The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 2151 contributions
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
It is still mentioned in this year’s accounts.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
How did you analyse the disposal of the substantial additional funds that the Scottish Government gave to Audit Scotland? Did you analyse their disposal?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
To continue the questioning, perhaps I can bring in Daniel Johnson at this point.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
The issue is more about the money that derived from Covid-19 and how it was deployed in the business. Like any other business, Audit Scotland presumably received furlough pay and so on. How is that all dealt with? How much did you receive? Those are the sorts of things that we are looking at. That is what we discussed last year.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
We can.
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Is it only those three posts that represent the budget overspend of £97,000?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Just to be clear, are you saying that that 25 per cent additional cost takes into account the savings on travel and so forth against the additional time taken to carry out the audit?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Thank you for your opening remarks. I will start with a couple of straightforward questions. The last time we discussed the budget for Audit Scotland, we talked about the impacts of Covid-19 and the fact that those did not seem to be particularly well identified in the books. Of course, Audit Scotland itself highlights that with some of the organisations that it audits. We were promised that we would see a breakdown of Covid-19 figures. Unless I am mistaken and it is there in this pile of documents, I have not seen that sort of analysis. Is that available?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
Thank you.
Your information technology costs include an increase in licences. Do you not bulk buy licences? Do you have to buy them individually for additional staff?
Meeting of the Commission
Meeting date: 22 June 2022
Colin Beattie
I have, as you might expect, one or two final questions.
First, you have highlighted that remote audit is 25 per cent more expensive. To what extent can you recover any of that money from those being audited, and to what extent is it being written off against the additional budget resources that the Government has allocated to you?