Hansard

The extent to which the audit resource can comment in real time on the planning of major capital projects is one of the most significant and problematic issues for Audit Scotland and me to consider. We may have a role in that, but I would not want to step into it without reaching a well-informed understanding with the Scottish ministers and the Executive, and the Parliament, about an appropriate role for Audit Scotland in such matters.To go back to first principles, it is clearly the responsibility of accountable officers to put in place proper systems for planning, managing and implementing capital projects. As part of that, they are responsible for ensuring that they have good robust evidence to inform the process and, last, but by no means least, that they have in place a good risk assessment that allows for and quantifies as far as possible the risks that are associated with issues such as possible unforeseen increases in costs. However, we have dipped our toe in such work in the past. The most significant example of that is undoubtedly the Holyrood project. At the request of the Audit Committee in the first session of Parliament, we undertook a series of reports in real time as the project progressed, for reasons that I am sure we all recall clearly. I like to think that those reports provided a public account of what was happening in the project and guidance about how project planning and management might be improved in real time. However, that was probably an exceptional case and we are certainly not resourced to carry out such work for other major capital schemes. We must consider carefully the proper accountabilities of the Executive versus those of the audit process.Another area in which we have been active is private finance initiative and public-private partnership schemes. I expect the auditors who are appointed to individual public bodies to monitor major schemes and to provide in their final reports a commentary on whether the procedures and systems that are in place for taking those major decisions are fit for purpose. However, that stops short of providing assurance on the numbers, because we are not resourced to do that. That role is for the management of those public bodies.A third matter on which we have carried out recent work, as I am sure Margaret Smith will recall, is the transport spending programme, on which we provided an overview. The general message that we gave to the committee in our report was that, with major road schemes, the final cost has been by and large in line with the tender prices.Of course, the major capital spend on the public transport schemes still lies ahead. Such schemes are different from more conventional road schemes in which one goes to tender, takes the tender prices, decides what the estimated cost is and budgets for that cost. There are issues to do with providing assurances on major capital projects to the Parliament. For that reason, we will progress a study that will consider in the first instance the Scottish Executive's control, sponsorship and management of major projects and that will monitor progress against time and cost budgets. However, for the reasons that I have given, I am reluctant to get into real-time evaluations. We are not resourced to do so, and doing so would confuse accountabilities. That said, I am concerned about ensuring that Audit Scotland adds as much value to the process as it can, and there should therefore be dialogue on the matter with the Executive and the Parliament over the next few months. I apologise for giving such a long answer, but the issue is important.