 Welcome to the 15th meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2023. I note that Ben Macpherson sent his apologies this morning. First, I would like to welcome Ivan McKee, who is joining us for the first time this morning, as a substitute member of the committee. Our first item of business is to invite Ivan McKee to declare any relevant interests. Thank you very much for your microphones. Our second item on our agenda today is an evidence session on university and colleges funding in the 2023-24 budget. I welcome the minister for higher and further education, the minister for veterans, who is joining us for the first time since being appointed, albeit not the first time he has been in this room. Welcome, Mr Day. Alongside the minister is Cameron Durrani, who is head of funding and sponsorship unit, directorate for lifelong learning and skills in the Scottish Government. I note that the minister has indicated that he does not wish to make an opening statement, so we will move straight to questions. Where are the new pressures that have led to the £46 million planned uplift for further and higher education being identified as a necessary saving? What proportion of that money is now going to be needed to settle the teacher's pay discussion? Are there any other areas in which that £46 million is now being spent? You have hit the nail on the head, convener. It is principally the teacher's pay settlement. You will recall that the former education secretary at the committee in February had indicated that the money that is going to the teacher's pay settlement would have to come from within the education budget, and that is principally what is at play here. There are always pressures on portfolio budgets at a variety of times, but that is the principal one that has led to us taking this regrettable decision. Do you feel comfortable that you have almost pitted teachers and colleges and universities against each other because you are saying sorry to colleges and universities? You cannot have this and you are not as important as teachers perhaps? I do not think that we have settled. I do not think that a language around that has been of that nature. I think that we have just tried to be open and transparent about what has led to this. It is regrettable that we are not in a position to provide that additional money that we had indicated that we would to colleges and universities. That is what we wanted to do, but that is the reality that we are operating in. We have to deal with the situation as it exists. Mr Kerr, you have indicated that you have a brief supplementary here. What is the total cost of the teachers pay settlement for £23.24 million? It is about £188 million, and that covers £21.22 million to £23.24 million. No, just £23.24 million. The money for £23.24 million is impacted by £46 million. That is £89 million, but the pressure also covers previous years' amounts. So, it is £188 million then? It is £188 million. On £23.24 million, the pressure was £188 million. So my question to the minister is, where is the rest coming from? As the cabinet secretary indicated at the time, that would have to be worked through the education budget as a whole, and that is what is happening. But that is a lot of money, minister. Where is it actually coming from? It is indeed a lot of money, Mr Kerr, and you will recall that all parties called for efforts to get that dispute settled. That is what we did. It was welcomed, and you will appreciate that in the context of the education budget, the current education secretary is having to make some tough decisions. Minister, you would also expect that, as the committee is responsible for education scrutiny in this Parliament, we want to know where the other budgets are impacted. We want to know where the rest of this money is coming from in detail, and we are not getting that information today. Can you write to us and give us a complete breakdown of all the different budgets where this money is coming from? That remains a work in progress, but we will be happy to write to the committee with as much detail as we can provide. The college has described the cuts as completely inexplicable, college of Scotland rather, and at a time when colleges are already cash strapped, University of Scotland said that the cut will compromise our capacity to contribute to the nation's recovery. What is the minister's response to those statements? I think that it is explainable that we have explained why it has had to be necessary, but I entirely recognise the disappointment and concern that has been expressed by the colleges and universities over the impact of that. The cabinet secretary and myself met with College of Scotland principles and chairs last week. We also met with the College of Scotland reps the same day, and we have met with University of Scotland. We had some detailed discussions about this, to express their concerns, but I understand those concerns entirely. What I would say is that, particularly in the context of colleges, we are already attempting to move on from that jointly and to determine how we can support the colleges into a more sustainable position going forward. We are having and will have similar conversations with the universities. I know that my colleague will come on to questions about that support later on. In terms of the timing of the announcement, why were colleges and universities not informed sooner? They were informed as soon as it was practical to do that. The way that the SFC process works, the final allocations are normally advised at the end of May. We wanted to do it as soon as we possibly could, and it was announced at the beginning of May. None of this is easy. We recognised the problems at Cosworth, but we tried to make them aware of the situation as quickly as we could. I understand that it came as a surprise and as a shock to them. Can I move to questions now from Bill Kidd, please? You have slightly preempted what I was going to ask, but I have a couple of questions. I will put them together and see what we can get back. You said that you have had meetings with FE and HE sectors following the announcement. What particular concerns were raised? Are you aware of specific colleges and universities now needing financial assistance as a result of the decision? I am not aware of any colleges or universities that require specific assistance. It is important to recognise that those monies were for transition purposes and they were not going to the core teaching funding settlement. I am reluctant to get into some of the specifics about what we discussed with the colleges and universities that occurred to them. I would say that there is a joint recognition of some of the challenges that they face, particularly in the case of the colleges. It is a commitment to work together to try and find the committee in its report talked about additional flexibilities that colleges might want. There are conversations in that space going on. I am sure that the committee may wish to explore that further. I would describe the discussions with the colleges, notwithstanding the understandable upset that they had, as constructive. I am confident that we can move forward from here and find a positive way forward. Our conversations with the University of Scotland have been more initial, but the Cabinet Secretary and I intend to build on those by engaging directly with the principals and chairs at a single gathering. Thank you for that. I will let you know that we have been informed, in this instance, by unison, but also by some people who attend or work in the City of Glasgow College in terms of a loss of jobs. Jobs go in compulsory redundancies and a lack of capability to agree voluntary severance payments. One of the things about that is that people are in danger of losing their jobs and, in fact, they are being told that they are going to lose their jobs. That was even on the cards before the cut in money. If you have not heard anything about that, I think that you will be hearing about it fairly soon. I am entirely aware of the situation at City of Glasgow College, both from the trade unions perspective and from the principal. We need to be clear here that the actions taken by City of Glasgow College are not linked to the £26 million. That was for transition purposes. That was being discussed with the Scottish Funding Council. However, I recognise that a flat cash settlement for colleges creates challenges. City of Glasgow will appreciate that colleges are standalone institutions. They will react to situations in an individual way. I recognise that the situation there is particularly difficult at the moment. We will meet the unions in due course. However, it is not very clear that it is not linked to the £26 million. It is linked to the wider issues in the college sector. I can understand that that is definitely the case. Obviously, the £26 million loss will impact further on that. I presume that that is the worry, but you say that you will be meeting up with the unions anyway. Perhaps I will be useful if I explain what the additional money was there to support strategic change. There were conversations taking place between the initial conversations and both sectors. Some of the areas that were being considered, including supporting institutional transformation planning, helping institutions to collaborate to deliver their provision, a national college estates assessment and developing a student records system. Those were some of the things that were under discussion. That is what the money was being directed to do. It was not simply about providing extra funds for the sake of providing extra funds. It was a specific purpose behind it. You are going to be meeting the Unison and the other unions anyway. I think that I will be meeting Unite very shortly. I met EIS fuel last week, so that is all on the pipeline. There is a lot of overlap with a lot of the questions. I have a very brief supplementary on that from Pam Duncan-Clancy, before we go to Bob Doris. Thank you, convener. I will be brief because I will get an opportunity to ask further questions in this particular area. Are you content that there could be 100 jobs lost? I take the point about it not as a direct result of the £26 million, but the letter that we have from the college says that it is a result of the sector's budget cuts over a number of years. I do not think that it is fair to the people who are losing their jobs to just say that it is not because of the £26 million. I think that I was making state in a fact that it is not about the £26 million. No, I am not comfortable that people are facing the prospect of losing their jobs, not comfortable at all, but with respect, as Duncan-Clancy said, we have already heard the budgetary challenges that are faced here. If the committee or anyone else wants to say as they are entitled to, there should be more money put into colleges, do you need to tell us from where it came? It comes, because this was part of the issue around the teachers pay settlement. Everybody wanted to then education secretary and understand the whistle to settle that dispute. It was very clear that, if that happened, the money would have to come from somewhere else. Regretably, we do not have an endless pot of money here. A flat cash settlement was as good as could be achieved given the budget pressures that the Government is facing. As I keep saying, I regret the consequences for the colleges there and for staff. I will ask a little bit more about the £26 million. We were all pretty shocked when that was taken off the table. I was involved in representations trying to get the Government, with your predecessor, to signal that that £26 million will be embedded into the core settlement. My understanding, convener, is that if it was embedded into the core settlement, we would be looking at less redundancies, hopefully all voluntary severance, and less course mergers and amalgamations, because colleges are, as we speak, finishing five-year forward plans, whereas that £26 million was embedded each and every year would have more lecturers, more associated staff and more courses, and they were really, really disappointed. Do you acknowledge that, while one year £26 million may not impact on courses and lecturers and numbers, had it been embedded, it absolutely would have impacted? £26 million was for £23.24 million only. That was what was on the table. The other thing that I should say here is that the actual resource budget afforded colleges since 2012-2013 has increased by over £168 million in cash terms. I recognise the pressures that the colleges will have faced over that period, but it has increased. So has demand. Inflation is putting pressure on everything else that we know about. That is why the exercise that we are currently engaged on with the colleges is so important, to look at how we make them more sustainable going forward. I give you the assurance that that is what is driving the discussions. I don't just want to move on from that £26 million, minister. I get it was one year, but the on-going discussion that I thought was taking place was if we could get some comfort to indicate that the Government would be keen to see that baseline into future settlements, that colleges would have changed those five-year plans accordingly, and that just hasn't happened. My question would be, should Barnett consequentials appear for your portfolio, would those be directed at colleges, given that they are the big losers right now under very provisioning of monies to pay for pay deals for schools? If Barnett consequentials, as you put it, appeared, or if the financial situation improved, I would say that colleges would be a priority for us. Moving forward, colleges will be at the very heart of what we are going to be doing. I entirely recognise the challenges that colleges are presented with beyond the £26 million. From my perspective, they would be a priority if and when an opportunity arose to better support them. If that opportunity arose, I think that we would be looking for that to be a recurring fund embedded into their core settlement rather than the whole situation that we had about recurring, non-recurring, transitional or embedded core funding. I know that there is confusion between the Scottish Funding Council and college principles in relation to exactly what they could use that for. I cannot sit here today and say that there will be Barnett consequentials, or that there will be more money available, let alone say that, if such became available, it could be recurring for the next two, three, four or five years. It is impossible to say that. What I would say to you is that, from our perspective, contrary to how they may be feeling right now, given what has happened, colleges are very much at the heart of what we plan for the coming years, and where it is at all possible, we will look to support them through the budget to that end. Have you made the case to Government colleagues for money to be transferred from other portfolios into the education portfolio? Mr Doris, I think that you and others are well aware that the financial challenges that are faced by the education portfolio are replicated across Government. The Scottish Government's budget, as a consequence of issues outwith our control, suffered a significant hit. The public finances faced probably the biggest challenge since devolution, so it is not a case that we could ask other portfolios to transfer money across education. I wish that it was. There are challenges for all areas of Government, and we have to get through this best way we can. No further questions on this, but when I meet AIS Fiela at Glasgow, City of Glasgow College in a week or so time, they are going to be asking me these questions. I am sure that you understand why I am asking you this question. Thank you, Mr Doris. When you are in Government, it is all about choices, Minister, and I am sure that the choices across various portfolios that are up to the decisions that your Government has made. Mr Kerr, I would like to go to some supplementaries on here. The minister is someone whom I respect. He sat beside me in this committee just a few weeks ago. We have heard him ask questions of ministers that have come before us before we have heard him talk about his passion for this. I do not doubt his personal commitment, but he is a bit rich to keep going on as a minister and saying to us as members, we will tell us where we can save the money and we will spend it. We do not know where the money can be saved, just like we do not know where the rest of the money is going to come from to pay for the teachers settlement. If you want a number of us to come and sit down and go through all your budgets with you, I am up for that. I think that the minister should stop pretending that somehow we have the sight of things, the vision that you have. My question is very simple. The colleges said, and I know that you agree with that, colleges said in their submission, colleges are needed more now than ever to mitigate poverty in communities across the country, provide life-changing opportunities for people and create the future workforce that will tackle the climate emergency. I know that we all agree with that, but look at the record of the SNP in government the last 16 years. In recent answers that you gave to colleagues in parliamentary questions, it transpires that the number of students, the number of people studying in our colleges in the 16 years of this SNP government has gone down 33 per cent, and the cost of funding every place has gone down in real terms 10 per cent. Those are the answers that you gave to parliamentary questions. This is a hatchet job on the college sector. How can the college sector do the jobs that we all know it needs to do when it is the victim of a government hatchet job over 16 years? Mr Kerr, as usual, there are lots of hyperbole and all that. Let's deal in facts. There were 322,332 enrolments at Scottish colleges in 2021-22, an increase of 16 per cent since 1920. Colleges delivered 129,559 FTEs, an increase of not 0.5 per cent since 2021. Students support very substantial amount of money that is put into colleges—135 million is maintained—because of the very issues that you are talking about, the poverty challenges. We have directed a lot of that to students from the poorer areas. My point with regard to funding is that it has gone from 354,000 to 236,000, which is a 33 per cent reduction. That is a hatchet job on the college sector. Since 2012-15, the college sector budget has increased by 168 million. You came in the Government. Mr Kerr, I want to answer the central point. It is not a case of the Government, myself, passing the buck here, but the point that I would make is that this committee, in much of the very fine work that is done, was the attainment funding. The additional monies that were provided to tackle those issues were very much welcomed by the committee, by the wider Parliament. That money has to come from somewhere. It is a fact. If we collect away as a Parliament, we welcome that. We have to recognise that if we spend money in that area, there will not be money for something else. That is the reality of Government. I am afraid that we cannot simply sit and go, more money for this, more money for that, whether it be in education or anything else, without there being consequences. Unfortunately, those are the consequences. Thank you, Mr Kerr. Can we move now to questions from Ivan McKee, please? Thank you very much, convener. Just a brief supplementary minister before I move on to the substance of my questions, just a point of clarification. The £26 million that you are indicating that that would have been a one-off payment to the colleges just for this year, is now being used as you indicated to help fund part of the teachers' pay settlement. The teachers' pay settlement clearly is not a one-off payment because it needs to be funded on an ongoing basis. So that there is a future pressure there? Absolutely. There is not an answer to that yet. That is a future issue. I will just be clear on that. Obviously, the situation with colleges as other members have indicated is very significant by the college sector. I met myself at Glasgow Kelvin College earlier this week to talk about that in other matters, and, like other members, getting significant correspondence on that. One of the issues that they raised with me, among many, was the journey of that money, if you like, from Scottish Government down to the colleges on the front line themselves. I just wanted to unpick a wee bit of that to help to understand some of the numbers behind that. Clearly, the money moves from Scottish Government to SFC. There is, in the case of Glasgow, the Glasgow Regional College Board as well. Starting off with the Scottish Government, if you look at the economy directorate, for £23.24, there is a £49 million budget in there. I know that Scottish Government total operating cost budgets are generally significantly overspent. There was about £6 million in the last data that I saw in total for the Scottish Government. The question is, in terms of the total outturn for that total operating cost number, what numbers can you give us as to what happened? I am assuming that that will be for 2021 or perhaps for 2021-22. Is this question specific to the DG economy budget? It's our education directorate in terms of total operating costs. The skills and education portfolio net total operating cost outturn for 2021-22 was £47 million against a budget of £43.6 million. That's about a bit of a 10 per cent overshoot. You don't have the data yet for 2022-23 or 2024? No, we don't have that yet. You would expect those to be similarly overshort? We can't say. If that's the case for 2021-22, your actual outturn for 2021-22 was less than the budget that you've got for 2022-23. I'm assuming that there will be an overspend roll forward as well. I suppose that the question is what work can be done if you've got a £49 million spend in there with possibly a 10 per cent overshoot on it to understand what efficiencies could be made in that budget line to free up more money for the front line. Unfortunately, it's too early to say anything about 2022-23 outturn, but I take your point. I'll be good to get some response back on that. Second question. The money then flows through to SFC, and SFC's got a budget of north of £2 billion for 2023-24. My question is how much of that money is used to fund SFC, and how much of that money flows through to universities and colleges. I can answer that. For 2023-24, the SFC administration budget is £7.784 million, which comprises the £7.64 resource and £0.15 million non-cash. Again, is there any work being done to look at if there's any potential savings in SFC and administration costs? Yes. And then the third part of that is roundabout the Glasgow College Board, which is another layer in hierarchy. The cost of that and what has been done to look at how much of that money can go to the front line. So the latest figures for 2021-22 have run in costs of £675,000 for the Glasgow College Board. I think that certainly Mr Doris will be aware, and the committee members who were here previously will be aware that the Government is considering options on the way forward in terms of governance to the Glasgow College region following the appraisals exercise that was done. I'm aware of Mr Doris's views on that and those of others. Any decision that's taken by myself will be subject to a 12-week public consultation, and I would hope that we'll be in a position to take that decision and begin that process relatively soon. Okay, thanks. To conclude, if you're able to come back to the committee with some more detail on that, education directorate spend, likely overspend and what work has been done to figure out how to become more efficient with that £49 million that's spent on civil service support. You can do that once the figures are available. Thank you. And I've had Mr Doris indicate a supplementary suspect on the topic of Glasgow. I've obviously said for over a year now, including in submissions, that the regional board should go. The £6175,000 that you mentioned, would that money be retained by colleges in Glasgow should the board be abolished? So should the board be abolished, I think it will be reasonable to assume that there will be some residual spend, tapering off costs, but if such a decision were to be taken, it would be with a view to maximising the monies that were available to colleges. So in Glasgow? Colleges in Glasgow, not colleges full stop? To be clear, so I can hear you. No, I'm just saying that's his last question. Mr Doris, I understand what he's asking. He's asking for £675,000 that we've spent. Mr Doris, the decision has not been taken. When the decision is taken, I'll write to the committee in full, given as much detail as I possibly can. You will appreciate at the moment no such decision has been taken. Thank you, Mr Day. Can I now move to some questions from Stephanie Callaghan, please? Thank you for your patience, Stephanie. Thank you, convener, and good morning minister. Being realistic in the inflation currently so high is very possible that we're going to find some of our colleges and universities facing serious financial difficulties, and what support will be available if that is the case, minister? So universities are in the fortunate position of holding reserves, which colleges are not. That said, some universities are less well-placed than others, and we're very much alive to that. In terms of the colleges, no colleges have indicated to us that they are in a parallel state as such. Will they to do so, then clearly we would engage with them on that. However, I go back to what I said earlier. There is a substantial exercise under way to identify how we can better support the colleges with the existing budgets. One of the things that I found in the seven weeks that I am in posters is that there is a very congested landscape in terms of who does what, how the moneys flow across the entire skill sector. I firmly believe that that can be rationalised to good effect so that more of the moneys are available for the front line, as was mentioned earlier on. That is part of what we are looking at just now. We want to ensure that the maximum amount of moneys are going to the front line to deliver for learners, and that is what we are committed to looking at. I suppose that that kind of takes us back to you speaking earlier on about transitions funding being about making those changes. I have been interested in hearing a wee bit more detail about that. Are you also looking at, for example, new battle college, new battle Abbey college, who had written in to us, having a look there and there is some commercialisation stuff going on there, so they are doing heritage centres, weddings etc. Obviously, that is something that is quite unique to them. I am wondering whether or not those commercial aspects are something that have been considered and if that is something that you are exploring and working with universities and colleges on? Other colleges will look to exploit the assets that they have, and some, I suspect now, will be looking even harder at that. It is difficult for me to put detail to this when a lot of it is still under discussion, but I think that everyone has ideas about how we could do things differently. What I commit to is that our approach to those ideas will be to treat them on the basis of, well, why wouldn't we do that rather than why would we? There is a positive response to ideas that are brought forward. As I said, I am seeing some things that we could be doing differently. The colleges will have their ideas as well, and that conversation is under way. I think that there is opportunity there to address the short-term financial pressures that we have. Then there is a longer term issue about getting the colleges on a much more sustainable footing. I hope that I am not going to Ruth Maguire on that theme of flexibility for colleges. You will be quite familiar with the committee's college regionalisation inquiry, and we called for more flexibility for colleges to manage their finances. You will know that they are restricted in their ability to generate additional income. They have no ability to borrow or hold reserves. We need to find a solution to operating in the current sort of financial envelope in the challenging times. When the previous minister visited the committee in November, he was pressed on the urgency of those matters and how quickly things could be dealt with. We have obviously got the SFC's review on sustainability. Can you speak a bit to that? You said that you met with college principals and reps last week. Did they come with specific ideas for what those flexibilities might look like and how they could assist them? There were a number of flexibilities delivered for this year. I can go to some detail if you want, convener. They were specifically changes to guidance that will enable colleges to deliver optimal balance of full-time and part-time provision. The minimum credit target has been reduced by at least 10 per cent and still causes that under delivery on credit targets will be allowed to keep 20 per cent of the funding for those credits. The backlog in life cycle maintenance has been rolled into one funding allocation as opposed to providing separate allocations for each. That allows the college to determine the most appropriate split between the two uses. That is what has been done thus far. What I am keen to explore is what we could do quite quickly with them and then look at what we might be able to do beyond that. To be clear, the causes when we met them last week did not come with a list of asks, but late last year they had brought forward a list of suggestions, some of which were acted upon and some of which were not at the time. We have asked them to come back to us with an updated list of suggestions, but sitting alongside that, I have tasked officials to look into some ideas that I have that I think might be useful to colleges. It should be clear that that covers the resource area of the budget but also the capital. I am very much alive to the fact that the colleges have net zero targets to meet, and we are all aware of the age and nature of some of the estate, so we are looking at what might be possible to do in that space. I appreciate that I do not want to break confidences here, and we have to work this through with the colleges. However, I will be more than happy if I get the agreement at the colleges once we have reached agreement around some of that to write the committee in detail about what it is where we are doing. I appreciate that you will not be able to go into detail. I think that what we are looking for is that assurance that the value of colleges will be—we can demonstrate their value by acting promptly on that and giving them those flexibilities, so it is that assurance that I am looking for. To be clear, we are looking at the flexibilities that we can provide without getting out of classification, so we will still be those rightful restrictions in place, but I do believe that there are things that we can do, and the colleges believe that there are things that we can do jointly that will assist them in their day-to-day operations. We ought to be looking to do that as a matter of urgency, and if there are some things that will take a little bit longer, we will work on those with them. The other area in line with that is—you will recall that we have spoken about the value of colleges and the work that they do for people who are furthest away from education. That work takes a fair bit of investment in staffing and money. I just want to highlight and get your agreement that, in principle, because that work is more expensive and more—it is more expensive, but it is very high value to our communities and to our learners. That is the type of area that can quite often get cut when budgets are tight. That adds that urgency to ensure that we can get a bit of flexibility and sustainability for our colleges. I am also alive to the geographical challenges that some colleges face. Colleges in Mr Doris, as part of the world, will not have the issues that Borders College, which I visited a few weeks ago, or UHI, will have. We have to be alive to the fact that it cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to that. We must recognise that certain areas will have a much more challenging environment. As far as it is possible, we must take that into account. Are you confident that our colleges will be able to continue to deliver those high-value but high-investment types of courses for our citizens who are needing that additional support? I recognise that I am certainly aware of one course that has caused a locality because of lack of demand, so there will always be issues around that. My conversations with the colleges recognise the importance of that kind of delivery, and so do I. Thank you, convener. Before I go on to the questions, I will ask a very short supplementary from Ruth's point, if I may. We have already discussed briefly the issues around City of Glasgow College. When you do meet with the principal there to discuss some of those issues, will the minister be discussing which courses may have to be cut as a result and doing an impact to say something on those? A very brief question. The decisions that the colleges make in that regard are answerable to their boards, and that is where that lies. However, in a broader sense, I would hope and expect that, when principals are making decisions of this nature, they are making difficult decisions. They are mindful of their responsibilities in the regard that Ruth Maguire indicated, but also in the preservation of key courses. It is until up to them what they do, but those would be our expectations, and whatever actions they take are in line with the fair work agenda and in conjunction with the trade unions. That brings me nicely on to the points that I was going to ask on. On the issue of boards, is it the Government's intention to issue the good governance guidance any time soon? What is your view of having unions represented on boards? In terms of trade unions on the board, my instinct is yes, and I would anticipate that. That is where we will go. EIS has said that the stated cuts will make it much more difficult for college lecturers to get a pair eyes and to come into it with their colleagues elsewhere in the public sector. How would you respond to that, minister? I think that that is a fair assessment. That is the reality, unfortunately. The colleges have been very queer about the implications of, if they were to meet in full, the request of EIS fuel for a pay settlement, what that would mean in job losses. That is regrettable, but that is where we are. When I met EIS fuel last week, I encouraged them to try and find some common ground with the employers. I did the same with the employers. I hope and believe that they are going to resume discussions quite shortly. Whether that leads to agreement, I hope it does, remains to be seen. However, I am afraid that there will have to be a realism about the situation as it exists. I urge both sides to get together and to find a way through that. I do not think that there is much more veil than 100 people in Glasgow losing their jobs, or 1500 people across the country, according to correspondence from the committee. It also appears to me in my short time in this particular role that there does not seem to be much direction to colleges or universities over what the Government's expectations are. Can you set out when the Government will indicate its expectations to the Scottish funding councils? Can you also set out what your expectations for colleges and universities are on fair work? I think that we are very queer about what is expected in terms of fair work. The colleges and universities know exactly what that is. The funding council's dialogue with both is on-going. Do you mean, in a broad sense, about guidance? I mean quite specific, particularly in relation to City of Glasgow College. Well, Mr Duncan-Glasie, I think that we will go back to what we have talked about earlier. If the thrust of your point is that we should be putting more money into the college sector in order that that issue should be addressed, that is fine. Where does it come from? If that is the thrust of the way in which you are coming from, because we have been very queer in a regrettable position financially, we cannot put more money into the colleges. I spoke to EISP last week and I made this very queer. If there is no more money available from Government and the colleges, if they are to fund that pay increase and unions are perfectly entitled to look for a fair settlement with their employers, then, unfortunately, the only way that that is going to be funded is through job losses and course cuts. I wish it was not so. I think that that is considerably regrettable. I also think that the Government has had 16 years to sort stuff like this out and we are in the situation we are in. I do not think that that will be an acceptable answer to people who might lose their jobs. My final question is short. How would you describe industrial relations in the sector, minister? In the college sector? Both the higher education and the further education sector. I think that the industrial relations, as I have seen them as a member of this committee, and then up close as a minister, are not at all good. There have been disputes in eight of the last nine years. Having spoken to both sides of that, I think that we need to find some way of addressing that, as some of the committee had a view on it previously, and I shared that view. In terms of the universities, obviously the universities are a slightly different setup in that it is a UK-wide industrial dispute. There is a payoff for there that has been rejected. Again, I have had conversations directly with the University of Scotland in relation to specific issues that are happening in Scotland. I sought to encourage them to engage in a constructive way with the UCU to try to get that resolved. I welcome to your position, minister. It is good to see you on that side of the fence. I feel sorry for you in that position, because you have taken on a portfolio that is mired in confusion and delay, and it has been for some years. I think that what was quite characteristic of your contribution—and it has been an impressive contribution, I have to say so far—is that you talked about taking quick actions. That will be a dramatic change from recent years. If you look, there is no international strategy for the higher education sector. There is no final purpose and principles statement. It was promised in the spring that it is still not here. We have no skills alignment, which was promised six years ago. We are still not in that position. Although you have talked about the flexibilities for the college sector, we do not really have substantial change on that, other than what you have mentioned. My concern is that, on top of that, you have a £46 million cut. How is that going to help all of that? How is that going to help the college sector and the university sector to plan for the longer term something that you have acknowledged that you would like to happen? The international strategy has been worked on. It is coming. Purpose and principles are the statement. Again, it is pending. I have been keen to see a bit more meat on the bones on that than was perhaps there initially. That is an element of the delay around that. However, we have a number of things coming forward in a fairly concise period of time. When we want to get the choreography right of those, I do not mean to manage it, but in order to give universities and colleges and the committee the opportunity to look at that in the round. We obviously have the Withers review coming as well. So what the Cabinet Secretary and I are doing currently is looking at the timings of all of that as much detail as possible that will allow the sectors—the two sectors—to respond to the committee to take a view, Parliament to take a view, wider stakeholders to take a view. Our intention is that, on the back of all of that, we have extensive consultation with people. I mean face-to-face consultation with the colleges and universities in order to get good feedback on where we need to take all of that. It is about trying to take swift action, but it is also about planning for the longer term and providing the stability right across all the sectors. However, it is also across the skills and education landscape to have a coherent narrative and a clear direction. I think that the committee right way and its work indicated that colleges needed a clear steer on what their purpose was. I totally agree with that. That is what we are looking to do. We want to give them that. It is a matter of where the colleges fit into the overall landscape. I think that it will be a key part of what we do going forward. However, at the moment, the colleges are doing so many different directions and some colleges are operating differently. We need to make this much more coherent. We also need to declutter the landscape. It is far too complex just now. We can do that in the short to medium term and make things easier for people to progress. I recognise that answer is a bit waffly, but you know the thrust of what I am saying. What I would commit to is to keep the committee as up-to-date as possible with regular information. All that is fine, but you do not think that it all might just be a little too late. When they have already got flat cash, the £46 million that thought was coming is not, they are going to be making decisions right now about what to do, what positions to keep, what people to—what positions to remove, what departments to focus on. All of that will be made without you having a single say on any of it. It is not a danger that all of this will be too late. Sally Mapstone is at St Andrews. She has talked about managed decline. Are you just not concerned that you might just be able to be too late to the party and all the decisions will be taken and you will have no say over it? No, I am not concerned about that. I recognise that the time is not good and that the loss of the £46 million is not good. Although, for context, the loss of the £20 million from the university's budget is a very small proportion. I am not downplaying that, but, for context, we will come back to Sally Mapstone's points in a moment. Given the discussions that I have had with the colleges in particular, I think that we can do enough in the short term to stabilise the situation, to allow us to then kick on what we need to and want to do and what they want to do. In the context of universities, Sally Mapstone has a great deal of respect for managing decline in that sector. However, the facts do not bear that out. If you look at the performance of the universities—I could go through those if you wish—this is a sector that, despite the challenges, is vibrant. There is a fantastic enthusiasm about it. The reduction in the loss of the additional funding was a blow. In the context of universities, I think that their concern was more about what they felt the message was behind that, rather than the hard cash. It was that they felt that we had somehow de-prioritised universities. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I take that message on board, and that is why we will have a lot of discussions with universities about how we can deal with that. You have heard me talk about this before. The research performance has dropped from 15 per cent of the UK Research Council funding to 12.5 per cent. We were brilliant at this before, brilliant, and we were still good, but it is going down. That is surely an indication of a managed decline. If you reinforce that with a massive cut in their budget—flat cash as well—it is not really an indication that you are fully committed to universities. Which are a major generator of economic performance, are they not? They are indeed a major generator. I go back to what I have said on a number of occasions, Mr Rennie. If you want more money for universities, it has to come from somewhere else. That is just the fact. That is where we are. However, I would certainly hope that I have been speaking to individual university principals in recent days. I think that there is an understanding that we do value our universities. I hosted an event two weeks ago with the German Education Secretary and a number of our universities. I think that that alone sends the message about the value that we place in the role that our universities are going to have going forward. I get the contradiction that you are alluding to between the financial side of it and that, but I absolutely give the assurance that our universities, such as our colleges, are going to be front and centre on what we are doing. Are you going to do Erasmus replacement? Mr Rennie, I am going to move on from that, because I am really conscious of the time that I am not going to ask the minister to respond. I am going to come to Stephanie Callahan, please. Just very briefly, minister, the purpose and principle statement that we agreed at this committee previously was really critical and really central. I understand that there are loads of complexities around there and loads of things fitting together, but, specifically, what are the likely timescales around that being published? Can I give a specific date? No, I can't, but is it relatively imminent? Yes. Thank you. I thought that we were going to get another answer there, but we are just clearing your throat. Ross Greer, can we move to some questions for yourself now, please? Thank you, convener. First of all, minister, following up on the issues around City of Glasgow College, so, like colleagues I have met with the union representatives there, they believe that, at the same time as the compulsory redundancies are taking place, that new management positions are being created at the college. Would it concern you to see what will be well-paid senior management positions come into being at the same time as lower-paid support and front-line teaching election staff lose their jobs? If that were to be the case, it would be a matter of concern. Thank you. The principle of City of Glasgow College earns a salary far in excess of the First Minister. Mr Greer, this is going off the piece of what we were expecting, and I am very conscious of the time, and I have other members coming in. Can you perhaps stick to the scope of their range? I will write to you about the outrageous salary of City of Glasgow College. Students at St Andrews and Stirling universities are facing 8% and 9% hikes in their university accommodation rent. At the same time as St Andrews universities reserves have increased by £4 million from about £376 million to £380 million. Is it justified for universities to raise the cost of rent in their accommodation at the same time as their banking money? To answer the question, as much as I can, of course, an accommodation charge increase of that size is concerning. I guess what St Andrews universities would say in the context of that is that they are also at the same time providing £24 million in bursaries for poor students, so they would no doubt rebut your point in that regard. I am aware of the situation at those two universities, and I have raised that informally, although I will be raising it informally, because I want to understand, while it is a matter for them, how those charges can be justified. The context of reserves is very easy to look at reserves such as underspends and say, wow, that is a lot of money. If you have that money, it is a rainy day, why is it not being spent? We also need to recognise that it would be reasonable to assume that institutions would retain reserves equivalent to three to six months of their expenditure, and I certainly recognise that. We just need to be a little bit careful about viewing reserves in that regard, especially when there may not be cash reserves that can be read away and drawn down. There is a balance to be struck here on how we view those things, but I take your point about the accommodation charges. I think that I have had correspondence from one of your colleagues on the issue, and I will respond to it. On that wider point, I agree with you that universities should maintain sufficient operating costs as reserves, not all reserves are cash reserves, but Edinburgh University's reserves have gone up by £36 million to what is now £2.5 billion, which is far in excess of six months' operating costs at that university. You are right, not all of that is cash. A very significant proportion of it is. Has the Government done any analysis and has the Government any policy position on the reserves held by Scottish universities? There is an issue here for the public finances. We give a very large amount of money to our universities each year, quite rightly, but some universities are using that to maintain, to be a going concern. Other universities are banking almost £40 million a year and now have a reserve that is about four times what the Scottish Government can legally hold in its reserve at any given time. Of course, one would be concerned if reserves were being banked just for the purpose of having them, but I suspect that some of the universities that you would talk about are investing incredibly heavily in a variety of ways. Although I would be concerned about excessive reserves, of course, I think that we need to take a very calm look at this situation and look at what these universities are actually delivering at the same time. Can we move now to questions from Stephen Kerr, please? Calm and considered reflection. I am all for that. That is what Sir Peter Matheson called for last week when he raised the issue that he termed as a brain and cash drain south of the border. We were both on the same radio programme, so I listened very closely to what you had to say on drive time on BBC Radio Scotland. Why is the Government not engaging openly and in a calm and considered way with what was a very reasonable and reasonable approach from Sir Peter on the issue of revenue that the Scottish universities are not getting that they could get, which is ending up south of the border? Well, I'm glad to hear you're going to follow Sir Peter's lead and take that calm and rational approach, Mr Kerr. You can tell in the tone of my voice. Indeed, I was shocked. As we spoke to Sir Peter last night, we talked about this in detail, he was technically a helpful contribution to the debate, or to a debate. I understand entirely where he's coming from, but his central premise is actually wrong. If you look at the numbers of Scottish domicile students who are going to university in England, it has come down. There is not an increase, it has come down. I'll write you with a figure on that. Anecdotaway, I don't doubt that he's aware of certain cases. I think that the central premise for that argument that he advanced is flawed. Nevertheless, of course, people will hold different views on tuition fees. Your party holds different views to mine. We fundamentally believe that the ability to learn is what should determine your opportunity to go to university as opposed to the ability to pay for it. What has also been lost a little bit in the discussion that followed that is that it's not simply about saying that certain students would have to pay tuition fees, as Sir Peter argued, for those of wealthier families. It also has loan repayments. It's a substantial sum of money. You're entitled to hold a view, and Mr Rennie's party will have a view. We hold to a view, and I'm happy to defend that. I'm also happy to talk to people like Sir Peter, who is a deeply respected individual. As I said, we discussed this last night. I won't share what we discussed, but it was a very constructive discussion. What is Conservative position on this, as you well know, not to have it mischaracterised, is that we also support paid tuition fees. However, we understand that there are issues that arise with paid tuition. When someone like Sir Peter, who is widely respected, not just in Scotland or the United Kingdom throughout the world, raises issues around other ways that Scottish students might be able to get places in university, we think that it's worth having that calm and considered debate. I'm glad that you did, but the First Minister's response I don't think he'd read the article, and he immediately shut down the argument. None of us are saying that there shouldn't be paid tuition. Let's look at other ways that we can expand revenue streams for Scottish universities if that involves Scottish families. I'm not saying that it should, but if it did involve Scottish families paying tuition fees for their sons and daughters of Scottish universities, that can only be a good thing, surely? I don't think that the First Minister shot it down in the way that you put it. He was just clear that the position of his Government is that this is, if you like, a red-line issue for us. Sir Peter is perfectly entitled to express his view, and, unfortunately, as you know, he was very query about what I can discuss, and it was a very limited approach, and in some cases it was portrayed as being that he wanted to reintroduce tuition fees, which is not where he was coming from, but that doesn't mean that we agree with him, because we don't. I just think in the context of what we've been discussing. The colleges have got a lot of airtime in the committee today, and quite rightly, too, but the universities also, in their submission to us, just let's put this all this discussion into context. They're saying that the university teaching funding has already been cut by the Scottish Government by 27 per cent in real terms between 1415 and 2223, and then they're talking about, as Willie Rennie highlighted, their main research grant cut by 31 per cent in the same period. We cannot afford to allow Scotland's universities to languish. We cannot afford and manage the client and minister. I think that you agree with that. Can you affirm here and now that, on your term of office, as the Minister for Further and Higher Education, there will be no further decline in the funding of these institutions? I want to go back to the simple premise of your point. You were talking there about a figure about the decline in funding for university students. That figure has arrived at by the universities using a methodology, which is at odds with the one that's only used by the Scottish Government, but your colleagues down south. So I would challenge the figure that's being quoted. Do I recognise the general point that they make? Yes, I do, but it's not on a scale if you use the same methodology that's used by the UK Government and ourselves that has been portrayed. I can't sit here and tell you that the picture will suddenly become rosier, the financial picture. I can't do that. What I will tell you and, as I've said today, we will work very closely with the universities and the colleges to do everything that we can to improve sustainability in both areas, and that's what we'll be doing. On that note, we can end that session. I'd like to thank you both for your time this morning. The public part of our meeting has now concluded and we will consider our final two agenda items in private. Thank you.