Speeches by Kane.

“I am just trying to get to the bones of it. If I was one of your big consultancy firms, I would be doing everything I could to put into my contract that you are not able to use my data to get rid of me in the future by automating it through AI. There is potentially an in-built protection for consultants in a way that i…”

“It is more about whether you are evaluating the potential productivity gains from AI in staff, consultants and contingent labour. If AI is not being used to make gains across the board, one part of the workforce could bear a bigger brunt than another as we go forward. You might have to get back to us on this one. I wou…”

“You are talking to them, so if someone has come in on a freelance basis, you would give them the same opportunities to feed back on how they are feeling as you would to any other staff member?”

“I want to talk about AI for a minute. We have talked a huge amount with you about this gap in many different ways. The NAO Report, Use of artificial intelligence in Government, from autumn 2023, said that the Central Data and Digital Office “estimated the opportunity for productivity gains by analysing the types of tas…”

“It is about value for money. Crucially, it is about getting the value for money out of the money that goes from here to the devolved nations. Judging public services is a different thing; this is value for money.”

“What you have just described, James, is about expectations and risks, but we have the words “aspiration” and “ambition”, as compared with the word “obligation”. Obligation is the word I would normally expect to hear when it comes to audit. It is a cultural question within the Department or Departments. When you hear th…”

“But do you accept that, if we are trying to produce something that is the Whole of Government Accounts, devolution and the way that devolved spending works is part of that whole? Do you also accept that in order to do what it says—to give us that complete picture—devolution has to feature in the WGA and has to be done …”

“The words “aspiration” and “ambition” have been used a lot. Ambition and aspiration are normally good words to hear, except when we are talking about an audit function. James, how are you ensuring that the word “aspiration” cannot just be replaced with “sticking my finger in the air and making the best guess I can”? Yo…”

“But you are not getting it from the Scottish Government.”

“That is really interesting. The question is: can you compel it? Are you exploring that? It strikes me that knowing the answer to what you can compel in a devolved setting is important. Even if you or I do not like the answer, understanding what we can compel is important.”

“I have a couple of questions. One is on resource, which I will come to, but can I talk devolution for a minute, please? In the past year, we have transferred an extra £5 billion-worth of resources up to the Scottish Government. I think that there is about an extra £800 million coming up from the Budget last week. The q…”

“James, in terms of making the Whole of Government Accounts useful to others and doing that cultural shift—my tongue is slightly in my cheek when I say this—I heard you express an aspiration to make them more useful to more people, but I did not hear a plan for how you were going to do it. I did not hear much about the …”

“Back in 1991, when I was 15 years old, I applied for work experience at Central FM in Stirling. I was meant to be there for a week, and I stayed for 10 years as a broadcaster. Those were golden days of Scottish local radio, shaped by stations such as Central, Radio Forth and Radio Clyde, by familiar voices, great music…”

“What does that have to with—”

“Mr Chair, on a point of order, this is going into the direction of policy.”

“Chair, on a point of order, where are we in the agenda for these questions, just to be clear? We have an agenda. I would very much like to know where we are in the agenda.”

“Years of SNP underfunding have pushed Forth Valley college into financial crisis. Just when we needed to deliver skills for Stirling’s film studio, the Grangemouth transition, and shipbuilding and defence in the Forth and Clyde, the Alloa campus faces closure. Does the Secretary of State agree that the SNP is undermini…”

“5. What discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on skills, development and training for the Forth valley area.”

“Does this decision not just underline the urgent need for a robust industrial strategy in Scotland that protects jobs, strengthens the supply chain and ensures a manufacturing basis that is fit for the future?”

“We have heard an awful lot today about the professionalism of the journalists at the BBC, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but there are less of them now than there were last year and we hear that the BBC is in the fight of its life across a whole number of fronts. Well, when you are in a fight across multiple fro…”