 Mae'r ddweud i'r 5 oes y cwestiynau ar gyfer y cyflawni gael y Prifysgol yma o'r ffordd. Rwy'n gobeithio i gael o'r parly learnsau ar gyfer y cwestiynau o'r ffordd, ond mae'n clywed o'r ffordd o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan, o'r rhwng o ddweud o'r rhwng o'r rhwng o'r rhwng. Yr un gwrs dros yma ar gyfer y cyflawni gael y prifysgol efo'r cyflawni gwylo'r gweithlu item three in private. Is that agreed? Thank you. Can I welcome our guests, both those online on computer link and those who joined us in the committee room this morning? You're very welcome. We are keen to get your perspective on the financial health of the further education sector and governance arrangements and so on, if you want to address that. Also, especially at this time, how further education colleges have coped with the pandemic and what's been the experience for people, both teaching and as students. We also want to cover some ground looking at college performance. Our reference points are a blog, which the Auditor General produced in May of this year, but the other reference point that we've got is the most substantive report, which came out in 2019, which gave a kind of weather check on the state of further education colleges at this stage post merger and so on. Just to say that you don't have to respond to every single question and there may be areas that you've got particular enthusiasm to take part in, but there may be other areas that you feel other people are better equipped to come in. Because of the time constraints, we're going to have to manage that quite tightly. For those of you in the room, if you indicate to me or to the clerks if you want to come in, that's helpful. On the video link, if you can use the chatroom and put an R in the chatroom if you want to come in on a particular part of the conversation. Just finally to say that when you speak, your microphone will be automatically switched on and I want to begin then by asking people to introduce themselves and I'll start with the MSPs who are here. Sharon. Hi, I'm Sharon Dowey. I'm MSP for South Scotland. Where I'm Willie Coffey. I'm the member for Kamala Kinner and Vally. Hi, I'm Craig Hoy and I'm also an MSP for South Scotland. Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselborough. And could I ask the people who are on video link to introduce themselves, beginning with Shona? Oh, good morning everyone. My name is Shona Strunners. I'm the chief executive of Colleges Scotland. We are the representative body for all colleges in Scotland. Thank you. Audrey. Morning everyone. I'm Audrey Cumberford, the principal at Edinburgh College, but I'm also the chair of the college principal's group. Thank you. And Gillian. I'm strategic director for scrutiny and instrument inspector in Education Scotland. And my remit includes tertiary sector and obviously includes colleges. Thank you. And the panellists in the room, beginning with the auditor general. Good morning everybody. My name is Stephen Boyle. I'm the auditor general for Scotland. And I work with Audit Scotland. And we oversee the financial performance and the use of public money in Scotland's colleges. Morning everybody. I'm Karen Watt. I'm the chief executive of the Scottish Funding Council for Further and Higher Education. And we distribute about £2 billion of public investment in colleges and universities every year. Good morning everyone. My name is Matt Crowley. I'm the president of the National Union of Students in Scotland. And that includes all of the college student associations which make up our membership. Good morning. My name is David Belsie. I'm an assistant secretary at the Educational Institute of Scotland, the EIS, and we're the sole union that's recognised for representing lecturers in the FE sector. Thank you and thanks to everybody for being here this morning. I want to kick off our questions with some about the kind of financial health and sustainability of the sector. And Sharon Dowie is going to ask those questions. Good morning. The auditor general for Scotland's blog reports that many colleges continue to face significant financial challenges. We've got a strong sense of that from the papers as to what they are, but if we could ask the participants today to start sharing their experiences of those challenges on the ground. I don't know who wants to kick off for that. Thank you very much. You're absolutely right colleges are facing a number of all financial challenges. Since the auditor general's blog, however, we have seen a very improved position in terms of the adjusted operating surplus that we now see. So across the college sector, we've now got a surplus for academic year 2021 of about £7.6 million, is an improved cash position as well. Now the reason why I think that's an important starting point for the conversation is there are a number of reasons why that position has started to improve. One is we've been able to put some additional funding into the college sector, so we've invested an extra £70 million. And what would be really interesting is to hear how, from colleges, they've been using that money because it has been a very important part of how they've been able to get through the pandemic, make sure that students are still experiencing the kind of learning and teaching that they would require, but also that they have been able to play their full role in thinking about the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. We're looking at now a more immediately improved situation, not without its challenges, though, for some individual colleges. But by and large, it is a mixture of more funding, more flexibility for colleges, and I would say their own actions to manage their financial position, but it's looking more positive. But there are risks down the road, for example, around the commitments that might be made to longer-term financial planning. I think that our review, which we published in June this year, was looking at the longer-term sustainability, which I'm very comfortable to pick up with the panel as we go as well. Thank you. I know that both Shona Struthers and Audrey Cumberford want to come in. I'm going to ask Audrey Cumberford first of all if she wants to come in, please. Thanks, Sarah. Just to give some local examples in terms of Edinburgh College on the back of what Karen has just said is really important, I'm going to say that in financial terms, certainly at Edinburgh College and any other colleges, we have experienced some stability, which sounds a bit odd in the middle of our response to Covid, which certainly wasn't very stable, but certainly in financial terms. We have seen some stability as a college and that has been directly linked to the Covid consequential additional monies that were put in to support the young person's guarantee and to support the national training fund, both of which, as Karen has alluded to, were flexible routes of funding, which was hugely positive for the college. It allowed us to respond very quickly to immediate need. For example, in my case, there are 700 job vacancies in the NHS Lothian area, and we were able to co-design fast-track i.e. only a few weeks long fast-track programmes to get people into jobs, guaranteed jobs, having gone through those programmes, so hugely responsive. It has allowed us to pick up new models and new ways of delivering skills programmes and training programmes and doing them in different ways from ways that we would normally have done things through our core funding. That has been hugely welcomed. The challenge, as Cram has said, is that we are literally planning on a year-by-year basis, so we do not know if those funds will continue beyond the short term. That is where the lack of stability comes in, is being able to plan a wee bit more strategically. Of course, that has all sorts of implications in terms of the staffing that we need to deliver to those programmes. There is uncertainty for staffing and for the staff themselves due to the lack of sight of the long-term nature of that. Flexibility is really important. Of course, the college has undertaken its own actions, for example, BS, which is impacted on staffing, and things such as renegotiating contracts, as all the things that you would expect an organisation to do to try and balance the books. Stable for the moment, but working with the funding council, colleges are required to do longer-term financial forecasts based on assumptions, which is an important part of financial planning and is hugely important. When you look further out beyond this year, in my own colleges, as an example, we are looking at having to save, next year, savings of around £1.6 million, and thereafter, any cost of living pay rises awarded to staff to 1 per cent in Edinburgh College which means that we would have to find another £0.5 million to pay for that. The longer-term outlook is looking more challenging. I hope that that can get me some examples at a college level. Thank you. I'm going to ask Shona Struthers to come in, and then I'll ask David Belcy from the EIS. Thank you. I think what Audrey did was give a sort of local flavour to that. At the sector level, what we've seen this year has been very welcome additional funding, but, as has already been stated, a lot of this funding was one-off for one year. What that has done is, although it has allowed stability for this year, what it doesn't allow for is planning strategically long-term, because we don't know if that funding is going to be mainstreamed if it's just going to be a one-off. There are some good examples in there. Foundation apprenticeships, for example, we've only got one-year funding. It's a two-year programme. We don't know if there's funding coming for the next year on that. That means that people have to make decisions that might displace other learners, for example. We've had really welcome funding on mental health, but, again, we don't know if that will be mainstreamed or if there will be funding that will continue. You set up services and you don't know whether or not you can continue with those services. Although the one-off funding this year has been very welcome, and there have been many flexibilities provided with the funding council, which I think shows really good working between the sector and the funding council, what it doesn't take away from is that, when you look out longer term in the college sector, there's a precarious financial situation there. Shona, just while you're giving evidence on that, could you also address the point that you're making in your written submission, which is a wider point about the importance of multi-year financial settlements to allow planning to take place in the sector? It's a really good point. I mean, I've been in post several years and I think every year the organisation on behalf of the sector has submitted a draft budget, so it's been a one-year budget. What we really need is a multi-year funding, a sort of programme that allows you to know where you will be this year, next year and the following, at least a three-year programme. We've just not been afforded that. What that means is that you make lots of short-term decisions, and that can often be not the best financial decision. I think that if there's some way that the sector could be afforded a multi-year funding settlement, it would go a long way to allow the sector to be much more strategic, and I think that that's better use for the public purse. Thank you. That's helpful. I'm going to call in now David Belcy from the EIS. David Belcy. First of all, we've been looking at the last accounts that have been published, which are on the SFC website, and that shows an underlying, adjusted operating deficit for the whole sector. Whilst College of Scotland and the SFC have both acknowledged that there is one-off moneys for 2020-21, they are Covid consequentials. They are not an inherent or underlying part of the FE sector's funding, and it's difficult for us to accept that there isn't an underlying funding issue for the college sector based on one-year extraordinary events and funding streams that have gone on to support that extraordinary year. The feeling in colleges is that some colleges do feel as if they are operating in a very tight financial environment. That's the feeling that the staff, the lecturing staff have within those colleges. Not all colleges, but a number of them do feel that they do operate in a tight operating environment. In terms of the long term, what we would say is that, structurally, there is a deficit position. The funding model is deficit if you strip out the one-off's funding for consequentials for this, that and the other. I think that that supports what Shona has just said. We do support a multi-year funding, and I think that that is one of the few positives the EIS saw out of the SFC's phase 3 report of its review, which supported multi-year funding. That, hopefully, will be able to create the conditions for stability in the medium to long term. Thank you. I'm now going to ask Stephen Boyle, who wants to come in to address this point, and then I'll come to Matt Crilly from the NUS. Thank you very much, convener. In my blog, we really touched on, I suppose, the conversation that we've had already this morning that the college sector continues to experience financial challenges, but we would also recognise the point that Karen makes that there has been some stability during the current year as a result of some of the additional funding that has been provided to the sector and other measures to such as the use of furlough to bring some financial stability to the sector. As contributors have mentioned this morning, the longer-term outlook undoubtedly remains challenging. We've yet to see what impact the end of furlough, the increases in national insurance contributions that will come, whatever uncertainty remains about the inflationary environment that we're in, and what impact that will have on both the cost-based and future pay awards. The other factor that we would highlight, convener, is that, as you mentioned in our 2019 report, we commented quite a lot about the maintenance obligations of Scotland's colleges, both in terms of life cycle and quite a significant backlog maintenance. Who knows, of course, what Covid will mean, what a digital or hybrid learning environment might mean for Scotland's colleges' state similarly, but it's just one of the remaining challenges to be addressed. For us, it's an on-going enthusiasm to see what the plan from Government and the sector is to tackle that maintenance problem and in the wider suite of financial challenges that are undoubtedly still facing the sector. I would like to explore further the implications that this insecure funding has on students and on the ground. Shona made the point about the mental health funding that the Government provides to Scotland's colleges, and that makes a massive difference to the lives of students. It means that there is support for them there. If they are struggling with their mental health, it means that they may be able to access counselling services if they need it. As Shona said, the funding for that isn't guaranteed, it isn't certain, it's not secured going into the future, it's currently temporary. We conducted the largest study into student mental health in Scotland last year. It involved both college and university students. Over 3,000 students took part in the research, and 60 per cent of students, even with the public funding that was going on, had to wait to access support services at their institution. All those who had to wait more than half waited over a month and a fifth waited over three months to access the mental health support services that they needed. That is in a situation in which we conducted research just pre-pandemic. Since the pandemic, more than half of students are telling us that their mental health has gotten worse, as we would expect. We have discussions about the funding of the sector, the funding of colleges. As we see it, the lack of investment in the college sector means that students have to wait longer to access support services that they need, and the precarity of the funding leads us to question whether those support services are even going to be there in the next couple of years, and we really think that they are important. Thank you. I am conscious of the time, so I am going to move to Colin Beattie, and I'll bring Sharon Dowie back in again. Colin, you've got some questions. Before I throw something in here, perhaps I could ask the auditor general just to remind me. I seem to recall in past sessions that there is an issue around depreciation with the colleges and the treatment of that depreciation. There was some peculiarity, and I can't quite remember that. I'm hoping the auditor general can. I'll do my best, Mr Beattie, to recall likewise. I'm sure that there will be additional contributors on the call, who will be able to remind us. I think that you're right, and I might need to refresh my memory in respect of its interaction with the funding environment and the ability to use the arms-length foundations as part of the funding and payment of or meeting the costs of depreciation. What's undoubtedly the case, though, and if I'm able to come back with more detail on that, is that depreciation is a significant component of the costs of the college sector. There's some analysis, both in our 2019 and 2020 paper, that outlines that aspect of the cost pressure, but it's also stripped out, as colleagues have mentioned this morning, to move to what's the adjusted funding position. However, it is a fact, and Follyam may not have enough detail to answer your question this morning, but maybe others can help. Perhaps, just leading on from that, I was going to ask some questions about the updated medium-term financial forecasts from June 2021. I'm assuming that's where the 7.6 million was extracted from. There must have been other information that came out of that. What significant information came out of the financials apart from the bear fact that there's a potential surplus there? What else did you take from that? I'll pick up a couple of points from that. What we picked up was that, while the overall position in the sector is healthy and strong for this year and the immediate future and this academic year, there are clearly a number of colleges that, below the line, have got some particular issues that we need to address. We're working with them very closely. At the close of 1920, I think there were about eight or nine colleges that had some deficits. Our projections and what we're now seeing going forward is that that number has reduced, so we have about five colleges that we're working very closely with below the surface. I think that what we would also pick up from the projections is that some colleges have had more exposure to, for example, where they have had more commercial activity or where they have had some international activity. Clearly through the Covid period, those projections have been affected by their exposure to the pandemic situation that they find themselves in. There are also, as the Auditor General has picked up, ongoing issues about how we can project forward for both the lifecycle maintenance of particular estates but also longer-term capital requirements. We're seeing a range of different kinds of issues coming out from those projections to point up a few. As I said, we're due to get revised projections in mid-October, which will again give us a refreshed view of the medium term. I'm very happy to update the committee on our findings on those as well. I'm sure others will want to come in, but just to expand on what you've been saying, there's a 2019 report about reduction in income from ALF and from commercial income. That was pre-Covid. I'm presuming that that died completely near enough during Covid. In the projections that you've received in the updated medium-term financial forecast, is there any indication of a revival of that source of income? Our judgment would be that some of the commercial income will still be affected by the on-going pandemic, and that will ripple through. We have seen some quite significant healthy commercial activity in some particular regional areas. In the north-east, for example, we've seen a college there that has generated commercial surplus, which we understand thinking about putting into an elf for the future, but they are unusual. I think that what we are seeing is that the performance of the colleges around either commercial or additional income is very much dependent on their place within that region, on how the regional economy is faring, on how other factors are coming into play. I would say that the likely projections that we get in will see that that hasn't quite revived yet. We'll look to the next three-year projections to see what the colleges themselves are projecting, but we suspect that there will still be a dampening of that kind of activity through the Covid period. I don't know whether anybody else wants to contribute in this one. No one's indicating, but I don't know. I mean, mention was made there about the interaction with the business community, and I know Audrey Cumberford was the co-author of a report that addressed the college's relationship to the economy, and in particular spoke about the extent to which more could be done to build up better relationships with a small and medium-sized enterprise sector. I don't know whether, Audrey, you want to just come in briefly on that point. Quickly recap on the commercial international income. Again, if I can give an example. At Edinburgh College, our loss of income in that first year during Covid was circa £3 million, and that was predominantly international and commercial income. Going forward, in terms of our forecast, we are being very cautious because it's not like a tap that you can just turn on quickly in terms of that income immediately coming back. We're having to be very cautious in terms of forecast going forward. As Karen said, don't expect an immediate resurgence of international contracts and other commercial contracts. Just on that latter point, in terms of working more closely with businesses, the best example of that was the flexible workforce development fund, which again was the clue in the title. It was a flexible fund, and it was used specifically to bring businesses and colleges together so that colleges could give immediate business support to those businesses, whether it was upskilling or re-skilling of their staff or whether it was to support their business process improvements, innovation, close to market innovation, etc. Again, the sector as a whole has absolutely grasped that opportunity and is maximising that fund absolutely to its max. However, the evidence would suggest that the demand for that type of support is currently not being met, i.e., we could be doing more. In my own case, in Edinburgh, region that has a fairly buoyant economy, there is way more demand than we can provide in terms of the funding that we get to support that. That shows that there is some untapped potential and a real opportunity to do more. The last point that I would make is that it is not simply about the college supporting those businesses. Those businesses, in turn, are helping us to shape and plan the type of curriculum, qualifications and provision that we need to be designing and building into our portfolios to make sure that we are going to continue to meet their needs in terms of workforce skills. I do not know whether Colin Beattie has any further questions or not. I suppose that the only other thing is that the Orator General's report of 2019 highlighted the question about some colleges having difficulties in financial sustainability. Now, Karen has indicated that there has been improvement in that and that she is working closely with five colleges in respect of that, but it has been going on a long time now. The failure to reach sustainability has been going on for as long as I can remember. Is there any, leaving aside the overarching funding issue, anything that is holding the colleges back from reaching that financial sustainability, what actions should they be taking that they are not taking? If I were to describe it in this kind of way, the list, if you like, of colleges that face particular difficulties each year changes. By and large, what we get is a snapshot. It is a fairly dynamic situation. Sometimes we can find a deficit emerging because a college is in the middle of a transformation programme and it is just taking a little longer to work through. Sometimes, as we have been talking about, there can be a sudden loss of some income, which, just because they are all operating within a very tight financial envelope, puts them into a deficit position. I would say that the one area where we are looking at a list of colleges that has been regularly talking about a deficit position has been in the multi college region in the Highlands and Islands. Part of our national review of tertiary education was to make some recommendations about how the regional strategic body could look again at how those colleges in that region were managing themselves and what the future might look like. They are going through an options appraisal process just now and we are working very closely with them. I suspect that my answer is not quite a straightforward one because the colleges each year that face these difficulties are slightly different, so it is not as though we have the same colleges appearing every year. However, there are some areas where it is clearly a more significant structural set of issues, either about size, scale, funding and curriculum content, which we are working very closely with them on to address. However, the critical issue that I think is going forward for future sustainability is dealing with some of the recommendations that we have put to Government around multi-year funding settlements and the continuance of some of the extremely important programmes that enable colleges to fulfil their role in regions. We are probably looking again at some of the way in which we set targets. I know that we may come on to this when we look at performance, but some of the target setting could again be addressed where we have activity targets, which may well not always enable a college to reshape itself in order to deliver what our region students and businesses in the area may need. That is a longer-term prescription for some of the challenges that we face immediately. I am going to bring in Shona Struthers, then I want to move on, because Craig Hoy has got some questions to ask. Shona. Thank you. I think that what Karnell alluded to today was just the diversity within the sector. It is not that the colleges are standard units throughout the country. They are very different shapes and sizes and they are in different regions, so they reach into different regions and the small and medium-sized enterprises in those regions. The colleges have all those links, so they are quite a different set of institutions that we are dealing with. Interestingly, about 26 per cent of all higher education is also delivered within colleges, so although some people describe them as FE colleges, they are also very active in the HE sector in terms of higher education qualifications. The point that I would like to make that is really fundamental, and we have not quite reached today, is that there is an inequity of funding for college students. There was a parliamentary question asked by Michael Marra in July of this year, and he asked how much per head students were funded in preschool, primary school and secondary school colleges and universities. Colleges receive just an average of about £4,000 per head, and it goes up in each category thereafter between schools. I think that secondary schools are £8,000 just to give an example, so there is an inequity that a student that goes to college gets invested about half the amount that if that student stayed at school they would have been invested in, and I think that investment in the college sector, if it were to be levelled up, could address some of the financial implications that we are talking about today. Thank you. That is a fascinating insight. Craig, do you want to come in? Thank you, convener. We have talked about the need for long-term financial planning and sustainability, and then also drawn some comfort from the Covid consequential blip, which is an operating surplus for this year. However, the Auditor General states in his blog that a significant number of colleges need to increase funding costs or a combination of both to deliver balanced budgets moving forward. However, we know that non-government funding is reducing, so how feasible is it therefore for colleges to generate more funding, particularly as the sector seeks to recover from the Covid-related challenges? Who wants to go first on that? Shall I pick that up for a first opener on that? You are clearly right that there is a balancing act that colleges do both every year as they are thinking about their financial position. When we were looking at our national review overall, we were looking at that sense of how we can enable colleges to project forward with confidence with some of the more fundamental underpinnings about resource and finances being clearer. Even just to have financial planning assumptions clear for the next three years would enable us to work very closely with colleges to make sure that we were planning properly for the kind of provision that is required. There is not one single answer to the question that you have placed, so it is a mix of things. It has to be around long-term financial planning. It has to be about enabling colleges to play their role in regions to fulfil the needs of students working with schools, working with industry and business. Some of the recommendations that we have made through are also about how we think about curriculum planning and provision. There is a raft of things that would go into that situation. Because they are public bodies, that is essentially how we look at a set of public bodies that have most of their resource tied up in the staff base. We have around 77 per cent of the costs of a college being absorbed by Softcock, because it is a face-to-face business. It is how we handle and teach students. I think that there are a range of issues that you could put into that basket of longer-term sustainability, but I think that it starts with longer-term financial planning. I know that that has been said before, but it is the heartbeat of how this is going to work in future. David, do you want to comment? Yes. I think that the EIS as a trade union looks at things slightly differently. What, whilst the Auditor General may have said, if a college is facing financial sustainability issues that cut costs or increase funding is the way forward, clearly we would not be supporting cutting costs or making staff redundant is not something that we would support. As Karen said, colleges are public bodies and they deliver a public service. They serve communities and, together, all those communities make up Scotland. It is a public service and, ultimately, it is for the Government to fund. Therefore, we do believe that the Government needs to fund FE to a greater extent than it does. I recognise what Audrey was saying earlier on about supporting business. We are not against colleges working with local businesses and supporting their needs going forward. Colleges cannot be driven by local businesses. They should be driven by the students and the students' needs, so there is a balance there. Whilst I am sure that some additional funding can come in via businesses and, indeed, the NHS and other public sector employers that also send students and benefit from the training that happens within colleges, although that is a potential revenue stream, the fundamental reliance is on the state, on the Government. Therefore, I think that the funding there has to be in. Ultimately, the public sector and colleges are not businesses. They should not be diversifying and looking for their own business streams. They should reflect their core mission, which is to serve the students. Thank you. That is a very clear point. Craig, do you want to follow that up? I have a quick supplementary to that. In the Auditor General's blog in slide 3, he looks at income by college. I will compare and contrast two colleges, for example. Roughly the same total income, Ayrshire College at £51 million and Glasgow Clyde College at just short of £50 million. Ayrshire College gets 5 per cent of its total income from other income, and Glasgow Clyde gets 10 per cent. Is there any more work that can be done within the sector to engage in knowledge transfer or best practice in how to maximise that other income? Given the fact that we are aware that there is significant cost pressures coming through the Government funding route. Who wants to pick that one up? The Auditor General wishes to pick that up. Thanks, convener. It probably feels more for Shona to express a view on it, but we would support the point that Mr Hoy makes. The notion that this is a very well-connected sector, and where appropriate, recognising that, as colleagues have mentioned, there will undoubtedly be regional variations and connections with individual business communities that will afford opportunities to some and not other colleges, but undoubtedly the principle of learning from one another holds very strong in this sector and one that we would be very supportive of. Okay, thanks. I am going to move on to Willie Coffey, because I know that Willie Coffey has got a whole suite of questions that he wants to go through. So, Willie, over to you. Thanks very much, convener. Good morning to the panel. I am hoping to ask for your views on the response to the pandemic in broader terms and the student experience and so on, so I will come to you on that. But first, before I forget, convener, I wonder if I could ask a question relating to College Scotland's submission on the potential impact to the shared prosperity fund. It is probably for Shona to respond to, if she can, and the concerns about that not matching up to the previous EU funding. Just could you give us a little flavour, Shona, of what your concerns are in that area, please? Yeah, thank you for that question. For us, it is about getting some feedback. I can hear myself. Can you hear me okay? Yeah? Yeah. For us, the shared prosperity fund, as an alternative, is obviously new. We have got some concerns that it will not have a similar level of funding to what we have previously seen with European funding. For us, it is about making sure that the new fund can match at least what we used to have under European structural funding so that the student does not get disadvantaged. I think that it is a watch and see and just make sure that what we need to will influence to get the best for our students. Has there been any clarification of that perhaps, Karen, about what we might be looking at in the near future? Well, I think that it is a little unclear to be fair at the minute. The funding council has still got European social funds that we are investing in. Between 2020 and 2023, we have got about £37 million still that we are distributing. Of course, that goes into specific programmes to support young people, into employment, into training and into the skills that they might need. I think that the big issue here is, again, will it be a replacement like for like? At this point in time, while we have some commitments about the broad amounts of money, we have yet to understand how that might be dispersed and who will co-ordinate and who will lead also. I guess for colleges, that is, again, just a little ripple of uncertainty into the future spend. Okay, thanks very much for that. Just on the broader issue convener about response to the pandemic, it would be good to hear probably from that to begin with, just what the student experience was during the pandemic and continues to be, and particularly with the remote learning and the digital side, did that throw up more gaps in opportunity and access for students and probably lecturers alike? Could you give us a little flavour of what the experience has been? Yeah, the experience of students through the last year was an incredibly difficult one. I think particularly in Scotland's colleges where they deliver so many different practical courses that really required hands-on learning and being in person in the pandemic made it really difficult to do that. I think that colleges have done a good job in catching students up in the end to try and get them to their qualification, but from a student perspective it was an incredibly difficult year. The isolation that comes with it as well, I think that all of society has struggled with the isolation that has come from the last year, but students are a demographic of the population that typically struggle more with their mental health at that stage in life and being a student is often more than just switching on a laptop and doing some piece of coursework. As a social experience as well, you get to meet classmates and lecturers and it's a real time where you build confidence and skills that lead you to go out into the world and this year was particularly challenging. A striking moment this year was the realisation of just how many students were in digital poverty who struggled to access, particularly early on in the pandemic, the laptops, the equipment, the internet that they needed to take part in their studies. The Government did make some investment into the sector for the last year, which did help incredibly. It wasn't necessarily enough money in that colleges were often topping up the investment that the Government was making, but we still see digital poverty as an issue that is facing students this year. Students' learning has mostly went back in person, but there is still blended learning in certain circumstances and there are students that are having to self-isolate and lecturers that are having to self-isolate, so learning in many cases does still take place online in certain circumstances and some students are still struggling to get the access to the equipment that they need to take part in their learning. There's probably a wider issue there, Karen, for us to pick up going ahead and whether that hybrid model will continue, it may well do, and whether we're equipping the students and lecturers with the right technology to enable them to do so. I was interested in the skills issue and Shona could tell us a wee bit about that. You mentioned a really good example where I think that Edinburgh had managed to adapt very quickly to refocus students into the NHS sector, where there's many vacancies available there, but I'm hearing that other members are hearing vacancies throughout a number of sectors, particularly hospitality, and to ask whether the colleges are adapting fast enough to the changing circumstances brought about probably by a combination of Brexit and Covid to make sure that the students are getting those opportunities that they need. Shona, could you offer a comment or two about that, please? Sorry, can I interject there and say that Gillian hasn't had an opportunity to come in yet? Education Scotland has done some work on digital poverty and the inequality of access to digital software and so on the hardware, so I'm going to invite Gillian perhaps first to come in on that and then, if Shona and Audrey want to come in as well, I'll invite them. Gillian, do you want to come in? Yes, thank you, convener. Yes, absolutely. We undertook an overview of remote learning in colleges in March and April of this year, which was good timing in the sense that we were a year in to the response to the pandemic, so we could tell the story of the journey that colleges have been on, and you're absolutely correct that one of the key factors facing colleges' staff and learners alike is digital poverty in all its forms. Often people think that digital poverty means lack of access to a device or lack of access to connectivity, but digital poverty is much, much broader. It can be lack of access to a suitable space in the home to learn and to learn computing resources in the home environment, perhaps to access one single computer or laptop, to admit and access to broadband, to rurality and remote locations, and to have challenges. Even with the investment, the significant investment that was into the sector in terms of the disbursement of equipment and the pace at which the college sector responded, we still see or we still certainly heard from learners and staff alike the challenges faced by learners who are in digital poverty in all its forms, so absolutely that will continue to be a challenge and colleges will continue to have to address that moving forward if a blended model continues over the course of the duration of the pandemic and perhaps even beyond. However, it's fair to say that we certainly found in our conversations with the sector that colleges collectively had responded at pace with creativity and agility to pivot their curriculum online and to make sure that they provided the continuity of learning where that was possible. However, I guess that the overriding challenge moving forward is that the challenges remain in terms of equity and also in terms of outcomes for learners, because I think it's fair to say that blended and online learning does not fully meet the needs of all groups of learners, there are some groups for whom it is still a challenge and we see that coming through in terms of learner outcomes. There is still work to be done there in terms of addressing and levelling that playing field, but we certainly found that colleges had really put the shoulder to the wheel and worked incredibly hard in a very short space of time to maximise their input and minimise the impact on learners. However, I take Matt's point and we also find that in our work, that mental health and supporting learners in a different way was also challenging for colleges, who again rose to the challenge and moved their services online. In some cases, colleges were describing how their services had reached more learners than previously, delivering those services remotely. There are lots of positives in that sector, but there are still some underlying challenges. Particularly around the learning experience, access to practical activities and the ability to complete programmes in a year when specialist technical equipment cannot be replicated at home and the ongoing impact of learners who were unable to complete within a year, who have had to come back in subsequent years, and deferred learners, as they are known, to complete their programmes, which is an additional headache for colleges when they have a new intake at the same time. There is still work to be done and there is still a challenging set of circumstances for colleges in terms of that learning experience. That is a really helpful contribution, Gillian. Thank you very much for that perspective as well. Just moving ahead to that question that I was asking previously, are the colleges, do we think, geared up for the changes in the economy that are being demanded at the moment? I am sure that, as I said, other members around the table must be hearing locally that there are a number of vacancies in a number of sectors. The question is whether the colleges are adapting quickly enough to those circumstances. I think that Audrey gave us a good example of adapting very quickly to respond to vacancies in the NHS sector. I just wanted to ask for a little flavour of how you think that is going around the country. Who would like to come in on that? Audrey, your name was mentioned and Shona has put her hand up. As Shona was the quickest to put her hand up, I will go to Shona first and Audrey. If you want to come in, you will be very welcome. What I hear across the sector is just pretty much what Gillian just described there. She has picked up a lot of the points that I wanted to make. There has just been this pivot into adapting the way that we teach our students, the way that the staff have changed, the way that they teach the students, and how we interact with industry and the changes that are there—the movement between sectors where people are coming out of jobs, such as retail, for example, where other bits of industry are looking for people such as the NHS and social care. We see very much colleges moving quickly in that pace. The one thing that I would say, and it goes back to our early discussion about financial ability to do that, is that you need capacity within an organisation to switch and change curriculum and to get people to come in as students to study those new qualifications. If that capacity is not in the organisations, it makes it very difficult. During the pandemic, the colleges have absolutely stepped up. The bit about that practical piece of work has been so important. We have tried really hard being Covid safe. We have sent out to students at home equipment that they can practice on because they could not come into college to do it in person. We have tried really hard and been quite innovative about how we carry the students' education forward in what is a less-than-perfect situation. We worked very hard across multi-agency during last year to minimise the number of deferrals. We had a ministerial-led task force, which many of the people in this group that are given evidence today were part of. We worked together to provide all sorts of mitigations to bring what was going to be a really significant number of deferred students right down to a relatively smaller amount that was much more manageable. It was a disaster averted by working together. I do not know whether, Audrie Cumberford, you have got any additional points that you want to make? Probably just one. To the specific question, there is no question that the situation that we are in at the moment has driven change quite substantially and required a huge amount of innovation and adapting how we would normally do things. Actually, in a very, very positive way, so to maybe give you another example, there are clearly sectors under huge pressure. Hospitality, you have mentioned, is one that I had a conversation just on Friday last week with a chief executive of local authority about the really deep concerns around social care and the lack of people in social care environments to do the jobs that needed to be done. The result of that has opened up some very new interesting conversations about how we might use, for example, current students who are studying social care-related disciplines. Could they be exposed a bit earlier to work in a way that they would not normally be because they would be doing their studies? They are doing a mixture of studies and skills development and work-based opportunities. We are also looking at creating, for example, dual qualifications. You may be qualified to work in the childcare sector, but you can very quickly move into where you are needed and that might be in elderly care homes, as an example. It is an interesting time because it is requiring everyone in the system, not just the colleges but the funding council, local authorities, businesses, NHS and so on, to start to think a wee bit differently. NHS and Edinburgh, their recruitment process would normally take about 12 weeks to get somebody on their books. They have now changed that so that it is about three to four weeks, so they have changed their internal processes to make it easier and quicker to get the people that we are skilling up into those jobs that they need. We need to keep looking for opportunities and how we can adapt and change. It is really encouraging to hear that, convener. Thanks very much for that. There is a chance near the end that I will ask another couple of questions. I will bring you back in before we finish, but a very directly related question is something that I know that Sharon Dowey wants to ask on the SQA situation. I have a couple of questions, so what I will do is I will just group them all together and hopefully you will be able to answer them all at the same time. With major reform of the SQA and Education Scotland planned, how well do these Government agencies currently serve the need of colleges? There seems to be a perception that they are very school focused. Do you feel you get something of value? Do the bodies really understand the challenges that you face and have they supported the sector to respond flexibly to Covid? What, if any, changes would you like to see moving forward? Okay. Who, from a college perspective or a lecturer perspective or a student perspective, would want to pick that up, first of all? I think that Audrey wants to come in on that. That was lately some questions, wasn't it? Some big questions. Actually, I do think that it's fair to say that the current approach and model within SQA is absolutely aligned far more to school provision and how school provision is delivered. That's not the same as colleges quite clearly. Again, just to give you an example, at Edinburgh College, we use over 27 different awarding bodies to meet the needs that we have. So many of those could be industry bodies that provide standards, etc. We also work and are increasingly working more closely with our university colleagues who can develop and shape their own provision. Therefore, we are looking to university partners to work with us in designing very specific programmes that we know will meet both student demand and the demand of the economy, and they can then accredit and award those qualifications. Colleges have been quite creative at looking at other options, and no question will continue to do so. The only other point that I would add is that, in the Cumberford little report, I spent a fair bit of time in that report looking at the importance of micro-credentials and how those bespoke, bite-sized opportunities can often meet both student need far better and industry need far better. I know that that is something that the funding council has picked up and identified, and we would hugely support the recommendation in the funding council report around that. There is work in progress around micro-credentials being led by a couple of colleges in Edinburgh City, and we would be very keen to see that work continue. Obviously, the sector as a whole is working very hard to input into Cairnwyr's work that he is doing, looking at the SQA as we speak. Thank you. I do not know whether David or Matt wants to come in on that question. Yes, I think that there have been feelings amongst the lecturing profession that the SQA and Education Scotland are predominantly focused on the school sector, and that has caused frustrations in the past. One of the good things from the pandemic is that the SQA created a multi-stakeholder group that worked with a range of stakeholders, including us. That helped to plan out the qualifications that were being delivered and the way in which they were being assessed during the last year, and that working was welcome and, hopefully, one that will move to the future. In terms of the future, the SQA clearly has a sword hanging above its neck, as indeed does the Education Scotland. For the FE sector, there are parts of the SFC's review that talk about quality assurance frameworks and how that may be done in conjunction with the HE sector, and that would be something that we are concerned about. I think that wherever we go in the future, in terms of either overseeing the qualifications or delivering the qualifications or supporting the qualifications, we would like it to be as FE-centric as possible and for it not to be part of the university sector framework, because universities, as Audrey said, have a degree awarding bodies. They deliver their own qualifications to their own standards, whereas colleges deliver the qualifications delivered by the SQA, but also city and guilds and a wide range of vocational qualifications. I think that trying to get it more less school-focused would be welcome for the FE sector. I think that Shona Struthers wants to come in as well. Many of the points have been made about being very school-focused, so we will work with Professor Muir in his review to make sure that the college sector is understood. He is a V SQA, because I think that it has been very school-focused, but David has already alluded to the good work that was done with SQA during the year around the assessments for NQs, HNs and so on. I suppose that one thing that I would add to that is that we have been working with SQA for many years looking around the HN next generation, so that is a bit of a slow burn that could have been much faster. Just to add to Audrey's point where Edinburgh College deals with 30 awarding bodies right across the sector, we work with just over 100, so that gives you an idea of the breadth and depth of qualifications and awarding bodies that the sector deals with. I want to try and move us on in the final minutes that we have to look into college performance. The Auditor General's blog did not have a deep dive audit style into some of the criteria that I think are important for us to at least have a discussion about this morning. That is about things like student numbers, about the goals to widen access, about completion rates or drop-out rates and what is going on there, what has gone on during the pandemic and how you see the challenges beyond the pandemic. I wonder whether anybody wants to give us a start on their observations about those issues around access, student numbers and so on. Matt Crilley, first of all, will bring you in. Thank you, convener. I am really worried about access. The pandemic has been incredibly difficult for Scotland students and I know a lot of the discussion today about the financial health of colleges, but the financial health of the students in the colleges has taken a massive hit over the past year. Our research showed that 12 per cent of Scotland students have used food banks during the pandemic. Nearly half of Scotland students have relied on credit cards or other form of credit schemes to get by. That is a real shame, particularly given the fact that colleges have a real part to play in equipping us with the skills for the future, the challenges of climate change that we are facing, the upskilling that is going to be needed in society and colleges need investment to bring students into the door to facilitate that learning, but the students also need investment. The students also need to be well supported so that they can get on in their studies and not just get in the door of their education establishment but be supported when they are there. The pandemic was incredibly difficult and the student support system in Scotland does not meet the cost of living for Scotland's students. If I could make another point as well, the funding situation in Scotland's colleges, which we have explored this morning, is obviously challenging. There is a point made in the Scottish Funding Council's report, in which there are many parts of the Scottish Funding Council report that the national youth students liked. There was a part in page 130 in which it spoke about how they would expect institutions to explore eternal efficiency measures, for example, increasing class sizes, reducing the percentage of income spent on staffing, ensuring support staffing arrangements that are appropriate to the size of an institution and what it can afford. In terms of the student experience as part of this, it is not really in our or in the interests of education for students to be in larger class sizes, but for us to have less staff there to support us when we need help. I think that those are some of the major challenges that Scotland's students face in terms of the experience at college. I think that it does require public investment, and on that I would support what David from EIS said earlier as well. I wonder whether it would be helpful for the committee if I just give a couple of performance points in all of this, because, while the Auditor General's blog may not have picked up on the performance aspects, we publish performance statistics and reports on an ongoing basis. Headlines for the committee are just a bit of scene setting. Even through the pandemic, in terms of student activity, we were seeing colleges exceeding their targets. Even through the pandemic, where we had set a target of about 116 full-time equivalent students going through the colleges, they exceeded that. We have also seen colleges reach out into the most disadvantaged communities on an ongoing basis. That issue of people coming from communities who may not have experienced tertiary education is an ongoing mission for the colleges. We are seeing, even into the higher education courses, as Shona was talking about, that the vast majority of colleges are doing higher education, as well as further education. They are recruiting about a quarter of their students for higher education from the most deprived communities. We are also seeing, as you can imagine, the entrance into universities coming through the college route. A very important part of the college mission in terms of helping students fulfil their ambitions has been an ongoing part of that contribution to widening access and opportunity over time. When it comes to performance in terms of how many students successfully complete their course, Matt is quite right. That is not just about the number of students who go through the door. It is about how many are successfully going through, how many are completing and falling out of the system and how many go on to a positive destination. What we are seeing in terms of positive destinations is that, around 95 per cent of the college students who come out with qualification go on to work further study and other schemes. It is a good positive set of destinations. In terms of further education performance in terms of numbers successfully completing their courses, we are looking at about 66 per cent of further education full-time students successfully completing their course. Again, that varies across the college system. I think that you will hear from panellists why some of those figures are that way. Partly it will sometimes be about the nature of the individual student and what they want to do. They may change course, they may switch course and they may choose other options. As part of their course develops, they may find employment and choose other destinations. That is still an area of further work for us to understand what is going on entirely behind all those figures in each of the individual colleges, which is why we work with Education Scotland to look behind some of those performance statistics. The last point that I would make to the committee is that some of those targets still need to be revisited. One of the recommendations that we make in our national review is that we start looking at a national impact framework. Rather than looking at some of the way that we have collected data in the past, we should look at where the real impacts might lie and how colleges are meeting a range of different missions. Behind some of those figures, there are different performances across the colleges, which I am sure colleges Scotland, Audre and others, will want to talk about. For headline facts and figures, that might give the committee an opening amper. Thank you. What are the trends, for example, on retention? The early retention, then the overall retention rates? Are they going up? Are they plateauing? Are they going down? They have largely been quite consistent for a number of years, so we are not seeing big peaks and troughs. It has been a fairly consistent picture across the sector. For further education, full-time students, we have actually seen a little bit of an improvement over the last very short while, which is interesting. Even through a Covid period, we are seeing that students show the enduring appeal of being in some form of productive learning and the appeal of colleges, that students want to be in a learning environment, even where, as Matt was explaining, it may not be the experience that students might have had in previous years. The question is whether that is the level of success that we would want to see and whether there are specific issues lying behind some of those performance status in some college performance across the piece. I will come back to Matt Creelow on some of those points shortly, but I know that Gillian Ritchie wanted to come in on those questions, so I will invite Gillian to speak now. Thank you, convener. I will pick up on some of the points that have been made, particularly by Karen. As you know, our colleagues know that Education Scotland has a team of expert post-16 inspectors who work with all colleges, and we know our colleges well. We work very closely with individual colleges, and we have to provide that support and challenge. On the data and the trends that you were asking about, we have seen in recent years, particularly for full-time FE, particularly last year, an improvement in retention rates, so more learners are completing their programmes. Correspondingly, however, we see more learners who complete what we call partial success, so not quite completing the full programme, so not actually passing the qualification or getting over the line, as it were, and that may be a consequence of deferral and the impact of the pandemic. However, the bigger trend around that is worth noting by the committee is that the 10-year trend in full-time further education is pretty static in terms of outcomes, and there are key elements and key underpinning factors that contribute to that. Education Scotland published a report in 2015 around the senior phase in Scotland's colleges, so younger learners at SCF levels 4, 5 and 6 on full-time FE programmes are a particularly challenging group in terms of retention and attainment, and that remains the case. The Auditor General in 2019 mentioned the attainment gap and talked about the trends in terms of the most least deprived and the gap in attainment. A recent data suggests that that has not narrowed, so we do see challenges around deprivation and the impact on attainment. I guess that the success story of the pandemic period has been that higher education learners, their attainment has improved over time, so we actually see more FE learners in the last, certainly in the 2019 data, have attained the programme than did previously. As I said previously, when I spoke earlier, there are certain groups of learners for whom remote and blended learning has been a challenge, and I would suggest in the data also corroborates that full-time FE and younger full-time FE learners, both in terms of engaging them in the learning and also the rates of retention and attainment, remain a challenge for the sector. My final point would be that the buzzword really around performance for colleges is variability. We see variability within and between colleges. We see variability in attainment in subject areas. We also see variability in attainment at SCQF level, and that is the challenge going forward, is to address that variability in terms of the learner experience and in learner outcomes. Thanks, Gillian. Does anybody else want to come in on this point before I move on to Matt, again? One of the things that was in the programme for government, I think, was a commitment to looking at a range of substantial reforms to student support. I want to start with you, Matt, but I'm sure that other people will have a view on what that might look like and what some of the consequences of that might be, and how important that is. You spoke in your last contribution about the financial precariousness that many students find themselves in, so I'll ask Matt to open up, but I'm sure that other people might want to comment on that bigger reform programme. Thank you, convener. It's been an ask of the national students for many years for there to be a reform of the student support system. There are commitments within the programme for government to look at the reform of the student support system. It seems to be a couple of the years down the line, so students that are struggling now are probably going to continue to struggle, but we ask for student support to be based around a real living wage so that students receive income, which allows them to live happy and fulfilled lives and engage in their studies. Part of that is the term-time nature of student support in most cases. A lot of cases, students lose access to their support come the summer months, so the bursary and the loan payments that they receive often finish come the start of the summer and they are left to fend for themselves for the summer months. Some students will be entitled to universal credit and will seek access to that. Of course, all students will probably try to be seeking employment during those times, but for those who don't manage to find employment or who can't for whatever reason, in many cases they are left without that student support system as a backup to carry them over the line. It is a fundamental challenge that students face, and the pandemic has made it worse. 72 per cent of students are worried about managing financially. That is not just a small issue that is confined to a small number of students. It is a large, almost three quarters of students who are worried about managing financially through this last year. There needs to be substantial reforms to the student support system. If we are going to do things such as widening access to education, if we are going to support working class students to go on to further education and higher education, I know that half of university degree entrants from SIMD 20 postcodes come via colleges. Colleges really are the vehicle for widening access to further and higher education. Does anybody else want to come in on the question of student support and what the consequence of that is to the health and performance of the sector? Shona Struthers wants to come in. I was one of the members of the student support review in 2017. At that point we talked about giving students a living wage so that they could complete their studies. We also looked at what we might do during the summer months. I suppose that it is slightly disappointing that years later, we are still talking about that. I think that that is very right in saying that if the student can come to the college and has got a secure financial footing, they are much more likely to learn and to have better outcomes. That is a much better investment for the public purse rather than having students who can worry about their financial situation and therefore cannot focus on their studies and perhaps then do not get their best outcomes. I would wholly support what is said in the programme for government around an equivalent living wage for the student. Thank you. Introduce more rapidly, Shona, perhaps is what you are saying. Does anybody else want to come in on student support? If not, I will invite any member of the committee if you have any final lingering questions that you want to ask of the round table whilst they are here. Willie Coffey. Thank you very much. It is a question for Karen. Karen, it is probably two years almost to the day that I asked you the same question in relation to Ayrshire College under a current PFI obligation that the college has about £1.4 million each year hanging around their neck. Is there any possibility of a review of that situation so that Ayrshire could perhaps enter a level playing field with all the other colleges, given the particular difficult times that we are in post Covid and post Brexit? What we do with every single college and Ayrshire College is no different is that we run very close to them. Just now they are managing within the income and expenditure that they have to deal with those. I completely get the point that you are making. Some colleges have quite anomalous situations that they deal with. Of course our experience with Ayrshire is that they have managed well on a number of fronts. They have had other challenges in terms of cost-based rises and other issues. However, we are not currently sitting with a request from the college to look at that more substantially. Of course we will run always close and always look at these issues in the round. I guess that my answer is probably slightly similar to the one that I might have given you two years ago. We will work with the college and we think that what is currently within their business plan is manageable. If that changes, of course we will look at the circumstances again. Every college has got some kind of odd anomaly, either a kind of historic thing that they live with or different kind of relationship with an arm's length, an elf or whatever. Every college has got some anomaly in it. However, I would give a real assurance that we run very close to Ayrshire College and if circumstances change either in our policy or in terms of the college's financial situation, of course we would look at those things in the round. Colin Beattie wants to ask another question. I was just going to ask a question. Obviously, we are focusing very much here on a digital future and particularly equipping students with the skills and knowledge that they need in this new world that we are entering into. However, I have heard comments from people involved in the digital world that one of the difficulties is that the tutors in colleges and universities are not up to speed with the most advanced technology and the difficulty that they have in keeping up the speed. The result is that students are not always leaving with the skills that they need to get into that particular industry. I wondered how the colleges tackle this, how they keep up to date with a sector that is moving at such a speed. That might be something that Audre might be able to give some comment on, just to give you a rest, Colin. Audre, I can see you jumping at the bit anyway, so I will bring you in on that. If anybody else wants to comment, you are more than welcome, but Audre. It is an important point, and I think that it reinforces how important it is for curriculum areas and staff to be working directly with industry partners and trying to do that co-delivery. For example, in Edinburgh, we work very closely with companies such as Sky Scanner and companies who are into space tech. They are working with groups of students as we speak, designing and helping to design projects and assessments. In that sense, both students and staff are being exposed to that kind of state of the art technology. It is fair to say that pivoting was put into remote learning. Therefore, using technology because we had to use technology has hugely accelerated the skill levels and our digital infrastructure and equipment in a way that would not have happened had Covid not come along. Again, that is one of the examples of where we need to keep that momentum going in terms of up-skilling and reskilling our own staff in terms of digital skills, as well as the students. That is a really important point. It is just something that we have not really touched on, which is just the state of the College of State. I think that the 2019 report identified quite significant capital expenditure challenges in relation to that. I suppose just two related questions. One is in relation to Covid and digital learning. Does that mean that, moving forward, we may see a shift in the landscape of the College of State as more learning goes digital if that indeed is what is happening? However, in relation to the significant backlog of some major capital investment that was required into the College of State, we see right around the country at the moment that the cost of materials has surged. Does that mean that a problem that existed pre-Covid could be a more significant problem in relation to the capital investment challenge after Covid? Who wants to come in on that? Yes, Karen, what? Karen? I picked that up initially and others may want to comment. I think that the 2017 College of State condition surveys that we looked at at that time are now absolutely overdue a revamp. What we are doing now in this calendar year is developing a new and refreshed College of State strategy for the medium term. That is important because this is not only a dynamic situation. Every campus will have shifted and changed in terms of its ability to look at priority work, which we have funded over the past three years, but on-going life cycle maintenance work. However, to your point, it is also about how we think again about the infrastructure that we need and the capital investment, not just in the physical estate but also in the nature of learning, teaching and how students' expectations have shifted around the digital environment. It is a really good opportunity now to look at all of that again. We have been able to fund very high priority capital investment in the College of State, but it is time now to look again at that. We will be very happy to update the committee as that strategy develops with the sector and in consultation over the next short period. There will be a revamped estate strategy, which takes on board not just the digital challenge but the net zero and the climate emergency challenge that we have to look in in the round at what is required, both regionally and in collaboration in some areas, where it is not just the College of State, but in some of our more imaginative campus developments, where we have had significant funds for example. I am thinking about the Dunfermline learning campus, where we have two schools, a college, a local authority and some business partners all working together to look at that space for students, for industry and for the college's future. A new strategy will be coming through. Thank you. I know that Shona Struthers wanted to come in on this question as well, so Shona, over to you. Thank you. It just fully reinforces what Cain was saying. We are looking at not just no longer at bricks and mortar for our estates, but at the digital need and net zero. One of the things that we are looking to develop with the funding council and the whole sector is just an open and transparent criteria for our estates investment, where in the past it might have been a little bit vague as to which development happened. It sometimes came as a surprise to some people which campuses were developed or so on. We would just like to make that a little bit more open and transparent with the criteria that we work against. Bill, thanks for that. Thank you. That brings an end to our session this morning, and I want to thank very much all of the witnesses, both those who are in the committee room with us and those who joined us by video link. The quality of evidence that you have given us has been outstanding, so I want to place on record my thanks for the time that you have given and the thought that you have put into the evidence that you have presented to us. It really is appreciated. I would now like to draw to an end the public part of this morning's committee and move into private session. Once again, I thank the witnesses for your evidence this morning.