ith its recommendations and guidelines? If they said to Coatbridge, we will only pay out if you adhere to our guidelines. Was that in place and is it in place in future with the new arrangements that you have in place? There are three aspects to your question, Mrs Scanlon. In terms of the pay-out, the payment was made on 25 October and funding council funds were not released until March 2014. One of the aspects of the affair that is completely unsatisfactory is, apart from the fact that the actual decision on severance packages was made away back at the beginning of the year in 2013. There was no visibility of that for the funding council to the October was that, despite a concerted level of activity between 10 October and 24 October, the funding council communicated in writing and in person that the current package was not acceptable. The decision was made on 23 October and the payment was made on 25 October. The normal practice that I am told is that payments are made a month and a year when people are paid. There was a very hasty decision made about the actual payment, about the public money leaving the college and going into an individual's bank account. The decision that the funding council did fade, and of course it could have clawed back the money from the college, but that would not have penalised the individual with £300,000 and their bank balance would have penalised the college. A judgment had to be made about the impact on the college at that time. In terms of the new arrangements, as the Auditor General has said, the funding council now has a veto over arrangements, because prior approval must be sought before decisions are made and money is paid. There is a different set of arrangements that are now in place, and that veto exists irrespective of whether it is commercial funds or public funds that have been used for a service package. I am aware of all that, but I just wondered whether, in clawback, the Scottish funding council could not have said to Cotebridge, that we will not pay £1.3 million unless you adhere to our guidelines. Could they have done that previously at the time of the Cotebridge? The funding council made it very clear, again in correspondence. I quote correspondence from the funding council on 24 October, saying, You should not pay or take any further steps to commit to any deal along the lines that you have indicated to me until you have reassured me that the voluntary service arrangements that are in accordance with good practice are in accordance with them. Yes, but they still did not say that we are not paying anything above our guidelines. Did they have the ability, the responsibility and the power to say that? Could they have withheld any funding that was over and above their guidelines? The facts of the matter are that the funding council in March did not pay over and above their guidelines. The college from its own resources paid the excess, if you like. That is still unsatisfactory in terms of the actual payment that has been taken from college funds, but the funding council did not pay any excess of their guidelines. My final question is, and I think that we are all very grateful to the family of Francis McGeeheave for giving us sight of the Lincston report, but I have to say that I have been totally outraged at the money that John Doyle walked away with, but the compassion and empathy for the staff at that college is just tantamite. It is quite, reading this report, it is not only tragic, it is horrendously sad. I just want to read one sentence to you. Poor governance and decision making had a cumulative and negative impact on senior staff. Certain decisions, practices and behaviours fell short of what I would expect in a well-governed college. The colleges are absolutely publicly funded by the taxpayer, so what responsibility with John Doyle's lack of responsibility and duty of care to his staff? I think that all of us can put on the record our grateful thanks and how much we value every person that teaches and gives their time, whether it is at NHS or particularly in colleges. However, what duty of care did the Government have? You must have been very aware that many people were facing uncertainty about their future incomes, their future roles and their future careers. That is quite devastating on the staff, on the linkstone report. Did that form part of any discussions? Was any pastoral care suggested? What was the Government's role in that? I think that the report prepared by Alec Lincston makes for salutary reading. Although he says that the new college Lanarkshire merger process overall was very comprehensive. He nonetheless highlighted a number of significant weaknesses in governance and leadership. The fact that there were so many different accounts of a significant matter, I found very troubling. I know that the author of that report found very troubling. It demonstrates the extent of dysfunction and disharmony within the college. There were very high levels of sickness within the senior management team. If there are lessons to be learned, we need to find ways to be more vigilant to that level of sickness in particular within the senior management team. That should set alarm bells about how an organisation is performing or coping. There is a commitment by the Scottish Funding Council, and I will oversee that commitment. The funding council has accepted all the recommendations from the Lincston report. Some of those recommendations have already been implemented. Other recommendations will be implemented, for example, the issue of further guidance on severance. The funding council has not issued that as yet, and they have explained that to the family, because they want to receive the report from the Public Audit Committee to ensure that the findings of the committee also feed into any subsequent guidance that is issued. Before we move on to the next question, I just clarified when the payment was processed by the funding council. We have an email that has been provided to the committee day to 10 December 2013, from John Kemp, an African Reed, who is the funding council representative, and he says that this is to Derek Banks, who is the director of finance at Coatbridge College, and he says here in the first paragraph, that I am happy to confirm that we will pay 13 months salary subject to a valid claim being made against a voluntary service funding for the merger. I anticipate that the council will agree the transitional funding requested for the merger at this meeting on Friday 13. My understanding, convener, is that the payment was not made until March. We will, of course, double check the accuracy of that. What we have here is that a senior official of the funding council will make it clear that the payment is going to be made. He is not saying here, let us not make this payment. He says that he goes on to say that, given that almost every other merger has been involved in, and due diligence has been finalised prior to the amount of transitional funding made available, I cannot see the fact that Friday's meeting has not taken place that yet has been an impediment in this. However, please let me know and I will arrange either Sharon or a cellphone phone you to advise you of the outcome of the meeting. It is a pretty clear email that is saying that you are going to get the money. Nobody is saying that you are not getting the money, just that it is a clear commitment. On the basis of the 13 months salary, not the 24 months. I note your comments that in the future this kind of thing will not be able to happen again. I am just looking to explore some of the detail of that, if I may, because if I look at the table that we have hopefully got here about previous payments, there are voluntary sevens lump sums, but there are also some pension contributions, some quite eye-watering sums in the pension contributions. I am just wondering whether you can give me some reassurance that pension contributions would also be governed by the changing governance arrangements? It is important that we look at everything in the round and processes that lead to the overall cost to the public purse. One of the changes that was made to the severance package that the principal received at the end of the day was that they did show restraint on the pension aspect. Nonetheless, the overall package that the principal of co-bridge received was nonetheless eye-watering. Eileen, can you say something about pension contributions? We will absolutely take into account the widest implications of funding contribution to voluntary severance as part of the task group consideration, so pension would absolutely come into that. I am grateful for that comment, because, in the cases in front of us, they were obviously paid by the college rather than by the SFC. It is all still public money, and it cannot be paid twice, and it cannot be used twice. I am grateful for that reassurance. Cabinet Secretary, you mentioned the working group, which is under way, in terms of the focus of that particular working group. Is that just going to be based on the college sector, or is it going to include the university sector? We will look further afield. We had the first meeting of the task group last week, and we agreed that we will look at a range of sectors outwith education. There is a representative from Oscar on that group. There are some interesting developments around governance in the financial sector that appear quite apposite for us to look at, but we will look at good practice in health. We will also look outwith Scotland as well. We are conscious that the task group we want to come to a view about clear actions and to report back to Parliament. We do not want the task group to be meeting for ever in a day. It is a short-term working group, if you like, but we are looking further than the world of education and further in Scotland to inform best practice on how we build on the work that is currently done by the sector-led good governance group. On the action points that will come out after the end of the work and the report, will those action points be aimed towards the college sector solely or college and university? The task group is solely focused on the college sector and, for very good reasons, following on from recent decisions that I have taken around at Clyde College, but also following on from the two section 22 reports prepared by the Auditor General and the Public Audit Committee report on North Glasgow. It is focused on the issues and difficulties highlighted by the committee and the Auditor General. You mentioned the Oscar, and we had Oscar provide evidence to the committee. I posed a question to them in terms of powers or further areas that they would like to see in terms of tools on their armory. Has there been any discussions between yourself or your department and Oscar in terms of the current powers that they have and potentially any additional powers that they might obtain or potentially could obtain to help them undertake their roles and responsibilities in a more effective manner? There is an ongoing dialogue between Scottish Government officials and Oscar and the funding council and Oscar. As I said, there is a representative from Oscar that sits on the college good governance task group. It is part of our wider considerations, but it is for Oscar to bring forward proposals and they have an opportunity to do that in terms of their annual report that they bring to the Scottish ministers and also the Parliament. Has Oscar raised any particular areas up to now in terms of additional powers that they would like to see have so that they could be considered by the Government for any potential future legislation? They have not made, to the best of my knowledge, any formal requests on the Government to legislate in and around their powers as a regulator. As always, we are vigilant and open to any consideration. I will ask a final question. The theme that we have heard during the last evidence session that we have on the subject is the themes around management versus the other staff who have just received the basic terms, but management staff have received enhanced terms. When you are like us in this position, I take it if predecessor was the same, where you would have liked to have seen parity across the board for all members of staff. I am very clear, convener. I do not think that we should have one scheme for one set of staff and another scheme for the other. There needs to be parity. We are all agreed on that. Would that have been the same for your predecessor, Michael Russell? He was very clear with regard to the need for restraint and good business cases in terms of the strategic funds for the voluntary severance. The Scottish Government's position is that everyone should receive the same deal regardless of whether they are a principal or a catering staff. However, you all play our role in the college and you all should receive the same deal. That is my view, and I hope that I am making that view clearly to the committee. I am asking as it was at Michael Russell's view. It is a bit difficult for me to ask what my predecessor's personal view is. I am afraid that I would not know the detail of that. My expectation would have been that that would have been our collective view. I think that what would be helpful would be to see an audit trail of that principal. I think that, politically, we would have had an argument to say that mergers are going to take place, and I would expect to have overleading that politically what the minister should be to say, I am expecting everyone to receive the same principle to settlement. What you can see from the various strands that took place was that the Scottish Funding Council was implicated in a process, which was that, somehow, senior managers should receive a better deal from those other members of staff in the college. Despite, as politicians, all of us are saying that that is a disgrace. My point of making is that, as being the minister who was responsible for that at the outset, Michael Russell, it would be helpful for the committee to be very clear what audit there is of information that is provided to the Scottish Funding Council to make it clear to them what you are saying to us today, which I suppose we all agreed on. Everyone should receive the same deal, regardless of who you are. It is important to recognise the limitations on ministerial powers, but I think that I want to be clear that moving forward and looking to the future that it is important that I and the Scottish Government are very clear on standards and on leadership and on what is expected. We are obviously acknowledging that there are new, tighter, sharper controls now in place, post reclassification, but we are vigilant to what more can and should be done to ensure the very highest of standards across the college sector. I thank the cabinet secretary for her time this morning, and I just have a very brief interval to look for change over. I move to agenda item number three, which is oral evidence on the AGS report entitled the 2014-15 audit of the Scottish Government's consolidated accounts. I would like to welcome Callan Gardner, the Auditor General for Scotland, Mark Taylor, the Assistant Director, and Gordon Smale, who is the Senior Manager of Audit Scotland. I understand that Callan Gardner is a brief opening statement to make. As the committee knows, the Scottish Parliament is currently developing its approach to scrutiny, reflecting the increasing financial powers and the Public Audit Committee taking evidence on the Scottish Government's consolidated accounts is an important part of that. This is the right time to strengthen parliamentary scrutiny of the consolidated accounts, and I have provided this report to support your process. The consolidated accounts are a critical component of the Scottish Government's accountability to Parliament and the public. They cover over 90% of the spending approved by Parliament each year and show the amounts that the Government spends against each main budget heading. They also show the assets, liabilities and other financial commitments carried forward to future years and contain an annual report in which the Government gives a high-level account of its activities and performance. My independent opinion on the consolidated accounts is unqualified. That means that I am content that they provide a true and fair view of the Government's finances. Beyond that, convener, I would like briefly to highlight four areas from my report. First of all, on financial management and reporting, the majority of the budget approved by the Scottish Parliament relates to spending programmes and administration costs covered by the Scottish Government's consolidated accounts. The Government managed its budget for 2014-15 within the overall limit set by the Parliament. The accounts meet the legal and accounting requirements. They show the financial position and budgetary performance from the perspective of the Government's role in managing the budget that it controls directly. However, it is becoming increasingly important to also understand the overall position of the devolved Scottish public sector as a whole. I have previously highlighted that there is no single set of accounts that shows that. That means that it is difficult for the Scottish Parliament and for taxpayers to get a full picture and understanding of the longer-term implications of public finances. It remains firmly in my view that the case for enhanced reporting of Scotland's public finances has never been stronger. Accounts for the whole of the devolved public sector would complement the Scottish Government's own accounts. Secondly, on corporate governance, a governance statement prepared by the permanent secretary is a key feature of the consolidated accounts. That statement summarises how the core organisation is controlled and directed. In my view, the overarching governance arrangements in place during 2014-15 were generally affected and provided an appropriate framework for organisational decision making. Thirdly, performance. As I indicated, the consolidated accounts contain an annual report that summarises financial performance for the year with particular emphasis on performance against budget. It also signposts where more performance information is available and refers to the Scottish Government's national performance framework. The Government has been building on its arrangements to better report how it is directing resources towards its desired outcomes and the impact that this is having. In my view, a more rounded account of the Scottish Government's overall performance as part of an expanded annual report would enhance this reporting and help to strengthen accountability and scrutiny. Fourthly, convener, the other significant issues that I highlight in my report are threefold. The continuing risk to the common agricultural policy futures programme, the suspension of European structural funds programmes, which provides financial support for improvement and the Office for National Statistics classification of non-profit disputing projects and the potential implications for capital budgets. Overall, the Scottish Government has a good record of financial management and reporting, governance arrangements are generally effective and the national performance framework is well established. Together, those forms are strong base to meet the challenges of tighter budgets and increasing financial power. My audit work has identified a number of areas for improvement from that base and we will continue to support the independent scrutiny of Scotland's public finances through all of our work and through this committee. As always, convener, my colleagues and I are happy to answer the committee's questions. I thank her to the general for what the statement can and move straight to questions and move to Mary Scanlon. I was quite surprised in paragraphs 34 and 35 that Scotland still does not have a balance sheet. We do not know our income, we do not know our expenditure, we do not know our pension liabilities in the public sector and I think I've raised this before with you but I certainly have a serious concern about local government debt in some way that has to be recognised. If you'll forgive me, convener, we've been through a referendum campaign and deliberations about Scotland's balance sheet were very pertinent to that campaign. We're going to be facing a referendum campaign sometime in the future. After nine years of a Government that's looking for Scotland to stand on its own and to have its own balance sheet and to be financially and otherwise independent, after nine years, why don't we know what Scotland's income and expenditure is? I think that one of the main messages of my report, Ms Scanlon, is absolutely the need for that overall picture of Scotland's public finances. Having a picture of what both the liabilities and the assets are helps this Parliament to make better decisions for the longer term and will help taxpayers and citizens across Scotland to understand the risks and the opportunities that we face. The new financial powers that are coming to the Parliament under both the Scotland Act 2012 and the new Scotland Bill mean the importance of that information is heightened. I understand that the Government has accepted in principle the need to develop a more comprehensive picture and what I call for in this report is now a more detailed plan and time scout scale to take that forward as a matter of urgency. It's all due respect, Auditor General. You have called for this before. I've been reporting on this since July 2013, I think, which is why I'm now looking for a when would you expect to get that information from the Government? I think that you're right, it's not just politicians that want to see it. I think that Scottish taxpayers have a right to see that information. When would you expect it and why is there the delay? I think that the question about why there's a delay is when you might want to post to the permanent secretary when you take evidence in December. My view is that it becomes increasingly urgent with the new financial powers that are coming to the Parliament, as we speak. Absolutely. My final, I'll just put the two questions together. The European funding common agricultural policy, we're about to discuss ICT, but it's now three times over the budget, £62 million and the forecast is £178 million. I quote paragraph 50, there remain significant risks to successful delivery, not just now, but the risks will remain until full implementation and beyond. Just my final question, because we have talked about this before and an update would be helpful, but I was very concerned about paragraph 55, the robustness of information being retained by some grant recipients about how ESF funds were being spent. Is there likely to be a clawback of funds? Are you implying that your language is always very polite? Are you implying that funds have not been spent on what they were drawn down for? I wonder if you could give the committee a little bit more clarity on that issue. Certainly, Ms Scanlon. You've asked about both the CAP Futures programme and the CAP Futures months. I'll ask Mark to pick up the CAP Futures piece first, and then you can come back on the site. On CAP Futures, as you've said, Ms Scanlon, we've brought information to the committee before and our intention is to bring a report in the new year about how the progress of the system is going. We've identified previously and we continue to have concerns that the project is facing significant risks. The Government recently set out its timeline for payments, and we hope that arrangements are in place to make those payments. Is that by instalments? We'll stay close to that, and we'll report to the committee more generally in the new year. How significant are the significant risks? I think that there are two issues that the committee will be aware of, but just to confirm, there are issues around delivery and value for money of the project itself in terms of how quickly systems can be put into place and how effective those systems are and the costs and the management of the project associated with that. The committee has had an on-going interest in that area. The other risk is that it is important to get those systems into place so that the Scottish Government can demonstrate to the European Commission that it is following the rules that it needs to follow. A real test of those systems, as well as making payments to farmers, are the way in which the Government is able to demonstrate that it is following those rules and has the appropriate control systems in place. As part of our wider programme of work, we have a responsibility once payments have been made to look at those controls and to report on those controls to the European Commission. I know that other members want to commence, so I'll leave that one just now, and if I could just get a response on the ESF funds. On the structural funds, it's right that we're highlighted at this area. There's a substantial amount of money flowed through from the European Commission on this side of things as well, something of the order of 81 million pounds in the 1415 accounts that we're looking at today. The situation is that there have been interruptions in the past and that's quite a common occurrence across the schemes across Europe. What we're reporting here is an escalation to this category called suspension. In answer to the direct answer to your question, really, there is uncertainty about what the implications of this situation are. In the interruption situation, the managing authority with the Scottish Government can actually make a self-correction of a relatively small amount that can be recycled through the process. In the case of suspension, the managing authority Scottish Government has to do a lot more, there's a lot more tests for them. They have to, for example, produce an action plan of how they're going to resolve matters. The reason I explain all that is just to underline the uncertainty, because at the moment that action plan is now with the EC, they will consider that and then we'll decide what to do after that. It's got a range of options available to it, including the self-correction type of situation that I mentioned, but also they have an opportunity to apply penalties to the Scottish Government. I very much emphasise that that will take some time to come through, and even if our penalties are suggested, there will be some negotiations between the Government and the EC about what those penalties might be. However, there is a serious situation and it's something that we want to highlight here. So are there any particular projects that you can tell this committee today where funds have been accessed through the ESF, the European Structural Fund, and they have been misused? Are there any situations that you'd like to share with us today? So if I go down a level into a bit more detail, what happens is that audit work is done on the individual projects and what they look at are things like the quality of evidence that supports the expenditure, the procurement rules that have been applied and what they do is, on basis of a sample, come forward with what they call an error rate and it's those error rates that then determine the action that's taken. Has the error rate increased in recent years? It has and that's one of the reasons why we go from this escalation from interruption to suspension. That would be the mismatch between what the funding was for and what it was used for. That's right, exactly. Then there is a discussion about what those error rates actually mean and it's that that applies to the amount of money that has to be either self-corrected or perhaps through penalties, but very much the error rate. So it's against the sample. I'm not avoiding a question about individual cases because I couldn't name any today, but I just wanted to give you a sense of how the process works and how we get to this situation with our concerns about the funding. In general, the report, as you might expect, is a fairly good one for the Government, with a few questions coming out of it. The cap futures, the figures that you've given here, they haven't changed since your last report have they? They're still the same figures.  When is your next follow-up due? I'll ask Mark to give you the detail on that, if I may. So there's two critical dates. The first date is the one that Mrs Scanlon alluded to, which was the initial payments to farmers and the Government's intention to get as many payments out the door in December and from December. Then there's a hard deadline at the end of June 2016, when all payments have to be made under European rules. Our intention is to come and report back to the committee in more generally between those two dates, a period in which we've got real evidence around what progress has been and we're able to comment on the Government's overall progress, but in advance of the 2016 date. One of the things that we'll need to manage is the timing of the election when we can report around that, but we set out in this report that in a general sense we want to report in the spring of 2016. Just turning to the report here, I'm looking at paragraph 29 on page 9. I was quite surprised to see such a large figure for NHS clinical and medical negligence claims, 302 million. Does that directly link to a potential liability or is it just a pot that they've got with case? It relates to the scheme that is used to manage clinical negligence across the NHS as a whole, and it's always one of the largest provisions within the accounts. As always, I will ask Mark Org Gordon to pick up the detail of that to keep you straight on it. So the way in which the provision is an estimate of the amount that's liable to be paid out for cases, for medical cases and clinical and medical and educational cases that have already been brought against NHS bodies, and there's a well-established process that's managed through the central legal office in the NHS to assess, to risk assess each of those cases and put a probability essential in each of those individual cases and assess the amounts that may be payable under each of those cases. That allows the Government overall to prepare an overall estimate, and I'll stress it as an estimate, but this is their best estimate of how much they expect to have to pay out over time in relation to the cases that have been raised. So this figure isn't an annual figure. It's an accumulation of potential liabilities that are in this pot. So it's a balance sheet figure for us exactly that. It's the current balance, and it's built up over a number of years, and will be met over a number of years. Approximately how many cases are there? Just ballpark. So I'm afraid I don't have that information. It's just out of interest. I mean, £300 million to me is an awful lot of money. As Marcus said, it is an accumulated figure of all of the cases across NHS boards across Scotland. It's audited at two levels, both at the level of the Scottish Government's balance sheet and at the individual boards, but we don't have the figure of how many claims is in there to hand at the moment. Just starting to paragraph 35 on page 10 about pension liabilities. In recent years pension liabilities have become a real problem because of changes in accounting and so on, and what the actuaries are now, how the actuaries are actually treating some of the funding. Is there no feel at all for what the figure is nationally? I mean, I know that, in a small way, I'm involved with some local trustee, local trusts, and they are crippled by the cost of pension funds. You're absolutely right about the scale of the liability, and of course there has been action taken by both the Scottish and the UK Governments to try and manage that liability over the longer term. I'll ask Gordon to give you a bit more about the figures that are available and what's not here in Scotland. It's right that we've set on this, and in fact it's a very good example of why we think across the whole of the public sector that we need that type of information available in a transparent way so that informed decisions can be made. Most recently, when we've had access to audited and good quality information, we've included a figure in the report back in July 2013 on developing financial reporting, where we were able to do that calculation based on audited information, and at that time the accumulated amount of liability was £66 billion, so it's a substantial number. Is that just for Scotland? Yes. Thank goodness that it's not likely to become liable any time soon. The consolidated accounts, the value of the assets, has been increasing over the years as a result of capital investment, but you say that the liabilities have stayed broadly consistent. Why is that? I would have thought that the liabilities would have edged up proportionally with the assets. I think that the asset increase is largely to do with capital budgets being applied and expenditure through the NPD programme and similar programmes, and what that does is it increases the amount of public funds that are invested in assets that will have a continuing benefit, and that's what the asset balance measures. The liabilities are largely but not exclusively independent of that, and that's the sort of things that we highlight in the report in terms of the general business of government and the organisations that are part of the consolidated account, how those liabilities are established. An important part of the overall picture is to understand some of the individual trends within those liabilities that have been highlighted by the clinical medical and medical surgeons in one of those areas. We've also highlighted issues around provisions, for example, and there's an understanding of what's happening, both at the headline level and within the individual balances. Again, we think that through good reporting around the balance sheet, there's an opportunity to have a greater understanding of that. We can ask a couple of questions. The first is, again, on power 29, early departure costs are £155 million, presumably that's not just John Boyle's two others in there. Secondly, I wonder if the Auditor General could just clarify in 38 your point about the government need to come up with a clear plan and timescale on a single set of Scottish accounts. Is it for the government to produce that single set of accounts, or do you have a view as to whether it should be the fiscal commission, or should it be, as it were, ultimately independently produced to allow the very open transparency and scrutiny that you were describing in your earlier remarks? I absolutely think that it should be the Scottish Government that does it. I think that there's a useful parallel in that the UK Government for a number of years now has produced UK hold of government accounts, which carry out that consolidation and indeed includes the Scottish elements in there. What we don't have is that picture at a Scottish level, and I think that it's increasingly important that we should have that. The £155 million early departure? £155 million is the, it doesn't just relate to Mr Doyle, and it's the figure across the accounts which are consolidated to the Scottish Government's consolidated accounts at the moment. It is a large number. Has it gone up? I don't know, I'll see if Mark can add to that. I would put it in context though and say that we have been at a time of reducing the scale of public services, and there is a cost associated with that. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, convener, and hello again. I want to say general. I'd just like to pick up on the balance sheet and the information that Spice has given us of the background, hopefully produced. It looks as though the assets, two thirds of those are the road network and a substantial other part of that is buildings. Given that one of the on-going problems that the NHS has is actually valuing its own buildings so that it can balance its books, that's something we'll explore again soon. Are you comfortable that those valuations are meaningful? I've no doubt they're professionally done. I'm not doubting any of that, but what assurance can we really have that even the buildings aspect of that is really realizable if we have to? I will ask Mark my expert on those matters to respond to the question. To confirm that we have confirmed that they are professionally prepared and appropriately referred in terms of the question of meaningfulness, what those estimates do is they essentially estimate how much would it cost us to replace those buildings and how much would it cost us to replace those road networks and bridges. That's the fundamental basis on which most of the assets, not all of the assets but most of the operational assets in the accounts are valued. If they disappear tomorrow, what would the cost of putting them back into the current race state of repair be? I think that that is meaningful to give a sense of the investment that's been made previously in those assets and the value to the public sector. They're not really assets in any realizable sense nor does it value what you might be able to get as income if you were to part with them to somebody else. It's actually a shadow liability for what it would cost you to replace it. I don't know if I would recognise the phrase shadow liability but it would be the cost. Yeah, I mean it's no recountant word but I think you've got a point. Essentially, and we make clear on the report, only those assets that are declared a surplus, they get valued on a different basis, which is essentially how much those assets are being actively marketed and that's an estimate of what those will realise. You'll see from the report that we think there's 42 million from memory that the assets. So the bulk of assets have been built, have been established and continue to be used for public services. Can I just start about that very briefly as well, Mr Don? It's worth noting, as we say in the report, that because there is no single picture of the overall assets and liabilities for Scotland's public sector, the figure for assets isn't complete. Probably the most obvious example of why that doesn't quite make sense is the roads network, where the national roads network is on the consolidated accounts balance sheet. A large chunk of the roads network is the responsibility of local authorities and it's on 32 different balance sheets valued on a different basis. So there's a real need to pull that together and get it done. Thank you for pre-empting my next question. I suppose the same thing applies to PFI in respect of schools and hospitals, that one is on the national balance sheet and one is on the local balance sheet. Local authority assets and liabilities are, for good reasons, on the local authorities' own financial statements. NHS assets and liabilities are within the consolidated accounts here, but we don't have that overall picture of them. The sum on financial liabilities, one of the largest things, is of course PFI. That will be a figure that, in one respect, in terms of the early PFI contracts and even some of the PPP contracts, we'll be reducing but, of course, we'll be being added to by new NPD contracts that are coming along. Do we get a sense of that increasing, decreasing? The reports that I've published on developing financial reporting have included a graph that shows by year the pattern of committed liabilities, which is in place. As you'd expect, it moves up towards a peak in around the early 2020s and then starts to trail off, but it is added to as new commitments are made. I want to ask about financial assets. The largest financial asset is the student loan sum £2.685 billion. What are the risks associated with that? Have you done some calculations as to what the collection of those loans and how much of it is likely to be collected and how much is not? That's a particularly complicated area, and I'm going to ask Mark to do his best to talk you through it. Thank you, Auditor General. Sorry, Mark. The way in which that liability is estimated is on collectible debt, so that is the Government's estimate, and we are happy with that estimate that that amount is currently collectible, and there are provisions against non-payment of debt in that estimate of that amount. The £2.685 billion is excluding a certain amount. Do we have a figure for that? I don't have a figure for it, but it's just to give a bit more depth to that. There is modelling done, which looks at a whole range of things, including the profile of people who still have amounts outstanding, their income, their likely income and that type of thing. We do a lot of work around about that model to satisfy ourselves that the figures that are brought forward by Government, including the accounts, are materially correct, so there's a process for doing that. Do we have a figure annually for the amount that's being written off for whatever reason? Yes, it's in the accounts. There's a movement shown in the accounts for that. One other question, convener, is about on and off budget again. The ONS, of course, with the ESA 10 issue, is looking at the possibility of assets coming on balance or off balance, and that's holding up a number of projects at the present time. Does that have any effect upon the consolidated accounts? That's actually, for again complex reasons, an issue that affects budgeting much more than it does financial reporting. I'll ask Mark to talk you through it. The question of whether assets are on balance sheet or off balance sheet is one for the accounts, and generally the answer to that question is that they are on balance sheet and those assets are recognised in the accounts. As the literature general says, the ONS issue relates to the way in which budgetary control is currently applied and how much it is spending controls. The accounts themselves, in effect, already adopt an approach that ONS is moving toward. Has the effect of the problems with police in terms of centralisation and VAT and the rest, and the colleges now being announced as being on balance sheet and not off, do they have any effects? I mean, they're separate issues, but— So there's a whole bunch of questions in there, which essentially is that those bodies currently fall out with the consolidation boundary for these accounts. The extent to which the accounting for those issues applies to those bodies lies out with the consolidation framework. Again, to come back to one of our central points, as a wider set of accounts, would wrap those over at one place. I think that that makes your point even more, and that's three or four times that's been made. I think that it needs to be addressed urgently. Thank you. I found the report to be very useful once again, and there's certainly something in it for all of us around the table. Clearly, you have been complementary in terms of what the Government does, paragraph 60, regarding the national accounts classification, and the Scottish Government has applied the credit accounting treatment and preparing accounts, but clearly that is the issue of the ESA 10. In paragraph 64, where you highlighted the Scottish Government's company's discussion with the HM Treasury on the contingency arrangements, are you aware of how those are progressing? That's the question that you would best explore with the permanent secretary when you meet next month. Finally, it's paragraph 67 in the conclusion where you highlight not the standing issue of the balance sheet that's been raised here today. You highlight at the very beginning of the paragraph that the Scottish Government has a good record of financial management and reporting. Governments arrangements are generally effective and the national performance framework is well established. Certainly, would you be content that any additional powers that are to come to this Parliament via the current Scotland Bill with the arrangements that are deteriorated at the moment that there is a good framework to build upon? Obviously, some additional reporting mechanisms would be required as a consequence of those further powers. I think that I should start by being clear that I'm focusing on financial reporting here, and there's a much wider framework to be agreed around the new financial powers. However, my conclusion is that what we have in place currently on financial reporting and performance reporting provides a good basis. I've identified a number of areas where improvement is now urgently required to underpin those new powers and the decisions that the Parliament will have to make about them. I thank the Auditor General on the team for the evidence. I will be considering the evidence received today in agenda item number 5 in private. I move to agenda item number 4, which is a response from the Scottish Government on the AGS report entitled Managing ICT Contracts in Central Government and Update. Do members have any comments? Mary Scanlon? Yes, I have a comment, convener. I remind you that prior to our current Auditor General, her predecessor, Bob Black, raised IT as one of his most serious legacy issues. That was over four years ago. To be honest, I'm not impressed with the response that we've had from officials. I think that we just keep thinking that something is going to be done and it never is. Today, we have been looking at the common agricultural payments that are already three times over the cost and significant risks. Last week, we were looking at NHS 24, the IT system that appears to have collapsed. Without outlining any more problems, I suggest that instead of always listening to officials. I spoke to an IT company last week and they told me that, on the Government's procurement list, there are 15 companies, one of which is a Scottish company, and that the Scottish IT sector gets 4 per cent of the public sector spend. I suggest that we ask in representatives from SMEs in Scotland and a larger company to try to get a better understanding of why that continues to be a problem. In my time on the committee, we've never taken evidence from a company. We've only heard what officials and cabinet secretaries have to say. I suggest that, convener, on the same day as the permanent secretary's attendance on 9 December. That's the only way that I would have some sort of insight and it would enable me to help, hopefully, to understand what is happening in IT in Scotland, because it's huge amounts of public money going on IT systems rather than the front line of public service. I understand where Mary's coming from, but I'm not sure what we'd ask these companies, because they don't know anything about the Scottish Government's systems. I think that it's going to be a very difficult one to get somebody in for and to get meaningful evidence from them. I'm concerned about what's been previously stated, which is the multiplicity, the bureaucracy, the different layers that have been put in place in a knee-jerk reaction to try to manage that. That cannot be efficient. We need to pursue that piece of it. The bigger picture about IT raised with the permanent secretary, I think that we should be specifically targeting what we now know as a problem. Exactly the questions that it would be really good to put to some businesses, because they will be very well placed to answer questions about the Government's procurement mechanisms and whether they're good, bad or indifferent. The company that I'd like to have in is the one that spent £178 million not delivering farm payments. It may be the view of the convener that that's not for now because that process is still under way, but if ever there's a company that deserves scrutiny, both I suspect from the Government's point of view but also from Aldous Scotland clearly doing that. More to the point, from the committee's point of view, it's that particular example because it's so far of a budget. Richard Simpson, I would add to that the NHS IT because that's massively over budget, been delayed three years. I agree with Colin's point about the structure. I did raise it at First Minister's questions and asked the First Minister to look at it because it is just grossly over complicated. I have two other issues. One is that there is a requirement in some of the procurements quite rightly that SMEs are given some of the subcontracting work. At least in one example, a significant SME was promptly taken over by the central company and therefore the SME's delivery was then effectively nullified. The other thing that I've discovered—are we in public session? Yes, we are. We are live. We are live. I don't want to get into that. At least I'm laughing. It's the main colleagues that are in public session and I'm looking for them. I will anonymise the contract, at least in one other very major contract. The two bidders for the contract, one won the contract and then promptly subcontracted to the loser. I find that extraordinary if the main contractor was unable to deliver without going to the subcontractor. Who's making money out of that? There's something very wrong with our procurement system. Colin, can you remind us just before I show them on that this is about where we actually go after receiving this response? I take it that the colleagues are concerned that the response doesn't meet the expectations. Absolutely. There is the option if we are looking to attack businesses to come in and speak to us about the round-table approach that all our committees have done. I do. It could be that—not this side this year but maybe next year—earth before the committee finishes for the Scottish Parliament elections that we have a particular session to look at that with the round-table discussion. That deals with the management of what's quite a difficult issue to deal with. The proposal is that the permanent secretary would be coming in the next session, I would suggest, along with the chief information officer, and allow the Government to respond to the ICT document that's been laid before us by the general and in a later stage that would be the committee's position to do a round-table discussion. I've got Stuart McMillan and Elbrian Nigel Donne. Thank you, just a brief point. The concerns that have been raised by colleagues, I forget a huge amount of sympathy for, but I think we also have to recognise that when it comes to ICT contracts and the delivery of them, unfortunately ICT does move at such a pace. It's something that I've said on the record in this committee before as well, that when you actually ship a box out of a factory, it's already out of date. One of the areas of concern that I have raised in the past as well, and I'll do it again today, in terms of the changes of specifications, some specs might actually change whilst the project's under way. We're sitting in a building and that did happen. I think that's a point that really does have to be considered when we are actually looking at this further. Thank you. Because you're so many colleagues, we're actually just talking about how we manage this, so we can actually get into those details if we do a round-table discussion. I'm entirely with colleagues who want to talk to the people who are actually delivering, but I'm also very conscious that there will be commercial limitations on what they feel they can say, and it's extremely difficult in the real world for contractors to talk about their position with potential suppliers of further contracts. I'm just wondering whether there are academics, for want of a word, who have got some understanding of this. Maybe we're talking about consultants rather than academics, but people who are not directly involved with this contract or any particular contract. Can I just try to bring those to the close, because we could talk about this. But I think that there are people who might be able to give us unbiased advice. Can I just suggest that the clerk will come back to us with paper, in terms of how we can deal with our round-table option. I think that Nigel's point is very good. None of us are experts in this field. It is a very complicated field. No one's got it absolutely right, frankly. I think that we do need an adviser on this, and I have a name to suggest to you. That is the paper from a clerk, first of all, and then we can discuss how we take forward. Is that agreed? Thank you, and does it agree previously, always? We can move into private session.


Black Lightning Tuesdays at 9 8 central on the CW Man, there's so much to impact with this one right here So many surprises from the left and the right in all directions that I wasn't expecting So how did I feel about the episode? Well, let's get into it. My name is Brennan Keith Avery and this is just my opinion Hey guys, thank you so much for tuning in to my opinion slash review slash recap for black lightning episode number two titled la Wanda the book of hope I really do appreciate it But before we get into this recap help you boy out by clicking that subscribe button Also, click the bell so you can be notified when I make uploads and give me that thumbs up Let's see if we can get this video to 100 likes So now we have episode two of black lightning if you saw my recap for the past video I really did enjoy the first episode. I really did enjoy that episode I was crapping on the show at first but the first episode really did surprise me And I can honestly say that I'm a fan right now and as far as the CW is concerning This is you know up there with flash for me as far as entertainment is concerned You know, I'm really am liking the sub this season so far and I really did like LaWanda episode two Just as much as I did episode one now it starts out, you know, pretty much a shocker to me just because like For me, I really did like at the very beginning of the episode how we saw that Jefferson Pierce the principal black lightning. He's hurt. You know, he's moaning. He's groaning He's you know waking up in the middle of the night going to the bathroom And we really don't I don't really know what's going on with his powers like he's hurt right now I couldn't tell if he was trying to challenge the channel not challenge channel that energy through his body So he and himself or that's just kind of how his body reacts to pain But what early on in the episode it was really It was really nice to see that you had this strong black man with this strong black woman and then she was just down for him You know I'm saying like I just love seeing black love on the screen You know that just does something for me so just to see him on the bathroom floor and You know his his ex-wife, you know, the mother of his children, you know coming over to him It's like hey, baby.   She's like, you know, hey, you know, my daughter is still missing and in Pierce it's just like you know, no no everything is okay You know the whole motel is shut down and she's like no and they're dropping quotes And that whole scene really did speak to me because how it relates over into the real life is there's a lot of Injustices in the world, but especially in America right now and that's what I can speak of and black people especially We're just like tired of all the speeches and the quotes and just you know, be good You know, you work hard you overcome and know people all start it's really just getting killed and people bring up Martin Luther King all the time and so that's what Jefferson Pierce did he brought up that Martin Luther King I did I say Martin Luther King poem. I meant Martin Luther King quote and He said it and that guy stood up talking about man We're tired of quotes and Jefferson Pierce says something that's just like man No matter what they still shot Martin Luther King in the head.  He is showing himself to be a great villain Latavius aka Lala He's a great villain as well.  Oh Excuse me.  He was like, no I do like black people.   It's just really excited. I'm kind of just like watching, you know, the show like this We also got to see a Nisa, you know, she has a girlfriend You know, she was looking good laying in bed with a girl. They were both fine as hell I wish I could be there in between them both. No, I'm just kidding but you know, we also got I Think I don't know if I'm jumping around but I really do understand the frustrations from Jefferson Pierce like, you know He doesn't want he he wants this to be happy early on in the episode and let live a normal life, right? And he lost his wife for but there's still like a connection there You know, I'm saying like, you know, when there was in the bathroom floor kissing and stuff I was like, all right. Yeah, you know, they're gonna get back together But when he was walking in through the hallway of the school with the police chief the police was making some good points Like look man, you know, la la Latavius. He wasn't there at the motel and you know, black line like what are you talking about?    No, you're acting in strash. They should have got somebody else that was like either the same size as As Jeffson Pierce or you know bigger, but you got these two skinny dudes or whatever trying to look tough One dude had his button-down shirt tied around his waist like who does that? You know I'm saying you're not tough I don't know what you know and you look soft like that's what they used to do in the 80s and 90s Like no and then the other dude had a shiny red backpack on with both straps like come on man Really don't know about it. I mean, I'm just saying I'm not trying to you know You know enforcing the stereotype time.   So You know, I really did like that.  La la Latavius is not somebody to be you know Miss within you know, yeah, that just that's really what you know when I met when I made the intro to this video That's kind of one of the things when I was saying oh so many surprises You know in this in this episode right here and this kind of just shows how serious they are taking things But it's something that I like, you know that there are stakes people will die and I'll get to the other deaths later on I was about to say that spoilers in this video, but of course you and watching 10 minutes now, you know the spoilers Now Jennifer the the younger sister. I'm gonna talk about her for a second Huh, she's kind of getting on my nerve a little bit trying to rebel You know just trying to I mean the first episode. She's like, I want to party Yeah, you know and go to the club and do I you know, I might party. Yeah, what kind of imitation was that? But you know, she rebelling.   Her real name is China So, you know, that was cool right there. But then we got Jennifer, you know drinking later. Oh, yeah, Yolo You only live once, you know drinking at school and and drinking when the dude was running in the in the In the gym or whatever in the workout facility. I'm just like stop. What are you doing? You acting crazy? I understand that you shook up, but I don't know. I just really wasn't feeling that now I'm glad her new newly found boyfriend was able to speak some sense into her You know, but other than that and then the thing at the did they get old circuit circuit delay Those are really the only things that annoy me. But something that I did like as well is a soundtrack They are dropping all these old-school R&B Jazz songs, I know I'm loving it all especially the very first episode where Pierce was in the bathroom I forgot the words to the song, but it really I do remember I do remember you just mention the words with the song and I'm just like man They are really doing it right here. You know, I'm loving all this Something else that I was really laughing at was when Pierce was at school and he came back and he was in his office in that other black Administrator or teacher or counselor came in. She's like, hey, you know How's everything? He's like everything fine. You know, he planted cool. It's okay. Well, how are you doing?  You know, but she fine. No, and I know like real quick I know Pierce is like I know but I like this like ma'am If we didn't work together at the school and out of hell I wasn't trying to get back with my ex-wife.  You know, I'm saying they look like they would be a good couple But he kind of already taken but I just kind of found that funny because like look he was like Wait a minute. What you're trying to say now, you know, maybe in the next life or something like that but you know But of course the main episode I want to say this for last was Luanda She was in the most pain You know, they had that scene at the very beginning time by understand, you know Why is it that black lighting to save your girls but didn't say nobody else? And it's like dang and you know, she was crying talking about her at the time she had her daughter What was the name of her daughter? I wrote it down Shaquandalin I think was a name Shaquandalin her name was Luanda and her daughter's name Shaquandalin You know, of course black not black lighting, but let's say this la la has her at the motel And she was like look, I understand everybody got a fight. They fight. They said they're gonna pray for me But nobody gonna fight with me. You know, she said that at the very beginning of the gymnasium.  No Luanda. You can't do that and and and um And pierce goals and like what are you doing?   But so but sit there and so it's just like I really liked it everybody What i'm really liking about this show other than this predominantly black Is that you see both sides on every argument like for real?  That's just too much stress I completely understand where she is coming from. You know what i'm saying? I do it sucks that she had to leave but I understand and it's just crazy They still have the love there and so when she was bringing that that point back to gambi in the shop The guy that makes his films uh, what's his name? james rima Right or uh rima. I like him a lot actually. He's a small time actor, but I like him a lot He was me. He was like she was like he was happy No, she was like, you know, you're addicted to the super. He was like, no, he's not addicted and she was like, yeah Uh He was addicted to you or whatever. That's why he quit made a valid point there And then she was like, yeah, but you know, he was happy being just the unnormal james pierce. He was like But he's not I mean jefferson pierce. He's like, but he's not just a normal Uh, he's not just a normal jefferson pierce. He's black lightning. He can't help it or whatever And you know another good point and she's like it looks like you're blaming me He was like, well, I'm probably am because he was saving city.  She made some valid points. He made some valid points Everybody's making some valid points. So it's like somewhere you got a couple miles So I'm just like wow I mean because I could be sitting there like why is that one character being stupid? Why are they not listening? Why are they not being rational and listening to reason? But that's not the case Uh pierce has a valid point for wanting to quit Land has a valid point for wanting to leave. Um, his younger daughter, uh, anisa has a valid point to why she's so uh political you know, uh Gamby has a valid point the cop here the detective has a valid point lawanda has a valid point everybody has valid points And it's just that's just that's just like good writing. That's just good conflict or whatever That's what gets me excited. It makes me want to come back for more and then we get the action at the end Uh, huh before I go there.  Yeah I got you. Like what do you expect for him to do? I know you upset. I know you are upset.  No and bam, bam, bam. He shot him the threat chest three times. Like God dang Cold blooded and I'm not trying to be funny and make no joke But I'm just like whoa, this is just another thing. I wasn't expecting like they just shot it bam, boom, boom It wasn't like offscreen. Let's show the little blood splash. I'm like, wow This show is real.  I am and then gonna walk through I like the action was cool and I liked out. I still don't like the suit But uh, I would have preferred it if he snuck into the building or something like that because you know the cops are gonna come you know, um So, I mean and the mask when he was talking to the people it wasn't it wasn't uh shaded or whatever So you can see his eyes, but earlier.  I loved all that he whooped people up the stairs Shocking people left and right and um, so that was cool You know the cops came but the last thing when uh, two binds came and killed Uh, la la let's say we send jail like I don't know how I feel about that I guess those are crooked cops, but couldn't you hire somebody to do that? I mean, I I would I kind of respect people that like to do things for themselves But I'm just like I don't know they just seem kind of iffy to me like, you know, you're gonna get caught or something I don't know. I mean, but I just feel he could have got somebody else to kill him But let's say this is out of there So now we got Tobias is the big bad villain and I was kind of wondering when they caught him on camera I'm like, well, what else can he do?  I got him caught red-handed But you know, he's dead now and you know, uh Tobias is really wanting to show but guys, you know, I just kind of ran through that whole thing I really did enjoy the episode. I love the soundtrack I love that it's all black because I can relate to all the characters There's so much to relate to within the show how it transfers over to the real world Everybody had interest in conflicts back and forth And that just kind of adds more depth to the show and I really can't wait to next Tuesday to where I can check it out again But guys, uh, what did you think about the episode season one episode two low-wanda the What's the name of the subtitle the book of hope? What did you think did you like it? Did you hate it? Did it turn you on did it turn you off? Do you agree with me or do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comment section below Let's get this conversation going and keep it flowing if you like this video go ahead and give me the thumbs up And if you don't that's fine. Leave a comment below why uh Subscribe to my channel go to my website. Check me out there And also guys, look me up on social media Facebook Instagram and Twitter are that good stuff It's right there the bottom of the screen and I made it very easy by providing a link to all that good stuff down below If you really want to help me, please like my facebook page But guys, I just want to thank you again for tuning in to my opinion slash review slash recap Of black lightning season the one episode two low-wanda the book of hope and before you go Don't forget that my name is brandy. Keep it for you. And that's just my opinion peace


Do you want to know the best platform for you to get started investing quickly and easily? Do you want to use just one single platform and invest across different parts of the world, be it US, Hong Kong, Singapore, or even China? Do you want to have a platform that will enable you to use options to accelerate your return? If your answer is yes, then keep on watching. Minnesot, this is Chloe, or Kylie, welcome back to my channel, the all-in-one place for you to learn about stocks, investing, as well as options. If it's the first time you're coming to my channel, remember to click the notification bell as well as subscribe button so that you will not miss out any of my future videos. An early thumbs up is also appreciated so that I can tell YouTube that you like this video and it will help to push out to more people so that more investors can learn to invest the right way. In this video, I'm going to demonstrate to you step by step how you can use Moomo platform to buy and sell shares, as well as how you can actually execute option trades in a very very safe manner. One thing I like about Moomo is the account opening is super fast, usually within 2-3 days, your account will be open as well as funded. The platform is also very easy to use and right now they actually give 180 days commission free trades for US, Hong Kong, as well as Singapore stock market. On top of that, if you open Moomo account under my link and fund 2700 SGD, which is about 2000 USD equivalent, you will even receive $200 stock coupon to buy shares for free. And we all know that the recent market is really volatile but with volatility, there is also opportunity. So if you sign up under my link below, I will even give you my own updated private watchlist and I've been using this watchlist to actually take some opportunities to invest during this volatile period of time. And in fact, some of the trades have actually already started making me pretty decent profits. To get my private watchlist, all you need to do is to open your account under my link below and fund $2700 into your account. After that, just fill up the Google form link below and I will send you my private watchlist to your inbox. Now, without further ado, let's go into the Moomo platform and navigate step by step how you can start investing in a very very safe manner. Now once you created your Moomo account, you just by following this link, then you will be actually received the login details to your mailbox. All you need to do next is to go to Google and search for Moomo desktop version because I want you to download the app itself into your desktop so it's much easier for you to trade as well. And of course, you can also download it into your mobile phone which is equally convenient. But in this video, I'm just going to focus on that app version.  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Now, the next thing you need to do is once you've funded, let's say, $2,700 Singapore Dollars inside, and if you want to actually buy US stocks and do US stock options, then you got to make sure you need to do currency conversion. So over here, you can see, just click currency and you can actually change your SGD into US dollar. So for example, let's say initially you have $2,700 because that is the amount that you will get to assess $200 stock coupon. All right. If you want that free money coming into your account, then make sure you fund $2,700. And once you do that, the system will actually help you to convert based on the latest market rate. And actually, Moomo does have a very, very attractive rate as compared to you converting the currency with your local bank. Now, the next thing we want to do is once we have the US dollar, we want to start buying stocks. And this is where I'm going to guide you step by step. The first thing I need to do is to go to quotes. I'm going to use Facebook as an example because Facebook is a brilliant business. And recently, the share price did drop a bit. And that's why I do feel that this is a very great opportunity to look into this brilliant business and buy it when the share price is actually at a good value right now. So all you need to do is once you enter Facebook under the ticker symbol, all right, and you can see that actually this is the all the data is related to Facebook. And right now, if I want to buy shares of Facebook, can you see over here, there's a trick button on the right? All you need to do is to click this. They will ask you how many shares you want to buy. Beautiful thing about investing US as you can start by just investing one share also doesn't matter. All I need to do is to click on the buy button and then this one more screen will actually pop up. All right. And you just have to make sure you do have enough money, which is $229.9 to execute this trade. And once you're okay with that, you just press confirm. So where can you actually find your orders? All you need to do is go to your trades. Okay. On your left hand side, there's a trade tab. And right now, can you see that under the order tab, this is where the order I just placed. And because the market is not open yet, when it's open and indeed when Facebook share price can drop until this level, then my trade will get filled. So right now, if you want to cancel your trade, if you want to change your mind, you can anytime do that without any consequence because the market is not open. So all you need to do, for example, if you want to cancel, this is where you just mouse over a little bit, you can click the cancel button. The second step is if you want to actually sell away your stocks, let's say you bought the stocks and you want to sell away, how can you do that? So you can see that right now I have five Facebook shares. All you do is do if I want to click trade. And I can actually choose to sell away because I have five stocks. I just click trade and I can choose to sell away my Facebook shares at the current stock price, which definitely I'm not going to do that because I really want to keep it long-term as well. Anyway, it really takes time for a company to appreciate it. So this is just to show you how you can sell away your shares. But this is definitely not what I'm going to do right now. Now, let me share with you the next step as if you want to do options or how are you going to execute your option trades? Now, all you need to do is go back to quotes.  And the second thing is, usually if your first time opening up, probably you will not see the tab I just saw, all you need to do is you can see that at the below there's a few tabs and just click options. Once you click options, you can see this option chain will pop up. And you can see that the put option is here and the call option is on your left. So for those who don't understand about options, then make sure you join my upcoming options foundation class. I'm going to teach you step by step about options and how you can actually use options to profit regardless of the market condition. But for those who understand options, this is how you can execute as well. Now, so for example, if I want to actually do strategy X, to profit exponentially from the Facebook stock price going up, all I can do is actually buy a call. So where can I buy a call under the call or column? And you can actually select the dates because at the end of the day, when it comes to options, there are many different dates, all you need to do is to click on the expiration date and select the dates that you want. So for example, I'm going to select the longest date. And then right now, under the share price, it's about $330. I will also want to initiate a buy call position somewhere near the current share price. So that's why I am also choosing $330. So all I need to do is over here, this is the region that I'm going to choose. You need to make sure you right click. And once you right click, these things will pop up. And all you need to do is to click on view detail quotes. All right, you click on this. And when you do that, basically just now it was buying Facebook share. Right now, it has actually changed to Facebook call option based on the strike price that we just selected and based on the expiration date that we just selected as well. So right now, all I need to do is under the trade tab, on your right-hand side, you will also see the small orange trade and you click it once and then these will actually pop up over here. So this is where you can confirm the trade that you want to initiate for your options strategy x buy call position. And doing options, you can always start from one. So make sure if you are a complete beginner, start from one. And this is the price that you need to invest in order to buy a call option right now, which is about $6,700.  And confirmation will also pop up and just need to click the confirm.  So firstly, how you can actually activate your coupon is actually under your account, under your account information. And because you are a new user, you will be able to actually find three coupons inside your account. Basically, it's 180 days free commissions. Be it you buy Hong Kong shares, US shares, as well as Singapore shares as well, which I think is pretty good. Make sure you go and activate it. If you want to enjoy commission free trades. So just now I explained about US. Actually, if you want to invest in other markets such as Hong Kong, it's the same concept as well. So for example, right now, if you think that Alibaba can be a very, very good opportunity to enter because it's a great business and the share price has beaten down so much, you can also use Moomoo to either buy shares or if you want to do options in the Hong Kong options market, it's also possible. So how can you do that? I'm just going to quickly demonstrate for you. All you need to do is once again, go back to quotes. And instead of searching DABA, which is the Baba stock ticker symbol in the US, you search for 9988, which is the Hong Kong ticker symbol. And you can see that basically all you need to do is to click it and you will be able to actually see Alibaba right now per Hong Kong share price at $155 Hong Kong dollar. And if you want to buy shares, you just need to click the trick button and immediately Moomoo will also tell you what is the minimum quantity in order to invest in Baba through the Hong Kong stock market. Because the difference between Hong Kong and US is Hong Kong, you need to minimally start with $500 depending on the stocks. However, for US, it's always one share. So that is the different barrier of entry. So Hong Kong is slightly harder to enter in my opinion. But once again, if you do have more than enough cash, I think it's really, really good for you to consider diversifying some of your portfolio inside the Hong Kong market as well by investing in great businesses of course. All right. So for example, right now, if I want to buy 100 shares of Baba, that will be the amount of Hong Kong dollar that I need. All right. So make sure if you want to initiate this trade, you need to convert your currency from your Singapore dollars to Hong Kong dollars as well. And then just click the buy button. All right. So for the options market, it's the same thing. You can see that right now under the option, this is the Baba stock option. And let's say if you want to sell a put option BOS strategy on Baba, then you can actually select the current share price, which is about 155. It's already like pretty no-brainer. And then if you want to do a sell-put position, all you need to do is right click and view detailed quote. You can actually see that you click the trade button and choose quantity one once again. And right now, if you sell one put option contract for Alibaba, actually you are getting in terms of premium $3,400 Hong Kong dollar. It's because whenever you do a one sell-put option in Baba, it's representing 500 shares. That means you need to promise to buy 500 shares of Alibaba at $155 per share. All right. And that's why you have to make sure you do have enough money to buy 500 shares of $155 Hong Kong dollar before you initiate this sell-put BOSS option strategy. All right. And in return, because you sell your promise, you will actually get to keep $3,400 in terms of Hong Kong dollar inside your account immediately once you click that sell button. All right. That's it. It's really simple to start investing using Moomoo. In fact, right now, like I mentioned earlier, the market is really giving you a lot of opportunities. Make sure you start taking action so that you can really start growing your wealth in a very, very safe and consistent manner. If you are not sure what to invest, then make sure you use my private portfolio watch list as a reference and start constructing your own portfolio. If you want to learn more about options and how you can use options to profit not just when the market going up, but going sideways as well as going down, then do join me in my upcoming free webinar where I'll be sharing with you how you can actually use options to profit consistently regardless of the market direction. All you need to do is to click on the link below and register for your spot. If you want more investment insights and updates, then do join me in my private telegram channel as well because I constantly update my investment insights over there. With that, happy investing and I will see you in the next video. Mada likes you. Bye bye.


Hey, this is Brett, and this 2017 Chevy Silverado 3500 Crew Cab Long Box High Country is stock number 12551Z. We're here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters. This 2017 Chevy Silverado 3500 has the 6.6-liter Duramax diesel with the L5P engine. It puts out 445 horsepower. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this truck is 100% ready to go. We're going to go inside, underneath, start it up, take a look under the hood in this video. Summit White is the color, and we shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. There's HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television. I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality, condition, and options of the vehicle before seeing it in person. And if you like the video on how we do things here at Summit Auto in the upper right-hand part of the screen, there's a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Click that, and then click the bell notifications. You'll get updates every time we do videos here at Summit Automotive of our new and used inventory. You might find your next truck just by watching those videos. So it comes with the polished aluminum rims. It has Bridgestone Duravis LT-235 80R17 tires. These tires look pretty new. I would say 80, 90% of the tread left on them. You can see the frame and underbody is in really nice shape. The fender is in excellent condition. Comes with the projector lamp headlamps, factory fog lights, front bumper parking sensors. No major dents or dings on that front bumper. Looks really good. I didn't see any rock chips either. You get the chrome trimmed grille. You get the true fully functional cowl induction hood. We'll show you how that works in just a little bit as well. Didn't see any dents or dings on that hood. It does come with the clearance lights or cab lights up top. Passenger side front fender looks really good. The passenger side front rim, no major scuffs or scrapes on there. As you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the truck, hear the truck and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video that was helpful and that Brett sent you. Very nice down that side. This back rim is in excellent shape as well. Very nice polished aluminum rims. Back tires have just about as much tread as the front tires and the frame and underbody is in really nice condition. You can see those box rails are absolutely perfect and it's like that all the way underneath. Has all the remaining factory exhaust so it hasn't been altered in any way and the cab corners all look really good on this truck. Comes with the factory chrome step bars. The dually tub is in excellent shape and you can see any dents or dings on there or chips or anything. Comes with a really nice retracts roll up tonneau cover. Coming around to the back, the rear bumper is absolutely perfect. Does have the backup parking sensors, rear bumper steps, full towing package as you imagine, receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring. The tailgate, the only area on the truck that I saw had anything wrong with it. It's got a couple little dings right there and then a couple little dings up there but other than that, kind of hard to even see. Really nice condition. The tonneau cover is in really nice condition. Has a shock down assist so it's never going to slam on you. This one comes with a gooseneck hitch and a spring and bed liner. Has seven pin wiring back here and you do get the bed lighting up there. There's one of those on each side for the most part. The bed is in excellent condition, I didn't see any major dents or damage back here. Tailgate shuts nice and solidly and as you go down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger's side, box looks absolutely perfect and for full disclosure, this back rim is in excellent shape as well. On the rest of the side of the truck, the doors look really good. Does have the telescopic tow mirrors. They have built in directional signals, LED side lights, they telescope out like so. They also fold in. Now I know there's a camera on the bottom here that doesn't do anything. They must have had an aftermarket system in this at one time but I know that this body style didn't have the 360 cameras so not really sure what's up with those cameras on there but they don't really do anything. You get high country stitched into the headrest of the seat here. You get the gray piping down the sides with the black leather. Both these seats are heated and cool. This is my favorite Chevy interior. Both these seats are power. It comes with a really nice set of Husky all-weather floor mats. Auto headlamps turned out four-wheel drive, factory brake controller, tilt and telescopic steering wheel. More windows power locks, power mirrors and memory driver seat. These mirrors do power fold in and out. I always like showing both sides so that you know that both sides are working properly so that function does work on this truck. You also get the high country kick plate there. That's pretty cool. We'll hop inside, take a look at the miles radio and everything that this truck has to offer on the interior. You can see that this one has 56,681 miles. You do get a compass display and it also comes with a digital speedometer on there as well, which we'll check out in a second. Has the heated leather wrap steering wheel, Bluetooth and information center controls on the right, cruise controls on the left, forward collision morning controls and heated steering wheel on the left as well. This one comes with the Allison six speed automatic heavy-duty transmission with the optional tap shift. This one has the Chevy MyLink radio, AM, FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities on here. Also has the factory navigation system. You can see it has AM, FM and Sirius there, does have a CD player. This is also where your backup camera shows up. Heated and cooled seat buttons, dual climate controls, power pedals, stability control that's for your cargo lamps on your LED side lights as well as your cargo bed lighting, LED bed lighting and cargo lights. Parking sensors can turn those off and on, lane departure warning and your factory exhaust brake. It has two USB jacks, two 12 volt power points and then a 110 volt, 150 watt plug-in. Other side floor mat and seat are in excellent condition, no rips or tears on there, smells very clean inside this truck. Headliner is in nice shape and it does come with the power sunroof right there. You can map lights up here, home link buttons for your garage door security systems and lane systems and your power sliding rear window and sunroof controls on star and SOS buttons in the rear view mirror. It does have the wireless cell phone charge pad right there. We'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we'll start it up and take a look under the hood. Back seats are just as clean as the front seats, no rips or tears back here. It does come with the latch child safety system, front and child car seats you may have. Power sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost, once again that gray piping on there really looks good. These seats fold up, four extra storage you can see the formats and carpeting are in really nice shape back here. Bottoms of the doors all look really good, there are those LED side lights I was telling you about, they're super bright, light up the whole side of the truck and we'll start it up and take a quick look under the hood. Starts right up, there's your digital speedometer, no check engine lights or anything like that. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck all the way around inside and out. And once again under the hood we have the 6.6 liter Duramax diesel with the L5P engine. Engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth. Once again this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go. There's your emission sticker, you can see there's your air intake and that goes right from that cobalt hood into that. And this truck is 100% ready to go. I would highly recommend this truck for make quality and condition standpoint and to see more pictures of this truck or one of other 450 new and used cars, trucks, STVs, minivans, wranglers, halftones, three-quarter tons, one tons. If you name it we got to go to that website right there at www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at www.summitauto.com and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to www.youtube.com slash www.summitauto.com. Remember to like, subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there click the bell notifications you'll get updates every time we do videos here at Summit Auto. In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel, the upper left link to more Chevy 3500 truck videos like this one, the upper right link to this vehicle on our website and the lower left link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right. Click those, check us out and we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2017 Chevy Silverado 3500 crew cab, long box, duale, high country and Summit white clear coat with the Duramax diesel. Thanks for checking out the video. Remember to like, subscribe and share.