Meeting of the Parliament 09 February 2016
I am not a member of the Public Audit Committee, but I sat on it during the first year of this session, and I am only too aware of its work programme. I appreciate the hard work that its convener, Paul Martin, and others have done on this and many other issues.
As a member of the Education and Culture Committee, I have followed the sorry saga with great interest. The whole purpose of the reform of colleges was that they would make a more powerful contribution to growing Scotland’s economy and be more focused on employability. We are all aware of the very challenging times that we live in and that public sector reform, like college reform, can deliver services in new and innovative ways, but the process of reform is not helped by examples such as Mr Doyle, who encouraged the public to be very cynical about the public sector. In his case, greed overcame practicality and reality. Certain very senior managers have put their own financial security above that of the education institution that they have served and have forgotten about the college, the staff and the students who have been involved in the major reforms at a very difficult time.
I have found the whole sordid little deal rather sickening. Such situations, although they are in the minority, make our constituents and the public very cynical about the value of public service. They do an injustice to the men and women who commit themselves to the noble ideals of public service and show an individual who is looking after number 1 and no one else.
I would like to discuss the part of the committee’s report on the Scottish funding council’s financial memorandum with colleges. The report says that that memorandum states:
“The Council (SFC) must be able to rely on the whole system of governance, management and conduct of the institution ... to safeguard all funds of the institution deriving from Scottish Ministers and to achieve the purpose for which those funds are provided.”
Exhibit 3 in “The 2013/14 audit of Coatbridge College: Governance of severance arrangements” includes
“Extracts from Scottish Funding Council guidance on severance arrangements to senior staff in further education colleges”.
Paragraph 13 of that guidance says:
“Colleges have a responsibility to use both public and any ‘private’ funds in a prudent way that achieves value for money.”
That does not seem to have been the case in this scenario.
An institution’s management structure needs to be robust and transparent enough to deliver the desired outcomes. Mr Doyle, in the position that we have had to deal with, seems to have failed in those principles. Perhaps Mr Doyle’s principles might have to come into question.
With that in mind, I commend the Public Audit Committee for its work, sitting through the evidence that it has had to sit through, and particularly for the recommendation that it came up with on page 45 of its report. Recommendation 1 states:
“We recommend that John Doyle repay the £304,254 he received and that his severance pay is then recalculated with reference to the agreed voluntary severance scheme applicable to all other staff. In the event that he does not repay the money, renewed consideration must be given to recovering it from him.”
That is probably one of the most important parts of the whole scenario.
I take on board the fact that, since April 2014, the Scottish Government has put in place in the “Scottish Public Finance Manual” a number of measures to ensure effective scrutiny of severance and settlement arrangements, as the cabinet secretary has already said. Colleges must comply with that manual and, in doing so, seek approval from the SFC on both severance and settlement arrangements.
We need to ensure that we are very prudent with public money, and we need to learn from the excellent report that is in front of us. We need to ensure that we do all that we can so that what has happened does not happen in the public sector again.
Recommendation 1 in the committee’s report sums up a very sordid affair. It is time for Mr Doyle to do the right thing.
16:53