Hansard

The Public Audit Committee is a vital committee of our Parliament. Democracy is about more than simply the right to vote. The ability to scrutinise and challenge ministers and the Executive—collectively the Government of our nation—is a crucial part of the checks and balances that underpin a modern, effective democracy.

The Public Audit Committee does outstanding work. I will be standing down from Parliament shortly and would like to place on record that it has been a great privilege to work with all members of the committee. However, I give special mention to Murdo Fraser and George Foulkes, and to the convener, Hugh Henry, who does outstanding work on the committee. Thanks should also go to the committee clerks, who do excellent work, and to Robert Black, the Auditor General, and his team at Audit Scotland. As Robert Black recently highlighted, before we had the Scottish Parliament the chances of a senior Scottish civil servant being brought before a scrutiny committee in the Houses of Parliament in London was about as likely as being struck by lightning. That has changed, and the Public Audit Committee regularly scrutinises and challenges ministers and civil servants.

The committee bases its work on the excellent work of Audit Scotland. It has produced many outstanding reports, which have been referred to already this morning. However, I believe that the powers of the committee should be extended to enable it to carry out special inquiries that are not always triggered by Audit Scotland reports and, in certain circumstances, to scrutinise the work of all areas of the public sector, including local government. Scottish ministers do, after all, have the power to intervene when local government goes badly wrong and something as serious as a qualified audit report for a particular council should not be solely the responsibility of the council that is being criticised. Hugh Henry gave a strong example in SPT.

I am impressed by the Danish system of audit and scrutiny, in which recommendations cannot be avoided or wriggled away from by evasive ministers or civil servants. They continue to be worked through and measures that are agreed with the public audit committee must be responded to, because that is built into the Danish system as a fundamental principle.

Our principle in Scotland is that public money should be well spent, wisely spent and, unless there are exceptional reasons, spent with the full knowledge of taxpayers who fund those public services. Openness and full transparency are what we call for.

I want to touch on two areas, the first of which relates to revenue budgets and revenue expenditure. In that area, revenue budgets change year on year so significantly that like-for-like comparison can be very difficult and more continues to need to be done to tackle it. That can be a challenge for ministers as well, but unless we have good year-on-year comparison over an extended period, that is a weakness.

Another area in which the committee has taken a leading initiative is the important process of giving much greater scrutiny to money actually spent rather than simply comparing this year’s budget with last year’s budget. That is an important change.

The second area that I want to touch on relates to capital budgets and capital expenditure. Too often, we get those not just wrong but spectacularly wrong. Major capital projects require regular, hands-on, proactive management. Big projects can have costs that are not updated for years and years. That is difficult to understand or justify, and it is still happening in Scotland. We should be entitled to expect that capital projects are well managed and regularly monitored and that costs are accurate, dependable and regularly updated. In some cases, that continues not to be the case. Some such projects are big and important. There are many examples of spending going wrong in Scotland. Sadly, I suspect that that will continue.

Finally, there are the people involved. The most important point is that there are many excellent staff working in our public services. However, the staff are not exclusively excellent and too often the Public Audit Committee discovers situations in which mediocre civil servants, or good civil servants without the technical skills or experience required, are given major—sometimes momentous—and costly decisions to make, to implement and to deliver. Sometimes, those individuals appear to continue in senior positions or even to receive promotion within the civil service despite their failings or mediocrity. Loyalty to the system sometimes seems to be regarded as more important than expertise, ability and delivery.

It is important that the Public Audit Committee highlights examples of best practice and encourages the very best in all aspects of public service. However, it must also, without fear or favour, continue to shine a light into those murky areas where performance is poor. It must uncover shortcomings and weaknesses, not only of senior civil servants and quango chiefs, but of Government ministers. That is the committee’s duty, and it fulfils that duty with great professionalism and huge dedication. It has been my privilege to serve on it.

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