HES: Who is the auditor general blaming for crisis?

The head of Audit Scotland, the public spending watchdog, was repeatedly critical with the administration's failure to appoint an interim leader during a long leave of absence by its chief executive Katerina Brown.

In his Section 22 report, a piece of work only done by the auditor when an organisation's financial management is red flagged, Mr Boyle concluded the six month absence of a leader responsible for public finances in an organisation (a role known as an "accountable officer") left the agency vulnerable to fraud.

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After his report was published culture secretary Angus Robertson wrote to the culture committee to give his excuses, pointing out it was not known when Ms Brown would return to work when she went off in May last year with civil servants being given assurances by her that she would be returning earlier than she in fact did.

But appearing before the culture committee Mr Boyle was not satisfied with Mr Robertson's explanation.

"I note that Historic Environment Scotland is navigating a period of significant instability and challenge. During 2025 it operated without the chief executive or accountable officer for almost six months of the year," he said in his opening statement to MSPs.

"I do recognize the complexity of this situation, but I also believe that the Scottish Government should have appointed a substitute accountable officer to provide the continued necessary leadership and accountability during that period."

During his evidence, it was a point he returned to again and again.

Mr Boyle conceded the agency faced a "fluid" set of circumstances and he recognised that any such organisation would not know how long a chief executive would be off for when he or she took a leave of absence.

But he added: "We understand, and I think it's set out again in the correspondence that there was something of a to and fro about prospective acting or interim arrangements...but I think at some point, what we have is an organisation going through challenge that operated without an accountable officer.

"So we think the Scottish Government should have appointed a substitute or acting accountable officer during this period, it should have acted sooner than it did."

However, Mr Boyle also raised concerns about the current leadership arrangements at the agency pointing out they did not comply with the "Scottish public finance manual" which sets out governance rules for public bodies.

He said it seemed they were not operating as public bodies ought according to the rules as the current CEO had not resumed her full duties as chief executive with an interim CEO working alongside her.

"The Scottish public finance manual is quite clear what the duties of the accountable officer are, and those can't really be dispelled down to a transaction here or there," he said.

"They're all encompassing personal responsibilities set out for that person by the Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Government. So I think what matters is that there's a period now of response and stability, and as quickly as possible the organisation is able to have clear lines of accountability through an accountable officer, so that it can move on and bring that stability back to this organization."

He later added: "It would be absolutely desirable for this organisation to move on from these arrangements as quickly as possible."

Mr Boyle is clearly keen to see rapid progress in HES and the agency put onto a more secure and stable footing.

In early February the committee will hear from Ms Brown, the HES chair Sir Mark Jones and senior civil servants Shona Riach and Kenneth Hogg.

It will, I suspect, want to hear back from Mr Robertson.

The Cabinet Secretary was forced to clarify his evidence to the committee in November both to the chamber and to the committee.

MSPs will clearly want Mr Robertson to be fuller and clearer when he next appears - and a lot of assurance that work is well under advanced to resolve the HES crisis before parliament goes into recess before the May election.