Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is great. Thank you.

If there was so little involvement by most of the principal players who should have been part of the process, who approved the budget? Do you know, Pat?

Thank you, convener, and good morning, Stephen. I want to talk about the commission’s budget. Your report makes clear some concerns relating to development of the budget. It notes that there was a lack of involvement by the board, or by stakeholders more widely, in setting the commission’s budget. It says:

“The draft budget had been developed without prior Board or Audit and Finance Committee involvement. There was also minimal involvement of the Senior Management Team beyond the Chief Executive and Head of Finance.”

Could you tell us a wee bit about what happened? First, who developed the budget? Could you take us through the process of whether it was, in fact, approved? Is that process still in place?

I would like to look at your recommendations. We have been at this point before when we have had a report from you and we have looked ahead to how a situation will be monitored, reviewed and so on. The report makes seven recommendations on the financial aspects and 47 on governance issues. Who will do the follow-up and verify that the work is going to be done? Will it be Audit Scotland or Deloitte, or a mixture of the two? How will the committee and the public be assured that the organisation has taken your recommendations on board and is getting things done?

When I think back to the start of the pandemic and the real struggle that we had to source PPE, I remember well a flight coming in to Prestwick loaded with PPE to help. NHS NSS and others moved heaven and earth to help supply our hospitals and care homes. Thank goodness and thank God that they did that by whatever means possible to protect the public. I want to put that on the record.

Auditor General, you said that our ability to produce PPE in Scotland went from zero to 88 per cent. How soon did we get to the point where we were sourcing and supplying PPE material from within Scotland? Was it weeks or months?

Do you know whether we are supplying PPE to the international healthcare market as a result of that development in Scotland, or do other countries have sufficient supplies locally?

You have said that the digital apps work really well and had to be developed at pace. Members of the public always ask me where the data is kept. Sometimes, I ask general practices questions about constituents and issues. Where is the data? Who keeps it and who makes it secure?

From our perspective, or from the public’s perspective, although there is evidence that people who are given short sentences are twice as likely to be reconvicted, that does not seem to be reflected in the number of community disposals that are being given. Is there an imbalance that should be explored further with the judiciary?

Lady Dorrian has referred to legislative barriers to the imposition of community-based sentences. The legislation is there. Where are the barriers?

I have a query about the compatibility of our digital platforms with other jurisdictions’ systems. We have heard stories from here, there and everywhere that when people have moved from country to country the digital apps are not compatible. Are we largely ironing that out, or are there still issues to resolve?