continue to monitor WICS’s progress. Oversight cannot be something that we do once and then walk away from; it should be built into the culture of how public bodies are run.
As I stated in my introduction, the report is not only about WICS, as it also carries wider lessons. It is a reminder of why transparency matters and why Parliament must hold public bodies to account. It is also a wake-up call to the Scottish Government on deficiencies in its sponsorship model as it affects WICS. The sponsorship model must be proactive and alert so that potentially questionable practices are challenged at an earlier point.
It is vital that we remember that every pound of public money matters. We all know of the difficult financial situation that not only our Government but our constituents are in. As they are having to tighten their belts, it is more important than ever to reduce public bodies’ waste. The report’s message is clear: never again should we see this failure in oversight. The report lays bare failings at WICS, but it is also a worthwhile lesson for other public bodies and the Scottish Government on the need to reform and improve. We must ensure that the lessons are learned across the board.
Our public bodies must deliver value for the people of Scotland. The people deserve to have public bodies that are transparent, accountable and efficient, and I am grateful that they have a Parliament that challenges and holds our public bodies to account. The public deserve every penny of public money to be spent wisely and fairly, and that is the standard that we must uphold in this chamber.