Well, good morning and can I welcome everyone to the 13th meeting of 2014 of the Public Audit Committee. Can I welcome the auditor general, Gordon Smaill, and Angela Cullen from Audit Scotland. Item 1, can we agree to take item 5 in private? Great, thank you. Item 2, we have a section 23 report that Scotland's public finances follow upon it, Progress in meeting the challenges. can I invite the Audifacery General to brief the committee? Y report I'm bringing before the committee today is the third in a series of reports on Scotland's public finances, and it's a follow-up of our 2011 report, which was focused on addressing the challenges. The report provides a high-level update on the financial position of the public sector since then, and comments on how bodies right across the public sector are meeting the challenges of reduced public spending. The report is aimed at public bodies, ogym Republicanfulls,ıyorum combinations Nerdness and Central Government bodies on areas of important issues for those involved in scrutinising public finances, including non-executive directors, chief executives and other board members. The challenges of increasing demand and cost pressures have been evident for some time now, and I've been a constant theme in reports brought before this committee in recent years. Almost three years on from our last update, finances remain tight ac ynllunio bod y digwydd gwestallol oedd leidio byd speech o syfrnod mlynedd agor.  O'r 2013, rhai cyflym 67 bod eich bod ydw i fwy o fwy o'r cyflym yn rhoi cwmwy o'r bod y digwydd i ddweud eu bydd eich gweithio. My report provides a high-level summary of the main themes coming from this work and identifies what more needs to be done. It provides the context for the sector-specific checklist we've published alongside the report, which are aimed at supporting awareness and improvement. The report emphasises the importance of focusing on priorities when setting budgets, of long-term financial planning and of the key role of non-exec directors in ensuring that bodies are well positioned to deliver quality services for less money. Since 2009-10, the Scottish Departmental Expenditure Limit Budget has fallen 9% in real terms to just under £29 billion in 2014-15. Public bodies have coped well so far with these reductions, mainly through reducing staff costs, but with further reductions expected, measures like that aren't sustainable and public bodies face increasingly difficult choices in reducing spending while maintaining quality and meeting rising demand. To help manage these challenges, public bodies need to focus more on their priorities when they're setting their budgets, making clearer connections between what they plan to spend and the outcomes they're trying to achieve. Rigorous use of options appraisal, based on good information, is required for effective budget-related decisions and for making those decisions clear and understood to the communities that public bodies serve. We found there's limited evidence of longer-term financial planning. Although funding allocations from the Scottish Government typically cover one to three-year spending review periods, this shouldn't prevent public bodies from assessing their spending needs and options over a longer term, and more work is needed to develop and regularly review those longer-term financial strategies, which reflect priorities, risks, and liabilities, and their implications for affordability. My report also emphasises the crucial role played by non-executive directors in ensuring public bodies are well positioned to deliver quality services with less money. This involves approving budgets and holding people to account for how the money is spent and what outcomes are achieved. We found that public bodies do need to improve the quality of the information provided to non-executive directors and others involved in scrutiny to help them in this role. Finally, convener, the report makes three recommendations aimed at helping public bodies to plan more effectively to deal with the challenges. First of all, we think that public bodies should implement an approach to budgeting that focuses on priorities and links their spending plans more closely to the outcomes they want to achieve. Secondly, public bodies need to develop a longer-term approach to financial planning that takes account of the risks and liabilities they face and provides assurances about long-term affordability. Thirdly, they need to improve the information provided to support the scrutiny and challenge of spending decisions. Effective scrutiny requires information that's reliable, relevant and timely. We've published sector-specific checklists that are aimed at non-executive directors to help promote good practice and scrutiny when setting the 2015-16 budgets and beyond. The checklists are designed to help non-exec directors with their important role in budget setting and in overseeing financial plans and financial performance. They can also provide a basis for discussion in public bodies on budget setting, long-term financial planning and the information that's needed to support effective scrutiny of the public finances. Convener, as always, my colleagues and I will be happy to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you for that. Can I refer you to paragraph 24 in your report? You say that funding for central government bodies will increase in 2015-16. Will local government see an increase in that year as well? In the previous couple of paragraphs in 22 and 23, we talked about health and local government. In paragraph 23, local government budget from the government is due to decrease by 1% in 2015-16 as the health service. Central government bodies will see an increase, but local government which delivers the services will actually see a decrease. Is that right? That's right. What we see here is more pressure on those that are actually delivering the services in some respect than on those who are planning and co-ordinating at a central government level. Now, I don't know about other members, but I certainly know in my area that the councils really, two councils are struggling to maintain services at the current level, and I'm not sure how much longer that can go on without starting to impact on quality. Can I just break in briefly there to say it's slightly more complicated than that because of the fact that not all central government bodies are bodies that aren't providing front-line services. For example, Police Scotland and the SPA, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service are now classed as central government bodies, so there are bodies providing those front-line services. The bodies for which central government has responsibility will see an increase. That's the breakdown of the 2015-16 budget proposal. The local government will actually see a decrease. You also say that in the key messages paragraph 1, the Scottish budget has fallen 9% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2014-15. What has been, what is the figure for local government? Gordon may be able to put his finger on that figure. I'm sorry to put you on the spot. I don't think I've got that figure with me. We have published those figures before, convener, particularly in the Accounts Commission's local government overview report, so we can brief you on that after meeting if that would help. Okay, thank you. It's interesting area because a few touches on one of the, the convener touches on one of the areas about, there's three big spending departments, obviously, there's local government, central government and health, and that's how you support them between these three in terms of the overall expenditure. In terms of what's happened before, you may not have the figures available, but again, could you update us if you don't? In terms of what the reductions have previously been to central government departments compared with what has been previously happening to local government, because that then gives us a fuller picture if that would be reasonable. I'm not sure you've got it available today. I think we have published it before in the previous reports to which this is a successive, but Gordon can give you more detail about that. Basically, we don't have the information. The point of this report and to give these figures was to give an overall context for how things are without getting into the detail, but we've certainly got that available and we can get it to the committee. And also in terms of the, in paragraph 24, the overall DEL budget for this group of bodies will increase by £147 million. I think it's true also to say that in that £147 million, £92 million will be for housing supply and £16 million for pensioners, for police and fire fighters pensions. So the pension's bit's almost inescapable, but obviously there's been a decision taken to put extra money into housing in that regard. Say Mr Crawford, that's what paragraph 24 sets out. I think when I read the report, I was actually looking for a report on progress in meeting the challenges. Although there's plenty of advice, I think like the convener and Mr Crawford, I didn't actually get the sort of information that I was looking at which public bodies were meeting the challenges or which public bodies should be concerned about. So if I could just ask three fairly straightforward questions. First of all, the loss of 26,000 staff, but 10,000 staff went to allios. I know that, obviously, when you're with an arms length external organisation, we don't have any responsibility for the service. But is there anything more that you can tell us about the 10,000 staff that went there? Was it mainly providing local authority services, do you feel that the local authority is ensuring good value for money and an effective and competent appropriate public service with allios? Is there some check and balance you have there? I'll ask Gordon in a moment. There's no information about it. To answer the specifics on allios, it's an area that's been of interest to the committee over a long period. You're right that the report doesn't focus on individual bodies. We tend to do that through either the sector-specific reports on the NHS that you see every year, or the reports on local government that the Accounts Commission publishes, which you're being briefed on in a couple of weeks' time. What we try to do here is to step back and look at the bigger picture, and we hope that is of value to the public bodies. Gordon, could you pick up the allios question, please? I think it's worthwhile, as Caroline's saying, when we're painting the context for public finances, we refer to the staff reductions because there are other references through the report. In terms of the specific question of the 10,000, the vast majority of these people will be involved in council-related services, such as home care for older people. The other big area, of course, is the leisure trust that has been set up to deliver leisure services by councils. People are still involved in public services in that way, but through a different delivery model. The committee has had an interest before. We're coming back in a couple of weeks with a little Government overview report, and it was in quite a lot of detail. There are some very important issues in there in terms of governance, and how councils ensure that not only the money they provide to allios is used properly, but they also get value for money from that money. Our view would be, regardless of how that public pound is spent, that there is value for money and that the money is used properly. A paper is coming back to this committee with further details on allios. The Accounts Commission does an annual overview report, and in two weeks' time we'll be here to give you a briefing on that report. In the background, Audit Scotland is doing some further work in allios. There's a lot of interest from yourselves and other interested parties in allios, because it's become such a large part of the local government landscape in recent years, and there are a whole number of issues and concerns that people have. The allios themselves, of course, are operating in quite a demanding financial context themselves, and in terms of councils funding of these, it's important that we keep an eye on that particular landscape. Very sorry, just before you move on. Can I ask you, you referred to home care services, and also leisure services. I know in a number of authorities leisure services were put into allios because there were tax benefits, particularly in relation to VAT. Is that the case with the home care services as well? I don't know off the top of my head. Certainly, there's a whole range of factors that will be taken into account. This is one of the areas that we're looking at. It's a decision making process that councils, when they're looking at the options available, the options appraisal is an important part of budget setting and decisions in our services that are delivered, and the whole range of things to do with VAT, non-domestic rates, but also to do with terms and conditions of employment and how assets have been used. There's a whole panoply of things taken into account in that decision to make sure that the right decisions are made for services and the people who use the services. My second question really relates to Exhibit 2 on page 13. In this committee in the past, we did get figures on the backlog maintenance requirement for the NHS, and I appreciate that it falls into several categories. High priority, low priority, and high priority, but you've given a figure here of £8.5 million, £8 million. I think that the last time it was over £1 billion, but it would be helpful. That figure doesn't really mean a lot, unless it's saying that this hospital is at the stage that there are health and safety issues, this is high priority. Convener, I would find it helpful to get a little bit more background if you had it. My second figure is probably one that I was not familiar with. You've given Scotland's local roads need repairs. A third of Scotland's local roads need repairs. Six per cent of those are categorised as high priority. Is there a figure for six per cent that six per cent doesn't really mean anything to me? What are we talking about in money terms? If it's a high priority, I am aware that figures came out recently that motorists have been paid compensation from local authorities due to the potholes, etc. It would seem to me rather than paying compensation, it would be better to invest the money in the roads. Is there a figure for that? There are up-to-date figures on both of those, Ms Scanlon. They are here for context to give an indication of the scale of the pressures facing the public finances as a whole. On the NHS maintenance backlog, you'll be seeing the updated figures in our report on the NHS financial performance due to be published in October, which will contain the usual detail by health board and by category of need. On the roads maintenance, the Accounts Commission published a report probably 12 months ago, I think, which did include the same sort of level of detail and very much made the point about the importance of investing now to avoid expenditure, both on negligence claims and injury claims, but also on higher costs to put the roads back in the state that they need to be in in future if they continue to deteriorate. What does 6 per cent equate to in terms of a budget required to meet this high priority local road maintenance? How many millions is 6 per cent? We can come back to you with that figure. It was published in the report on roads maintenance and we can come back to you after the meeting with that. I think that I'll just leave it there. Thank you. Colin Beattie. Thank you, Janet. Firstly, I welcome the comment from the Auditor General in paragraph 1 that public bodies have coped well with budget reductions and have maintained services during what is a very challenging period, and that is to their credit. I wanted to look at a couple of things. One is on page 13, Exhibit 2 under financial. There's a comment at the bottom of that particular paragraph, but this is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term. Is that an estimate by Audit Scotland, or is it based on feedback from, presumably this information came from local auditors and so on? I think it's both, Mr Beattie. What our auditors have done is to look at the approaches being taken by the 67 bodies we've looked at in detail here and then applied our own judgement to it. That is that pay freezes and recruitment freezes can be an important way of meeting the short term shift in funding that was available, but over time you're going to end up with perhaps not enough staff to provide services, staff in the wrong jobs, because you don't control where vacancies arise and therefore where you're freezing recruitment and public sector salaries can't be frozen relative to private sector salaries indefinitely. We've been through it a number of years of pay freezes now. We're seeing recruitment challenges in a number of particular professions and I suspect they will need to be an adjustment so the pay free simply isn't sustainable. That's our audit judgement based on the evidence available to us about the costs of public sector pay. OK. I'd like to move on to the question of budgeting. You've made comments, for example, in Pargas 34, 35, you're encouraging local authorities and local bodies to have budgets covering a 5-10 year period and again on the previous page in Pargas 31 you're talking about priority based approach to budgeting. Is there not a danger in that? If you look at Pargas 25, there's no indications beyond 2015-16 what might be the allocation of Scotland's budget. Therefore the Scottish budget, the Scottish government can't really give any steer as to what sort of budget is going to come in that period. So if local government use a priority based approach, they could easily end up making assumptions that might be quite dangerous into the future because there might not be the funding there to meet what they consider their priorities are. Is it not a case that we're in a situation where short term rolling budgets are really the order of the day because there isn't an alternative, however desirable a long term budget might be? I think it's certainly the case where ahead you do your financial planning the more uncertainty there is. There's no question about that. The Scottish government only knows its own allocations up to the financial year 2015-16. There are forecasts out there from different sources more or less official which are contested as we all know. But I don't think that's a reason for not looking at what the possible scenarios are and what options might be open to public bodies from the government outwards for managing their services and the background of the outcomes that they have committed themselves to achieving. Clearly there are particular challenges at the moment given the constitutional question that's open just now and the different proposals that are on the table from different parties in that. That uncertainty is another layer of difficulty in doing it. But in our view in some ways it makes it all the more important to be thinking about the big challenges we face with an ageing population with the challenges of providing health and social care to older people of making a step change in the environment for children growing up in Scotland through the early years' priorities to really think about how the finances could be used differently as we say in here by looking at options for achieving the outcomes rather than just providing the services that would help us to get the best for the public money that is available. I also think it can be a very useful vehicle for engaging the public in different ways in those debates about the choices that will need to be made and the sort of public services we want to support Scotland after September whatever the outcome of the referendum vote is. Because again in paragraph 38 you're talking about scenario planning as part of long-term financial strategies and that means making all sorts of different assumptions about possible income. There are a multiplicity of choices and at the end of the day if you've got a multiplicity of choices are you actually going to base your future on? I think the bodies that do this well pick a limited number of scenarios based on both the amount of money they expect to have available to spend and features in the environment like the change in the population the commitments that might be made for particular policy areas and then work through a range of what might happen in each of those scenarios where the range of uncertainty gets bigger as time gets further out. Now they're not the same as setting budgets but they are useful ways of informing this year's budget setting and making sure the decisions being taken now don't make it more difficult to do what's required in the longer term rather than paving the way for the sorts of changes that are likely to be needed. I'm just a little bit concerned that the number of options you're opening up to councils in that here. I mean you're talking about zero-based budgeting you're talking about priority-based budgeting you're talking about scenario planning all-based there's some things that you've touched on there that can be validly quantified you can say that there's going to be a population increase because of XYZ you can say that the number of elderly people are going to increase therefore there's going to be pressures on that part of the budget but the big uncertainty is the central budget nobody knows what that's going to be except that it's seems to be getting cut every year and there's the prospect that might continue beyond the next general election and you know I just wonder the validity of a long-term financial strategy based on such a big uncertainty as to the major part of the funding. I think I'd say two things Mr Beattie that the first is that we're not promoting any single tool here we're saying that budgeting should be linked to priorities and outcomes we're not promoting zero-based budgeting or any of the other more formal approaches that have been piloted and promoted over the years it's really much more saying if this is what you want to achieve how would you allocate your money to best increase your chances of achieving that and secondly we fully recognise all of the uncertainty that exists in the public finances and especially in Scotland at the moment but in our view the benefits of doing some of that longer-term planning while recognising that uncertainty is the risk of simply saying it's all too hard and we can't think about it at this stage there has to be that recognition of the uncertainty and of a number of possible scenarios for the future but the process of thinking about what that might mean for public services in an individual body and across the range of public bodies in Scotland we think would have some real benefits Is there not a danger that perhaps the local body might do a long-term plan which takes into account their priorities and the perceived changes within their community and so on and make an assumption that the money might be there to meet it I think we wouldn't see that as being good long-term financial planning there are, as I've said, some forecasts that are available heading up to 2018-19 at the moment it is possible to do the planning on the basis of demographic changes further into the future than that and those forecasts almost certainly won't be right but they really do help to inform the process of making decisions now about where to invest and where to spend I think it's a difficult subject at the moment Thank you Can I just ask about your expression and the key messages about there is limited evidence of long-term financial planning What is that limited evidence, auditor general? Are you able to draw that out for the committee? Yes, maybe to give you one example that we've reported on here before is that long-term financial planning in the health service at the moment all of the health boards are required to have medium-term financial plans which are generally looking three years out when we've looked at them in detail we've found that most of those plans are only detailed for the first year forward and they become much more high level after that and then from three years onwards there's really not very much that's publicly available and auditors haven't seen very much evidence of robust planning with the sorts of challenges that Mr Beattie has been describing going out from there And that broad example would be the case right across the public sector I'll ask Gordon to talk a bit more about the nuance of what we've found across these 67 bodies if I may I think that's the overall picture there's just limited evidence I think going back to the previous question as well I think the fact that some organisations are making headway in this is enough confidence that it can be done albeit taking a number of factors into account it's limited evidence of that longer term planning beyond the kind of five to ten year timescale Auditor General you said quite intriguingly earlier on that the constitutional question was part of that uncertainty I'm not sure there's much I can say that's not very present to all of you as elected representatives here but we know first of all that the Scotland Act will bring more variability in Scotland's public finances with the tax raising powers so that the referendum question would give more flexibility again both on tax and spend and potentially economic measures and we're now seeing a range of other proposals coming through from the other parties which would all have effects on both the spending and the income side of the equation none of us knows what the effect of that will be so you can hardly blame you can hardly blame quangos in the public sector for being pretty cautious at the moment till this thing in September's decided I think caution is entirely appropriate that all of these long-term financial plans should be in the public domain but the process of doing the planning I think does have a real value and can help to engage the public in some of the difficult choices we face about not just meeting the financial challenges but also producing better public services that may involve losses for some people of services that they value a Scottish quangoboss last week he said there was no financial planning going on in his organisation because he didn't know but he can hardly blame him for it it's just the reality of that argument I'm not going to name him because that will be him out of a job tomorrow if I do but that's the reality for the state at the moment I would disagree that no financial planning can happen it seems to me that the things that we're seeing likely to see over the next few years are moving within a range of possibilities as we've discussed but the basic services that most public bodies provide will continue to be needed the challenges that face them will continue what ever happens and I think there is value in the process of thinking now about what the scenarios might be and what options there are for meeting but there's very little evidence that's happening from your own evidence I wanted to ask two specific questions the first is on the first bullet point in paragraph 3 of the report at the end in which orders of Scotland state vacancy rates for NHS staff were increasing and boards were spending more on agency staff and on private sector providers I personally know that's true but I just wonder if there's any detail that if not today you could provide for the committee because that's quite a significant finding that orders of Scotland have pointed to there We have reported on staffing levels, vacancy rates and other staffing factors in the NHS previously in our annual report on the NHS financial performance the next report in that series is due for publication in October and we'll provide again an update on the latest position I'm grateful for that does that bullet point point to an increase in use of private sector providers because that's how I read that sentence It reflects what was published in the report on NHS financial performance last autumn it's not an update on that it's been in the process of collating the most up-to-date information That's fine and the other one I wanted to ask 20 in relation to the non-profit distribution model again in the second bullet point here it states their effect is to create longer-term financial commitments and to reduce flexibility in how future revenue budgets can be used just in terms of Mr Smith's answer earlier on, will when the council commission report to us in a couple of weeks time will they pick up that particular point in respect of that finding that was quoted I don't think it will be very much more detailed but the point still stands this is the point about having made decisions and it ties back to the previous conversation longer-term planning the implications of taking decisions today looking into budgets and flexibility so the basic point is reflected in we won't be including any more details but when we drill down into the local government side of things in the overview there is reference in there to the implications for council budgets no, that's very fair specifically there on the hubco model which I've seen in my own local authority area there's a huge commitment being now put on local government under this model this is the new name for something that's been going on for a long time when are we going to see some figures on that and actually how much profit some of these organisations have been made because I've seen the management fees that are being levied now on local government for these services your report from the reports we produced last autumn is developing financial reporting in Scotland and infrastructure investment that question of both the transparency of the revenue consequences of capital investment and the understanding of the financial sustainability are high priorities that we've recommended both government and public bodies should be focusing on you'll get updates on that in various ways but part of it will be included in our follow-up report on developing financial reporting later this year it's worth saying I think that before financing capital investment through revenue methods is entirely appropriate in some instances we all do it when we buy a house on a mortgage but the questions of transparency and affordability, sustainability are both the important things that should pass I totally agree with the principle of that it's just that transparency doesn't exist at the moment I find out more on this from talking to my local authority than I do from Parliament I just don't get answers on this in Parliament so when exactly will we get this transparency on the follow-up that we're due to publish on the Scottish Government's financial reporting for the public sector as a whole is due before the end of this calendar year the local government aspects of that will come through the Accounts Commission's work programme in the future Can I ask a supplement? Just before you do call it can I just ask on this the non-profit distribution model which was mentioned was the typical length of contractor project that money will be paid to the private developer I think there's a good deal of variation between different projects and different types of project they tend to be long-term commitments because that's how you get the investment and the affordability in I don't want to make generalisations about it but you will be seeing more in our reporting on investments But you're saying typically longer term what you're talking about it can be 10 years it can be 10 years through to 25 or 30 in some cases and that variation can be entirely appropriate and the way that that works is the project is built and for the next 25 to 30 years money will be paid to the private developer to run and maintain the facilities, is that correct? In broad terms yes in practice the details vary by projects most of them now I think are focusing mainly on construction rather than on maintenance and service the way some of the earlier arrangements, the earlier contracts were It seems pretty familiar the way that you're describing it Colin It's just a bit of clarification on the one of Tavish Scott's questions in terms of agency staff within the NHS would that not be correct in saying that the report said it was within the overall budget it was a very very low figure in terms of the amount spent compared to other areas in the UK I genuinely don't recall what we said about comparisons with the rest of the UK and given how sensitive this is at the moment I don't want to risk misleading the committee we can certainly report back to you with the figures we had in our last NHS financial performance report including any comparisons that we may have included I'm thinking in terms of the overall budget it's not huge amount of money considering the NHS and Scotland spends The spend on agency staff isn't a large proportion of the total budget or the staffing budget the reason we focus on it is that agency staff particularly can bring risk to patient safety to the quality of care if the agency staff aren't properly familiar with the surroundings they're working in with the hospitals processes for patient quality and safety and they're generally recognised as being a less satisfactory alternative to bank staff or permanent staff A number of areas I had the question the first is efficiency savings Previously when we've talked about this issue efficiency savings have been a mechanism used by local government and others to address the cuts of budget it's not really addressed in your report not been happening or not successful we can't measure it or why No it's because I think as Gordon said earlier what we're trying to do here is something slightly different which is to look at the underlying preparedness progress that public bodies are making in meeting what looks as though in any circumstances will be continuing pressure on the public finances and a lot of efficiency savings have been made some of the savings on staffing will fall into that category but in our view they're not going to be sustainable for the long term if we're going to maintain public services of the level that the Scottish government's committed to and to meet the challenges we know are coming with an ageing population and the other pressures we've referred to so our focus is a bit different in this report So you're suggesting that should efficiency savings still be at the heart of public bodies preparations as it were they're obviously still very important and I think every public body should be doing what it can to identify where it can maintain the same level of service for less money or generally make better use of the money it's spending certainly Audit Scotland's doing that and many public bodies are doing it and we think that that's not sufficient on its own there's that real need to be looking more fundamentally at what outcomes public bodies are trying to achieve what resources are likely to be available and to do the longer term financial planning about how to square that circle in the longer term but yes efficiency savings are still part of the mix but just not enough in our view It strikes me that most of the savings you seem to identify most of the savings seem to come from either reductions in staff or restrictions on pay first of all is that fair and secondly in paragraph 3 you do flag up in colleges there's a 11% reduction in revenue and colleges aim to reduce staff numbers and paragraph 4 public bodies will likely to need to make further workforce changes so are we going to expect further cuts in public sector workforce I think that's a very difficult question to answer we have focused on the workforce here and in the previous work on workforce planning because staffing accounts for such a large part of public sector budgets there's no question about that and they're central to thinking about changing the way services are provided we have collectively produced work in the past on things like procurement the accounts commission is doing some work on that at the moment the work on roads maintenance looked at the scope for getting savings out of the spend that we do on roads maintenance so we're not ignoring those but staffing being such a large part of the budget and such a key part of the way public services are provided I think has been and will continue to be a focus for being able to rethink the way public services are provided to achieve the outcomes that are at the heart of government's national performance framework you've identified 26,000 or more than 26,000 staff lost and 10,000 additionally transferred to allios would it not help to actually plan for the cuts are coming or I think the 26,600 includes the 10,000 transferred to allios first of all and yes absolutely I think at the heart of our recommendations here is that continuing to make short term annual cuts in budgets has been the focus so far but we really do need to be making those longer term financial plans recognising the uncertainty that Mr Beattie rightly highlighted but thinking about what the options are for achieving the outcomes and providing the services that are needed and that does mean a step back in the planning cycle and finally turn to an issue that raised by Mary Scanan and my colleagues as well as the Scottish Government's increasing reliance on PFI to defer costs there's an issue with the rising backlog of maintenance now I was reading back in 2011 the previous predecessor report and your predecessor as general he flagged up at the time he said talking about backlog of maintenance he said this is not just an accounting issue that we keep coming back to in effect what we are doing is using assets and depreciating their value and quite frankly some of them are getting past their usable condition we are simply passing the problem on to future generations it's an intergenerational transfer issue he gave some figures then he said in the past we've talked about a £2.25 billion to illuminate the defects on Scottish roads £1.4 billion to remove the backlog of maintenance and council owned assets and £500 million on the NHS estate in years so if the last of those £500 million on the NHS estate that's now risen to £858 million according to your figures so am I right in thinking that this backlog is rising are we tackling at all are we actually just storing up future generational problems I'll answer in general terms first before talking about the specific figures and Gordon and Angela may want to chip in on those in general terms one of the reasons why we focus on the need to invest in and maintain public sector assets as one of the pressures is precisely because of that perennial problem that when finances are tight it can be attractive to cut back on maintenance to keep front line services running and that can give you some short term breathing space but it's not a longer term solution we do need to make sure we're investing in the assets to make sure they remain fit for purpose and investing in new assets for new types of services you're talking later this morning about reshaping care for older people that may well mean less reliance on beds and acute hospitals and more reliance on either different types of assets or different types of services so again that need to be doing the longer term planning we think is very important I don't have the specific figures that you quoted there in front of me I do know that the NHS figures we report annually in the NHS financial performance report and I think the latest figures are showing us light reduction the accounts commission has been focusing on the roads maintenance budget and we may be able to give you some more information about those they tend to be based on periodic surveys though rather than information which is readily reported in the accounts and it's another reason why that transparency and clarity about what the need is we think is so important Gordon, would you like to add anything to that? I don't think so other than we've tried to bring in this report together and give that context for public finances and to use the most up to date public information available on the assets for example the maintenance backlog for NHS comes from a report on the annual state of NHS Scotland the assets and facilities for 2013 published in December 2013 so that's where that 858 figure comes from I said earlier we don't have the roads figure available but we'll be able to provide it based on the last survey that was carried out and drawing that information forward but I think it's worth reflecting on that overall context that's just one of a number of things that are really important in terms of going ahead and intergenerational issues about that but also about some of the other things that are intergenerational about decisions and not just about repairing them as well The figures I quoted came from the Auditor General in September 2011 giving evidence to this committee so it would be very useful to know particularly if the figures now are worse than they were then or better I think we'd want to know in overall picture whether the backlog across the public estate is deepening and because I think that it's something that all of us would wish to address Thank you very much Thank you Cymru Your report is a stark reminder of the challenges facing the public sector in Scotland 9% real-term reduction 910 to 1415 another 3.2 billion if the projection is correct from 1617 to 1819 and we've already discussed that understandably in these circumstances because staff costs make up usually about 75% is what the usual figure is in the public sector that however regrettable that was in the bitable area that had to be looked at we've heard from other members this morning about maintenance backlogs, public buildings roads at creation of allios there'll be grant reductions going on there'll be closure of different facilities and we have the public sector facing up to that challenge and your report is saying it pretty well What worries me is where do we go now in terms of the scale of reduction that's going to be required between now and 2018-19 if all of these areas which have already been in staffing you can go so far in staffing and eventually it's going to come to a situation where I imagine that organisations will need to decide we are no longer going to undertake a particular activity because otherwise you're always shaving, shaving, shaving so I just like a reflection on that where do you think where do organisations go next given the scale of the challenge and also if you could give me a view on what you think the Scottish Government's preventive approach, how it might be able to help address some of the challenges we're facing I think there are probably two aspects of that I'd pull out the first is that we try to say clearly in the report that really thinking quite rigorously about what are the priorities for each public body and for public services as a whole is key to helping to square that circle and making sure that we're making the right choices now for the longer term that we want to achieve and that may mean some tough choices about ceasing to provide some services rather than cutting them at the margins repeatedly thinking quite radically about different ways of having them provided perhaps linked to the community empowerment bill to community planning and other policy drivers that doesn't mean they're less tough but it does mean there's a wider range of options available the second approach I think is the second point I'd make is linked to the Government's outcomes approach and the national performance framework in broad terms I think that's a very positive move I think to focus on what you want to achieve rather than on public services as an end in themselves has to be a better way of guiding those long-term investment decisions but what we're seeing is that the financial planning that's happening in local public bodies isn't yet long-term enough to really help make the change that's needed in some areas and I think the classic example is around reshaping care for older people where we know that first of all practice varies a great deal across Scotland but that there are still a lot of older people who are receiving care which is both not as good as it should be for them and more expensive for them of the alternatives might be if there aren't good alternatives to admission to acute hospital that would help them stay at home living good rewarding independent lives for as long as they can so that question of really stepping back and looking as an individual body and with the partners you need to work with to think about that preventative approach in all of the areas where it's been a priority is what we think needs to be underpinned by the longer term financial planning you can't move away from reliance on hospital beds to a range of community based services overnight the health service probably can't do it on its own it needs to work with not just social care but housing, the voluntary sector and a range of others and to do that I think you do need to be thinking about what resources you're likely to have what the number of older people is likely to be what the pattern of care looks like in your area to be able to start investing now to make that bigger change over the years ahead Thank you and the local government I just wonder what you've been able to find out about where local government have been a bit more imaginative in terms of joint services with their neighbour authorities the potential for savings that could be delivered there rather than services being lost actually bringing services together that can give a scale that can help reduce costs but at the same time keep service levels up I know in my own area sterling where we've got them working quite closely with Clamp Manning in the social care area and that's working quite effectively on what I can see what experience have we seen from local authorities across Scotland to help drive that sort of change because unless if I was a local government manager now looking at the scale of cuts being suggested by the UK government up until 1819 I would be scratching my head and wondering where to go next so that might be one potential area in joint service agreements to drive change local government doesn't sit within my responsibility as Auditor General but Gordon is our expert on local government for the Accounts Commission so I'll ask him to pick it up if I may it's a big topic we could probably spend a long time talking about it but I'll just highlight a few things we've certainly been looking at the extent to which shared services has had an impact as a way of delivering services in different ways in creating efficiencies and I think over the years that we've brought story there about the large scale projects a lot of time and money been invested in them but actually not a lot of evidence of success arising from them and in fact I think quite often it's the smaller scale under the radar type of things councils working together that have probably had most success interestingly part of the commission's work at the moment is working with the Auditor General is in relation to community planning partnerships and there's some interesting things that we're identifying as part of these audits about the way in which particularly the local council and the NHS and colleges for example are looking at new ways of working I can think of a couple of examples off the top of my head where for example looking at new ways between the council and the local college where taking young people out of a school environment into a college environment is having a huge difference in terms of their overall attainment in their education and I think that's the benefit of that joined up approach where organisations are coming together looking at different ways of delivering services which are better outcomes for people and communities I think in terms of the prevention agenda is another example where more work has been done involving councils and the NHS and looking at in early years the types of ways they can work together to encourage young families to take a different approach to bringing children through in areas of health improvement for example so I think there are lots of examples happening I think the big set piece shared services things are not, I don't think we'd be convinced there's not all of evidence to suggest that that necessarily works but I think I would encourage looking more closely at the smaller scale things and particularly the things that are happening when the boundaries of community planning partners as they look to work together and in the context of this report we're looking to budgets are used locally looking at the overall money that's available in a community planning area rather than looking at individual budgets what's available to us I don't underestimate the challenges in achieving that and I think it's as well mentioning if we're talking about public money here but it's beyond that the resources elements beyond that how can the public sector in areas working together make better use of so I think there's a lot happening I think there's a long way to go but that's why we're encouraging this part of this process to link it all together looking more at outcomes and how partners can work together with a shared view of what the outcomes are for the area and then to take that almost like a leap of faith to start having a more arounder conversation about the resources available in the area for providing services in different ways that's useful, it seems to me though my experience has been that one of the key blockages to that level of change is actually being prepared to surrender budget line to another organisation or share it how do we get organisations to recognise that if we're going to get that level of step change that's required that actually we're going to have to surrender some of that budget line either to a new organisation which is jointly formed or a different organisation to deliver because that seems to be where the biggest blockages in terms of getting the partnership to actually work I think as Gordon said that's right at the heart of the work we've been doing on auditing community planning partnerships that we reported on that at the back end of last year and found that there's been lots of work on the processes and structures for community planning not much evidence so far of really as you say shifting where the money is spent who spends it, what it's spent on by focusing on the outcomes and there's something very important about first of all trust which we hope that sort of process and structures would have built work towards but then being much more transparent across the partners about what money is spent, what it currently achieves what the challenges are for the future here in this area we've got five more community planning partnership audits underway at the moment that we'll be reporting on at the back end of 2014 and we're hoping we'll have some evidence of where that's working but as you say it's a difficult thing for organisations to do and something that will be very important in this context given the continuing challenges do you want to add to that? Other than just to emphasise we recognise it's not easy to do I think it's been given quite a lot more leverage as well if we look at the agreement and joint working community planning and resourcing that COSLA and government signed back in September last year we certainly know from the community planning work that that is if you like in some ways forcing the issue locally but I wouldn't underestimate the challenges I think of the one that I was recently involved in you know you've got councils for example setting budgets on the basis of departmental and services whereas health boards may be working on the basis of geographic areas for example in Fort Valley so you know there's things but I think there's a there's an imperative now perhaps that wasn't there in the past I'd move to it quicker, I remember this is the convener when the pathfinder authorities for partnership were set up in the 1990s and at that stage it was recognised that that was the big challenge in terms of getting them to shift their budgets and not really not as much as improved or moved on as I would have liked sorry, can you just issue on capital from your report you tell us that we've seen a 29% reduction in capital 910 to 1415 and there are obvious consequences for the economy in regard to what we're able to spend in general construction of public buildings or public works but we don't have a projection as we have for the Dell budget and what might be coming by way of further reductions in capital is that available? Gordon, do you know what we have got? Can we check it and come back to you Mr Crawford I don't want to mislead you know that there are different levels of detail available for the different lengths of projection so we'll check that and come back to you if that would be helpful to you It's set in context alongside the Dell budget given the scale of reduction there can I just tiny smaller thing convener you don't mind going back to Colin Beatty's points about long term planning and using projections which you are very usefully provided to us if a local authority for instance was to take some of that projection and begin to build plans around it whilst I recognise fully that they've got to be involved in a longer term financial planning process I do have some concern that they start taking irrevocable decisions now based on projections of spend that they are not very sure are going to happen and may take decisions that reduce a service in a particular area that actually doesn't come to pass in the longer term so it's that balance I think that Colin was talking about without making a decision that's irrevocable early on that can cause significant harm further down the line I think the challenge is that there is no risk free option in this that there's clearly uncertainty no question about it whoever's forecast you believe and however long you're prepared to look at them whatever longer periods you focus on you talked about the risk of cutting services unnecessarily and there is a risk of that equally there's a risk of recruiting staff for investing in assets that will have longer term consequences making staff redundant as well as being very bad for the individuals affected does have a cost almost any investment in buildings and services will have things that are locked in for the long term so what we're focusing on is not pretending that there is certainty where there isn't but encouraging people to go through the process of thinking about what's most likely to happen what options they've got available in their own organisation and by thinking more widely with their partners the involuntary sector partners Thank you for your patience, Camila Mr Smail, you mentioned an example of good practice of school pupils getting into college where is that happening? It's in Falkirk we've published the Falkirk community planning audit report at the end of May so that's a public document and I think we highlight in there as an example of how partners working together to tackle problems or to look at new ways of doing things of work Okay, thank you Auditor General, you've told us or reminded us in your report that the Scottish budget has already been cut by about £3 billion to date and for me the key paragraph in your report is paragraph 25 that tells us if things stay the same after this thing in September that Davies Scott referred to Scotland can look forward to a further budget cut of potentially £3.2 billion is that correct, that figure? The figures that we have in here are extrapolating the OBR forecast 2018-19 into the Scottish budget for those three years, beyond 15-16 So if things stay the same after the thing in September you could be looking at a further £3.2 billion worth of cuts to the Scottish budget I mean that's pretty big writing in anybody's wall Would you expect public sector managers wherever they are in Scotland to be sitting in their hands talking about uncertainty giving a potential scenario like that and should be planning for that possible eventuality? I think the key words in your question were the words could be that the OBR forecasts are only that they're not descriptions of the future they're an investigation of the future we also know that over and above these figures there's the uncertainty we're referred to further about the outcome of the referendum and either independence or the potential for further devolution and we have the implementation of the Scotland Act starting next April that will give some tax-raising powers to the Parliament but in general terms I agree with you absolutely is that we think all public sector leaders and managers should be going through the process of thinking what might happen not just to the budget but also to demand for their services and different ways of meeting that demand and achieving the outcomes that we're committed to as a country Thanks for that. In terms of good practice around Scotland Bruce Crawford led us along that road to that discussion you've cited a couple of good examples I think Edinburgh and Fife work has been taking place and some savings have been achieved I can add to that convener from my own authority in East Ayrshire who have merged our road service department with South Ayrshire council and are hoping to save about 8 million pounds or so over a period of 10 years now we could argue convener that that could happen that work could have happened anyway or was it really driven by this cuts agenda but you could argue on either side of that but nevertheless it is taking place and it seems to be paying some early dividends for us in Ayrshire your checklist that you refer to in your report are you finding that local authorities are embracing that and using that to achieve these kinds of partnership relationships and these kinds of financial gains that we clearly have to make over the coming years? One of the great things about our work is that we do come across examples of good practice and real improvement all over the place in everything we do and we try to reflect that in our work we have made that move that you have heard to now producing more guidance, checklists and other things for all public bodies to use not just councils probably too early to say whether the ones that accompany this report are being used yet but our local auditors do follow that up and as part of our thinking in Audit Scotland about the future direction for public audit I think we are recognising the scope for us to do more to help people learn from the good practice that we identify so it is something we take very seriously Gordon may be able to tell you a bit more about the way previous checklists have been used and what we know about that We have published this report just last Thursday and the checklists were published alongside they are on our website if you want to look at them I think we had a long discussion internally about what should call these things checklists because in one hand we don't want people just simply to go round and say yes know that type of thing but we have put a wee bit of context in front of the checklists and what we are looking for is for councillors and non-executive directors to look to have that conversation within their organisation so it is not just about running down what is my responsibility but what is actually happening in the organisation so we are saying encouraging people in a key role in this to ask themselves these questions but also to the discussions internally and actually putting some onus as well on them to if they don't know the answers to go and find out to ask and if you look at the councill one for example we are again flagging the key role that the proper officer of finance of section 95 officer has in councils so trying to encourage that dialogue so it's not just about yes, no but what evidence do I have as somebody that's got a key role in this and where do I go to if I need more information and alongside that just the usual comments that we make which are absolutely vital in areas like this to look at the training that's available but I think again if I could take that stage further it's not just about the availability of the training it's the take-up as well because when we look at what's available there's quite a lot of information available quite a lot of training available but it's back to that amongst a very busy life that councillors and non-exec directors have to find time to take up that training so that they're better informed to ask the right questions in these areas at local councillor not too many years ago being part of the scrutiny process where Euro and staff were looking at local authority and that experience was a really enriching one for local councillors and officials to engage with but I'm always hoping that we'll see some kind of feedback to us at the committee through your reports of how local authorities are or are not adopting your recommendations that was always a comment here from one of your predecessors George Fuchs who always said the reports are great, what happens next and how do we get some feedback in the future about how your recommendations are being implemented so any future reports coming to us on this subject I would love to see your assessment of how local authorities are taking up your recommendations or not I'll take that back to the accounts commission Mr Coffey, I know they take it very seriously as well and we do follow up all of our audit recommendations through the local audit process we'll have a chat about how that can be made more transparent to you I'd just like to go back to the public sector workforce reduction I mean we talk about the figure being 26,000 and it's been accepted at 10,000 of that are people who've been transferred to allios but that not mean then that really the reduction in the workforce that deals with what was public sector tasks is really it's more like a four and a half percent cut than a seven percent cut understand why you have to report it as it is but should there not be something in there that kind of puts it in context because it suggests for example that there's been a seven percent cut in what force would deal with the issues that the local authority families deal with which in many cases has already been spoken about it's been spolting venues and the health venues and the home care which are still being dealt with they've just been dealt with part of the family is there some way that we can report that clearly? I think we have made that clear in paragraph 26 we've included both the 26,600 and the 10,000 within that of people who were transferred to allios of various sorts we also say in the final sentence that the final couple of sentences that they're still providing public services and there will likely be some cost to the public person doing that in different ways as this committee has focused on a number of times is that what happens in allios isn't as transparent as what happens in the rest of public services for a whole range of reasons there are likely to be different terms and conditions but also different ways of working and change over time from the point of transfer which we don't have good information on so we try to be as clear as we can about what's happened but there is less information available to us about what's happening in allios than in the public bodies that we audit directly that's a fair comment and I said earlier it's an area that we've got a close interest in and certainly the council commission overseas the local government work is a really keen interest in this challenging audit Scotland to look more closely at that and we're actually doing some work on that right as we speak actually I completely understand the difficulty you have in reporting it and the lack of transparency around about it I'd like to go on to another couple of small matters one has just been touched on about Wally Coffey and you talked about training for councillors in particular non-executive directors is that are there any best practice any council that are doing a particularly good job in making sure that the councillors that go on because like Wally I was previously a councillor like others I was previously a councillor and I know of councillors that that went on to committees but wouldn't really have had that full range of knowledge or experience that probably was appropriate for a scrutiny committee such as that so just that you'll be taking evidence from the Accounts Commission in a couple of weeks time on its local government overview report and one of their continuing interest has been exactly that question of what training is provided and what's taken up not just for financial management and scrutiny but for a whole range of other important parts of their role so if you're content I prefer to leave that for the commission to answer than to try and step in myself that makes sense and the last point I'd like to raise is you talk about in page 21 you talk about benchmarking and the importance of benchmarking and that's it's common across the Scottish public sector but for central government NHS bodies there were a few examples of measurable benefits derived from benchmarking activities but in local government you found that there were examples was there a particular reason for that and if there are other lessons that we can take from that that we could then extrapolate onto the bodies we're finding that more difficult I think there are two things that I'd say and then perhaps invite Angela to comment if she'd welcome doing that maybe Gordon the first is that we know that in local government COSLA and SOLIS have put a lot of effort into their benchmarking initiative after a number of years when the commission was saying much the same thing that there was lots of activity but not much evidence of it being used in practice and changing the way services are provided the commission sense I think is that that has really shifted the second point I'd make is that actually it can sometimes be difficult for councils and other public bodies to really demonstrate what has changed as a result of benchmarking even if there's lots of activity going on in a sense it's related to the question that Mr McIntosh asked earlier about efficiency savings that we're often told that people have achieved efficiencies but when you ask them to demonstrate how that's been done that sort of audit trail is not always as clear as we'd like it to be Gordon do you want to add to that on the local government front I don't think there's very much more to say I think what we are pleased to see is that the framework that Caroline mentioned there is up and running and is pretty much established and is being is there for councils to use I think our challenge is to start using that material more to use it in the context of what we're talking about today in budget settings as part of that overall information that's available to councillors in looking at budgets but also I think importantly we make quite a few references in here to options appraisal so that benchmarking information is part of that overall package of things that's available to elected members when they have to take these difficult decisions and look at the options that are being presented to them how are we comparing with other councils why is it that our unit costs for such and such a service may be higher or lower than a comparable authority so that phrase about a can opener or something that allows people to start asking informed questions about services, how good bad they are in terms of equality but also in relation to some of the inputs around costs and I think that's the real benefit so in summary it's about a framework that's here in local government but just starting to apply that more in both in budget setting and for that matter in scrutiny of what's actually achieved from public money ok, thank you, so what were you going to come in on? No, I've got nothing else to add to that. Just add then, I mean as the general you said that the local authorities as well as the others were struggling to highlight what benefits benchmarks gave them really, I mean how they can prove that although they say that the benchmarks are working but they can't really show the benefit of that if that's the case then what is the point of it? I think what I was trying to say is what it says in the middle of paragraph 48 about auditors not finding very much evidence of demonstrable benefits coming from the benchmarking I'd agree wholeheartedly with what Gordon said about the information being a really important tool both for the managers responsible for a service and for the councillors or the non executive directors responsible for overseeing their performance and for making the longer term decisions about where to spend public money. It's great information for saying why are we more expensive than the other councils or the other health boards in this area drilling down and saying is that because our costs are higher or because we're doing more of it thinking about what it might mean for doing things better in future. It's really powerful information what we're not seeing at the moment is good evidence of that audit trail that it's being used in that way to really produce measurable savings or improvements in quality. Can I just very quickly, I'll just take you back and ask then is why, I mean I accept that COSLA and SOILS have done a lot of work on it but why are the other departments not getting the same success as the local authority seem to be? I think the investment that local government made was significant and took a lot of time to get off the ground. I think you'll hear more about that from the Accounts Commission and I think people in local government involved and it would say that there was a real investment needed to start having that impact. We haven't seen the same focus in the other sectors although there is some limited benchmarking that has gone on for particular types of services, particularly central services. What we're focusing on here though is the way in which that benchmarking is actually being used to make real changes and improve efficiency or improve quality. Could I have anything to do with the size of the organisations? The local authorities are kind of smaller and more manageable than... I'm not sure that we've got any evidence to suggest that's the case. There clearly are some very big local authorities in Scotland as well as some very small ones and the same is true for health boards, for example, as the obvious comparator. OK, right. Thanks very much. Just a question was raised about the workforce. You've looked to the reductions in local authority workforce and you say that I think it was 10,000 staff were transferred across to Allios. Have you looked to how staffing levels in Allios have gone over the number of years because is there any guarantee that those who transferred across would still be employed or has there been reductions there as well? In terms of what we know at the moment we don't know that. As I was saying to another member of the committee earlier one of the challenges about Allios is that what's happening isn't as transparent as it is for public bodies. Angela can tell you more about the work we're currently doing on Allios and how far that might help to answer those questions. I remember when we brought the workforce report to the committee in December we had quite a lot of discussion around Allios and the 10,000 staff that had transferred to them. Of those, just over 9,000 had transferred from local government to Allios and the rest were from health and central government bodies into private sector providers still providing public services though and we made that point at the time. The work that we're doing just now on Allios the commission has asked the auditors of all 32 councils to gather some baseline information for this current year or the current audit year which is 13-14 and we want to know how many Allios exist because we don't even know that at the moment there are is growing. What they're like and what they do how much money they spend and what council's governance arrangements are for those Allios that will then give us some good information to inform the commission on what they want to do next and there may be a series of reports on Allios we may want to delve into them a bit deeper and look at that information. Information will be coming through over the summer and by the time we get to the end of the year we should be in a very good position to see what we're going to do next with that. Thank you very much for that. Thank you all for contributing to a very full discussion and it's clearly one to which we will return not least of which when we get the report from the Accounts Commission so thank you very much for that. Item 3 committee members have responses from HM Revenue and Customs the National Audit Office the Scottish Government and the Auditor General to the committee's report on the framework for auditing the Scottish rate of income tax do you have any comments questions? Colin? Just a sort of general comment that there's still an awful lot of gaps in this and on page 4 for example that second paragraph where it says details of the enforcement and compliance regime are being developed further by HMRC I think we need to come back to this because there's gaps here in the assurances that we're getting there's questions about how effective the involvement of Audit Scotland would be and how it could perhaps be made more effective I think there's still a lot of exploring to do to ensure that this committee is properly involved in the process I still see some gaps there we need to really come back I would think I don't know maybe in a year's time this is a couple of years off No, well you know that the NEO and HMRC first annual audit reports will be considered by the committee in mid 2015 and summer 2015 the first NEO report on the implementation of Scottish rate of income tax will be laid in the Scottish parliaments I think that will give us the opportunity to come back and consider in more detail if there's anything committee members want to do at the moment other than not Ken? No, it's a similar comment the it's really also just a question in the government's response which is all which is fine except that it's lacking in details it's really just to find out I don't understand whether or not we would get any of the detail before next year for example the very last on page 6 of Johnson and his reply there's a he responds this is about confirmation about use of the cash reserve including within the annual budget documents and he says principal of these recommendations will be accommodated and the practical arrangements we're doing so are currently being discussed it's things like that really want to know the practical arrangements are actually what we want to know we agree with the principal but it's whether or not we will get this before the report itself in summer 2015 so I thought we would have wanted to Can we ask if there's any can ask the Scottish government if there's any plans to provide more detail ahead of that and as the report suggests we will have the opportunity to come back to this next year the very first point which was our question was clarification of how the Scottish Government detends to assess the effects of compliance activities just my thought on that clearly it matters to them as much as it does to us but they're not going to do anything else other than just ask them monitor them and rely on the national audit office as far as I can see I don't mind clarifying that they're not commissioning any other work they're effectively relying on ongoing relations with the HMRC and between government officials yes except the not only the Scottish Government but ourselves will have the opportunity to look in more detail next year when the reports are laid you know it's part of those questions we can ask what ongoing work is being done but I think next year will be the key stage ahead of implementation in 2016 ok so with you know the further clarification to be sought from the Scottish Government can we agree to not that report ok thank you item 4 section 23 report accident and emergency performance we've got correspondence from both Scottish Government and Audit Scotland to the report any comments from committee members Tavis Scott Can I just ask a question about the future if I may on the willy coffee it's very fair observation about what we do to make sure these things come back and we properly assess them in the future there's a particular recommendation which Paul Gray in his correspondence deals with very sensibly and constructively on ensuring boards have access to benchmark information on staffing levels yesterday Health Improvement Scotland were called in Forest Hill for my part of the world that's a massive issue and I'm very pleased Health Improvement Scotland are going to be involved in that but what worried me most convened on that one it was staff directly approaching central government who then taken in my view a sensible decision to have that inquiry or have that report rather than it going through Grampian Health Board and as the Auditor General and others we hear in front of us all the time they're always on us about governance well clearly something went wrong there can I just ask convener within the future of course expecting this to be done today because this is a retrospective report but in the future we might see that kind of assessment coming back and Grampian Health Board being part of a case study which was properly assessed and at some stage that our committee may have a chance to look at that again after the event clearly once all these reports have been done sorry well it was actually on Paul Gray's response which I thought was very effective I thought it was pretty thorough and it certainly addressed many of the concerns the committee raised but I was also drawn to the benchmarking information in particular his commitment to working with NHS and Scottish Government to ensure relevant information is available so boards can make informed decision on staffing levels and skill mix in A&E and that was basically what we had at the weekend from Grampian so I just wondered convener if we could consider taking further oral evidence on this A given the concerns that have arisen over the weekend but also that Paul Gray has committed to bringing forward further data in September and I think given our timetable over the next few months if we were taking oral evidence it would potentially be about October anyway and that could fit in very well with our working pattern I think that would be helpful for information because it does tend to highlight the problems in Aberdeen I was actually I also thought it was a helpful response it was the reply on effective hospital discharge processes which I wasn't entirely sure about because he was saying he's agreed but then he was saying that they've already got we're saying all hospitals have discharged processes and then he talked about a new model so I wasn't quite sure what discharge process is then really we're asking well they've not been working so what's changed here so I just wanted to explore the question then would be do we know it or do we seek to invite further evidence I think it would be welcome I think it's October event Can we agree that we seek further evidence on this and can we agree to let the clerk come forward with some suggestions to us about witnesses I wonder I thought we were just going to take further evidence from Paul Gray I thought that's what we were talking about Well, you know, mention has been made Tavish Scott has made mention of Grampian so I think it would be useful if we could find out what is going on there and there may be other areas as well as Paul Gray making a contribution I think we need to find out the front line I'm not asking to helpful to James I'm not asking for us to do work prior to the Health Improvement Scotland report because that's clearly the right way for that to proceed tonight but what I answered from the statement by Grampian Health Board yesterday is that's due to finish this summer anyway to be done this summer for obvious reasons so I think if we were looking at October that would seem entirely sensible I agree that we should have further evidence taken on this, I think it's right that we can get an update on where we currently are there are two issues really going on here the overall issue about accident emergency which obviously Paul Gray would be very useful to come along and speak to us about where we've reached at that stage and there's quite rightly Tavish's issue specifically around Grampian I just wonder should we treat these as two different streams in terms of the way we deal with evidence because there's obviously a specific thing going on except that there could be others like for example in my own area the REH in Paisley has consistently been amongst one of the two worst hospitals in Scotland and we can't get to the bottom of that so I think it would be useful to find out from these health boards why are there problems with accident and emergency in some areas which are significantly worse in others because others are actually doing pretty well Or maybe that's the key to this then because Tayside seems to be the place that's doing well and maybe we should be hearing from Tayside about what they are doing differently Not that thing, that's a sensible idea because I think the point has been made on a number of occasions that we shouldn't just dwell on the problems we should look at the examples of good practice so I think it would be useful to see the agreement of the committee let's get those in who are doing it well and let's hear from those that seem to be struggling and we can also hear from Paul Gray Is that agreed? No, no It's confused, I thought we were talking about getting Paul Gray in from lots of previous people Who do we agree specifically as a committee specifically who's getting invited? I will ask the I will ask the clerk to the committee to circulate some suggestions having listened to this discussion and then the committee can decide I think from my taking we've agreed that at some point Paul Gray should be invited to make a contribution Your suggestion is that we should look at Tayside I will talk to the clerk to consider for example greater Glasgow because of the problems at the RAH and then there are issues in Grampi Can I just make one other suggestion looking at that pool one of the points I raised with Dr Jenner when we had this discussion about the port was the correlation between 999 calls and the ANE poor performance so when we're looking at that pool of people we want to talk to we make sure that at least we've got one of these organisations in that has high 999s but not doing so well in the ANE overall I think Edinburgh is probably That's a useful suggestion Thanks very much for that and with that we will move now into private session and we'll take a break