Holyrood’s education and culture committee missed a golden opportunity to ask why raising £323m in licence fees adds up to a budget of £35mIt seems that the spirit of deference that once sustained an empire remains alive within some of Holyrood’s committees. These pocket battleships of the Scottish parliament are deemed to be one of its most palpable successes; regularly eliciting clarity and exerting transparency from dozens of evasive,public sector executives on the gravy train. Yet, observing two of them at work in recent weeks revealed a marked dissimilarity in tone and attitude.
Those beleaguered NHS 24 executives who endured hell at the hands of Holyroods public audit committee perhaps were lulled into a false sense of security by the treatment of BBC chiefs the preceding week by parliament’s education and culture committee. The NHS 24 bosses seemed to shrivel up before us as it became clear that petty office politics and an absence of leadership had contributed to a £41.6m overspend on an IT system that hasn’t even been delivered yet.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com