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Our main item is agenda item 2, which is consideration of the section 23 report “Fiscal sustainability and reform in Scotland”, which has been produced by the Auditor General for Scotland. I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning. We have Stephen Boyle, the Auditor General, who is joined from Audit Scotland by Carole Grant, audit director; Fiona Diggle, audit manager; and Richard Robinson, senior manager.

As usual, Auditor General, we have some questions to put to you, but before we get to those, I invite you to make a short opening statement.

Thank you very much. I will press straight on and invite the deputy convener to put some questions to you.

One of the things that really struck me was what you say a couple of paragraphs later. You say that, despite the Scottish Government contacting public bodies three times since January 2023 to assess their ability to carry out reform,

“These requests did not generate concrete information on the quantity, quality or anticipated impact of public bodies’ collective work on reform.”

Again, that is a fairly basic requirement, is it not? What is your understanding of the reason why the requests did not elicit any useful answers from the public bodies that the Government spoke to three times?

Again, you reference in the report that there is a lack of data on workforce, estates and so on. I know that it is not completely analogous and I may be stretching things a little bit, but Scottish Canals was in front of us a couple of years ago, in consecutive years, because it failed to carry out a proper asset audit to comply with the standards expected. Yet, in a sense, in your report you are saying that the Scottish Government does not know what assets and what estate it has, never mind the valuation of it. There appear to be big gaps in information here.

You will be delighted to learn that I have only one budget-related question for you before I move on to some other final areas.

Earlier, you touched on the ScotWind leasing revenues. Yesterday, it was announced that over £300 million of those revenues will be spent on their intended purpose, which, presumably, is reinvestment in the green agenda, renewables and so on. However, in exhibit 5 of your report, you identify that the revenue raised from that was not £300 million, but £756 million. Therefore, my question is this: what is your sense of where the rest of the money has gone? Has it been spent as part of general in-year expenditure, or has it been earmarked for something else in the future?

I am sorry, but I was never very good at arithmetic. You mentioned £200 million and £460 million, but the figure in the report is £756 million. Is there a missing £100 million somewhere?

Okay. You also mention governance arrangements in the report and say that a new PSR board has been established. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Who is on it? What are its terms of reference? What is its plan of action?

I do not think that “speeding up” and that sentence really fit. Not for the first time, the committee is hearing about a structure that has been established that is not really meeting, which rather belies the priority that it is being afforded, I would have thought. Are the minutes of the board published?

Thank you. I have a couple of final questions and I think that Graham Simpson also wants to come in. I will bring him in shortly, but I want to touch on a couple of things. We think that it is important to get your answers to these questions on the record.

One of the weaknesses that you cite is the way in which equalities and human rights impact assessments are dealt with and whether or not they are built into the beginning of decisions about public service reform. Do you want to outline for us how you think that decision making is being enacted and whether or not equality and human rights impact assessments are part of that or an afterthought or are not given sufficient priority at all?

As I read it, the Government’s strategy is that it is opposed to a top-down approach, as it describes it, which is an interesting idea. However, I think that your conclusion is that that leaves a bit of a vacuum and a lack of leadership. Would that be a fair assessment?