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At the height of the pandemic, the NHS and NSS were providing daily PPE stock bulletins. Is that still happening?

The former journalist in me has alighted on what was perhaps the soundbite of the morning, which was Colin Beattie’s comment that NDPBs have the capacity to become little knitting circles that turn in on themselves.

I am struggling a little bit to see whether we are saying that the deficiencies and shortcomings of the Crofting Commission were based on personalities, culture or structure, but one of the recommendations is that the commission reconsiders the structure of its senior management team. That is shown in exhibit 1, and it looks to me like a pretty traditional structure. To what extent do you think that that is necessary? Has the commission accepted that recommendation? If so, on what timescale would it implement the recommendation?

Might the fact that, between March and June 2020, the modelling was based on Covid numbers have contributed in part to the shortfall, and did the reconfiguration to base the modelling on staff numbers increase the supply to better match demand?

Once the section 22 spotlight on the commission fades, what steps will be required to ensure that the boundaries between the roles of the chief executive and the board are understood and respected? How critical will the Scottish Government sponsoring division be in ensuring that the dysfunctionality does not return in future?

I have just been to the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—so I am perhaps running the risk of being accused of greenwashing by bringing up this subject at the end of the meeting.

I would like to get your impression of how the NHS NSS procurement process took into account environmental considerations at the height of the pandemic. Now that things have calmed down, are you sighted on its activities so that you can try to make sure that it acquires a more environmentally sustainable stream of materials?

When it looked at information and communications technology projects, our predecessor committee—and, I am sure, its predecessor committees—often found that their management, or mismanagement, had significant and negative impacts on public funds. Your briefing refers to a number of digital tools being “developed at pace”. Have you picked up on any ICT issues that are similar to those that were highlighted in previous sessions?

A report in The Scotsman this morning, which is based on a Scottish Parliament information centre report, says that up to three quarters of people in certain neighbourhoods of certain areas have not yet been vaccinated. There is a concern that reliance on digital means that some people are hard to reach, because they do not have a reliable internet connection or do not have devices. What is your impression of what more the Scottish Government should and could do to ensure that those who fall into that category are captured and brought into the vaccination programme?

Is there a risk that, if you do not persuade the public through a process of raising awareness, you could damage confidence in the concept more generally? In the example that I gave, which involved an offence that 77 per cent of people believed should carry a custodial sentence, that offence would, in practice, attract a community payback order. In such cases, do we just have to say “Tough” to the public, because the system does not reflect their concept of justice?

I want to look at NHS boards’ use of the system to allocate and reschedule appointments. The national vaccination scheduling system, or NVSS, has obviously been adapted over time to improve its functionality. An example of an issue from my constituency in the early days is that people in East Lothian were not necessarily given appointments there, but were routed to West Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh, even when there was capacity in East Lothian. I think that many of those issues have been fixed, but what risks, if any, continue to exist for health boards in using the NVSS?

The Scottish Sentencing Council’s report says that the council is of the view that

“there is a lack of public awareness of, and confidence in, community disposals.”

I want to dig a little deeper into that, as it suggests that more work needs to be done to raise and enhance public understanding of community justice.

The report also refers to an Ipsos MORI survey that was done a few years ago which looked at various scenarios and tested public opinion and confidence in relation to custodial sentences versus community sentences. One issue is whether greater awareness will ultimately lead to greater confidence in community justice. A scenario that was put to those who were polled concerned an individual who was found to have indecent images of a child on their laptop. People were asked whether that individual should get a custodial sentence, and 77 per cent were of the view that that should carry a custodial sentence. However, that would most likely attract a community payback order, because there were no images of abuse of the child.

Who should be in the driving seat: the Government, the public or the judiciary? I do not have confidence that greater awareness will lead to greater confidence in the system. What is the Government’s current thinking on that?