Seòmar agus comataidhean

Donald, did your organisation know that that type of expenditure had to be approved by the Scottish Government? After all, it was more than £20,000.

Thank you.

My last question on this is for Roy Brannen. As you know, the committee has over the years engaged on sponsorship issues with regard to the sponsor team, its relationships with public bodies and so on. This hardly stands out as a great example of a successful relationship in that respect, and there are issues that we have come up against time and again. What would you say to the committee and to the public about the nature of that relationship, particularly between you and the body in question? What lessons are being learned about how things have to improve in the future, so that we as an audit committee are not continuing to pick out these problems year after year?

On performance, I spoke to NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s chief executive only last week about the specific 31-day target for cancer treatment. She said that the board continues to meet the 95 per cent level, and that it actually reached 100 per cent in November. I do not know whether there is a little discrepancy in the data-gathering period for your report, Auditor General, but that was what she clearly said to me last week.

Thank you, convener, and good morning, colleagues.

This meeting is not particularly pleasant. I have been a member of the Parliament—and of the Public Audit Committee, on and off—for 17 years now, and I have to be honest with you and say that this is one of the worst sessions that I have ever participated in.

I have a few questions that I would like to ask Mr Rathjen. On whether the expense was retrospectively approved, you said that, ultimately, it did not make a difference, because it had already been incurred. Why would you do that? Why would you not state your case and say that it was unapproved? You cannot approve something that is clearly not approvable, if you understand my meaning. Why did you not do that? Ultimately, the public would like to know what the difference is between approving something and not approving it. If there is no difference in outcome, what is the point?

I will come to the audit in a minute, but what would have happened in Government if you had not approved it? Surely there would be a difference between approving it and not approving it.

Turning to the issue of audit, I note that the issue was picked up by an auditor, but I am not sure whether that was an internal or external audit. Can somebody clarify whether an external or internal auditor picked up this issue?

Why was it not picked up by the internal audit team? Is there an internal audit team?

Did declaring it as an options appraisal somehow give some comfort with regard to making that decision and not seeking approval? It is clearly not a tender process—an options appraisal is not a tender process. Who introduced the notion that it was an options appraisal process and therefore did not need Scottish Government approval?

I really appreciate all of that, but are you saying that what happened cannot happen again? There should be no need for a quiet word from the Auditor General before the sponsor team becomes aware that something has happened. There must be some sort of earlier, better and quicker engagement to stop such a problem arising. Internal audit did not fail: instead, it was ignored, because of the circumstances that your colleagues have described. You were not aware of that until the tail end, and that must change. The sponsorship relationship should be closer and more engaged in whatever way is necessary.

You cover delayed discharge in the report and you talk about the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde model, which is called GLASFlow. Can you give the committee a wee glimpse of what that means and whether it is having an impact by reducing our problem of delayed discharge?