, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Okay. So, with that in mind, by improving the timeliness of doing this work, it will help with the relevancy of the findings. So, in theory, you should see a change in this over time. Is that the theory?
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Okay, thank you. And then there’s a drop in the proportion of stakeholders who said that they, through your work, had gained useful insight that they would not have acquired otherwise. You’ve also missed the target for the proportion of stakeholders who…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Okay.
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
And does that have any bearing, then, on your fee-earning potential? So, maybe you can talk about what does that mean. [Laughter.] As in, what is the tangible—? By making that conscious decision to move to that rather than this, in balancing your books there…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
So, it was a conscious decision.
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Okay, thank you very much. The annual—. Sorry, I've lost my place. Ah, there we are. You talk in the annual report about prioritising work, and you've slightly improved your performance around delivering to statutory deadlines. I know we were interested in…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
—if you do have any concerns about your auditors. That's important for us to keep an eye on. Just now looking more towards the performance indicators, and particularly those requiring improvement and the things that we've discussed with your predecessors…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for that. I think that sort of explains some of that delay, and yes, do keep us informed—
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
And who's now the current—?
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
You were appointed on 12 June, and you're talking about 13 June there, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think you were—were you chairing ARAC at that time? So, was there an added complication of you going into the chair and appointing a new chair for ARAC and…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
—your new role. So, it's good to have you with us and we extend our congratulations as a committee. I'd like to start by looking to understand how the annual report and accounts were prepared and the challenges you faced during the year. You laid your annual…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Wonderful. Thank you very much, and thank you for the documentation we've had from you. The reports make for a lot of reading, because they are quite chunky documents, so it's always good to get them and always good to have you here. Obviously, this is being…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Good morning.
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Welcome back. We've got our next session now, which is item 4, the scrutiny of the annual report and accounts and the annual plan for Audit Wales. We've got a new set of witnesses in front of us. Could I ask you to introduce yourselves for the record, please…
, Finance Committee
Audit Wales – Scrutiny of the Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 and the Annual Plan 2024-25: Evidence session
Welcome back to the meeting.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Thank you very much for coming in this morning. We'll now take a short break until 10:45. Thank you.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Okay. Thank you very much.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Okay. And of course, we've got 2032 looming beyond that, beyond the following election as well.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
I'm not going to hold you to it, it's just so that we know roughly where we're going.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
So, is that a year into it, or two years into it, or when? What in your—?
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Well, talking about today's meeting, there will be, obviously, a Record of Proceedings. [Laughter.] But I've just got one final question. You've talked about this being a step-change budget and we're obviously on a trajectory towards 2026. So, are we on…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
And a big element of that as well is having facilities, and the actual working environment not having cracks in windows and cracks in walls, so it adds to that element.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Just on that, something that this committee's very focused on is staff well-being. As you develop your plans for changes to the building, moving onwards with the democratic project that we've got here in Wales, and moving devolution on, when it comes to the…
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
Peter.
, Finance Committee
Scrutiny of the Senedd Commission Draft Budget 2025-26: Evidence session
I'll come on to Mike Hedges, and I think we're probably going to run over a little bit.
