Seòmar agus comataidhean

Has the Scottish Government committed to publishing the implementation costs for the new benefits?

The briefing states that the number of private sector businesses operating in Scotland decreased by 5.4 per cent from March 2020 to March 2021. Given that some businesses will have started trading during the same 12 months, is any data available on the actual number of businesses that were lost during the first year of the pandemic?

One of the risks identified in relation to staff is the increasing reliance on contractors. You note that the programme is clear that it wants to ensure knowledge transfer from contractor staff to permanent employees and for this to support growth of their staffing specialist areas. To your knowledge, what concrete action is being taken in this regard?

Programme implementation costs are now an estimated £685 million to 2025-26, compared to the £308 million set out in the 2017 financial memorandum. The report also highlights that implementation costs are not being routinely reported on publicly, which clearly makes financial scrutiny particularly difficult.

In your opening statement, you mentioned some of the costs being higher than the block grant and I think that Carole Grant said earlier that there was strong internal monitoring of the costs, even though they were not put out publicly. To your knowledge, what action is the Scottish Government taking to improve the accuracy of future cost estimates?

That is fine—thank you.

The issue of people taking early retirement has been highlighted in relation to Police Scotland and the fire brigade, but I note that on page 47 of the annual report you say that

“one member of staff left under a voluntary early release arrangement where they were entitled to early access to pension.”

Given that we have been talking about recruitment concerns, can you tell us more about that scheme? Is it still in place?

I will continue on the theme of staff wellbeing. Page 77 of the report says that Audit Scotland has included provision of £1.053 million to cover the cost of unused annual leave. Can you give us some of the reasons for staff not taking such leave? The Auditor General has already talked about staff’s desire to meet deadlines and produce high-quality work; because everything was locked down, no one could go on holiday anyway and, as a result, people might have just decided to complete their audits. Why did staff not take their holidays? What has been put in for this year to encourage and support them to do so?

You had confirmation that you did not need to supply the BRG before you put in your bid?

So CMAL was aware of the issue before it was announced that you had the contract.

So, in the invitation to tender, the specification from CMAL was not adequate for any of the people who were putting in bids.