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Podcast Transcript – Scottish Social Services Council S22 17/18

I’m here with one of our Senior Managers, Jillian Matthew, to discuss a report on the Scottish Social Services Council. Jillian, can you just explain what this report’s all about?
The report’s purpose is to draw Parliament’s attention to concerns the Auditor General has around the SSSC’s management of an ICT project to implement its digital strategy. 
It also highlights underlying governance and transparency issues that have led to challenges with the ICT project and a decision to end a shared services agreement that it had with the Care Inspectorate.
What’re main concerns in this report?
The main concerns we set out in the report are a lack of a business plan for the project at the outset, including details on the budget, intended benefits and cost savings. There was a lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities for overseeing the project. There was also insufficient reporting and monitoring of the project as the scope and costs increased. And the SSSC didn’t effectively identify or manage all the risks related to the project, including those posed by ending the ICT shared services agreement with the Care Inspectorate. 
You also bring up in the report, you mention a policy forum. What were your concerns with that?
Yes, the policy forum was initially set up so SSSC council members could informally discuss policy implications for the organisation, but there’s no formal record taken of the meeting. But our concern was that there were discussions taking place at the forum that should have really been taking place at the Council meeting, where a formal record is made and then it’s clear about what decisions are being taken. For example, the ICT project was discussed at some of the forum meetings where those discussions should really have taken place at the Council meeting. 
To concentrate on the project itself, then - how much is it going to cost in the end, and is it that more than the SSSC expected?
The SSSC expects it to cost at least £4.1m, which is a bit more than it had planned initially. And the Scottish Government has contributed £3.1m towards that through its annual budget allocations to the SSSC. But there’s a real lack of clarity around the budget at the outset. And it was difficult to follow the changes that were made to the budget throughout and the effect that had on the overall budget.
But the real issue I think, is because the project lacked a proper business case and fully-costed budget, the SSSC is not able to demonstrate whether the project has delivered value for money.
Finally, then, what’s the message you are giving to the SSSC in this report?
We feel the SSSC has fallen short of the standards we would expect around governance and transparency in a number of ways.
This includes the events that led to the decision to end the shared services agreement with the Care Inspectorate – what the impact of that was going to be and whether it would be value for money. 
The way it implemented its new digital strategy – there was a lack of proper planning around that and the detail of what that would mean, the assessment of risks. And how it would affect other things. 
And the way that they managed the ICT project itself.
Jillian, thank you very much. And if you want to read our SSSC report, or any of our other work from 2019, you can download it from our website - audit-scotland.gov.uk. 
ENDS