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Okay, thank you. You mentioned in your opening statement the harassment reviews, which this committee has previously taken an interest in. Can we have an update on changes that have been made?

Mr Lumsden is being quite specific. He is asking about what happened at the time and whether there is a reason for that. He is not asking about what will happen in the future.

We do not have time for that topic, but could we have that information in writing?

We have talked about lessons learned. Surely, on reflection, lessons must have been learned about that and why the situation arose.

Okay. I do not think that we are getting any further on that.

Good morning, and welcome to the 14th meeting in 2023 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. We have received apologies from the convener, so I will convene the meeting in his place. We are joined by Keith Brown, who is attending the meeting as a substitute member in the convener’s absence.

Our first agenda item is our final evidence session as part of our inquiry into effective Scottish Government decision making. We will hear from Shona Robison, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, and John-Paul Marks, permanent secretary, who are joined by Scottish Government officials Lesley Fraser, director general corporate, and Dominic Munro, director for strategy. I welcome you all to the meeting and look forward to your evidence.

I invite Ms Robison to make a short opening statement.

When Liz Smith raised this issue with you in the chamber, Deputy First Minister, you said:

“the advice that we commission and receive is the best advice available to ministers.”—[Official Report, 3 May 2023; c 14.]

That would include legal advice. When you are making a decision, in what circumstances would you decide to disregard legal advice that you had received?

Before anyone else comes in, we have a few more members to get round, so I ask for brevity in the answers—I would like them to be just a little bit briefer. I understand that it is a broad subject, but please can we narrow it down a bit? My apologies for that.

Given the scale of the ambition that Cabinet Secretary Forbes set out and what you are saying about additional work that has to be taken on, it does not sound as though you are on course to meet those levels.

Thank you for that work.

In May of 2022, the then First Minister said that the Government was unable to release details about an investigation of bullying of civil servants by a minister. However, just days ago, the current First Minister said that he would be “happy” to check whether he could reveal details. It is a matter of public record—it was reported widely in the press, as you will be aware. There was some consternation around that comment, because the former minister had made a critical speech about the Government the previous day and there is a worry, more generally, that threatening behaviour might be taking place through the use of information that the Government had previously refused to disclose. I am looking for the permanent secretary's reaction to that in relation to what is proper and what he believes the current process is in relation to that case.