 Thank you for joining us this morning. Welcome to the first meeting of the Education and Childhood and Young People Committee in 2024. The first item on our agenda is an evidence session on post-school education and schools reform with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, the Minister for Veterans, Graham Day MSP. It's a pleasure to have you back this morning, minister. Alongside Mr Day, we have Leslie Ward, head of public bodies governance and reform, Jane Duffie post-school qualifications unit head. That's the lighting going down. Welcome all and thank you for your time this morning. Can I invite the minister to make some brief opening remarks before we move to questions from members? Minister, you've up to three minutes. Thank you, convener, and happy new year to everyone. I very much welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee on the subject of the reform agenda. I think not least of all because it affords us an opportunity to explore the topic in far greater detail than last month's statement to the chamber allowed us to. As I said in making the statement, there are aspects of all of this where we are quite progressed in our thinking, others a bit less so. I make no apologies for me taking time to consider all aspects of what James Willers has called for. I spent the last six months or so very much in listening mode. I wanted to develop more fully my understanding of what works well and what needs to change either dramatically or to a degree to furnish us with a skills and post-16 education landscape that is both agile and fit for the future. I also wanted to look at the practicalities and to interrogate possible unintended consequences in all of this, not to find reason not to proceed but to ensure that when we do proceed we have a clear road ahead. Members will, I am sure, appreciate that I hope that the more detail that we have gotten into, the more questions that has generated. However, I do believe that we are now quite well progressed in our thinking and broad planning. That said, I remain very much in listening mode today. If the committee collectively or its individual members have constructive ideas to contribute, I am very much open to considering those. To be clear, we do not need change simply because change is required. What we need is to get the right change delivered and with the correct sequencing. That overarching element is perhaps the most important one. Some of what will be required will take time, especially those parts requiring legislation or significant reposition in a staff. However, I hope that, during the statement, I was able to indicate some of the elements of her direction of travel. I do believe that there is much we can do in the context of decluttering the landscape and refining our offer without having to wait for structural change. However, I am here today to answer the questions of the committee and to listen to their ideas on this hugely important and wide-ranging subject. That is probably enough for me to begin with. I will be kicking off this morning. It just picks up on some of the things that you have said. You have spoken about decluttering the landscape, and it should be the right change with the right sequencing. It sounds very familiar when you have all the reviews that are taking place. We really want that clear road ahead in terms of reform. How will all the recommendations of all the recent reviews be factored in? What sort of things are you looking at? However, the smaller reviews that have been taking place as well, such as the 2020 review of the Scottish technology ecosystem, the entrepreneurial campus report, and those smaller, more peripheral reviews, what are your thoughts on that? That is a very good point. We are trying to take account of as much of all that as possible. Some of it is contradictory and therefore we will not proceed with it. However, there are a lot of common strands through that. I will give an example of the gender work that was done by SAB by looking at how we tackle some of the gender discrepancies, particularly in our apprenticeship offering. Instead of deploying that as a standalone piece of that work, we will take the opportunity to weave that into the reform agenda, because that will pay greater dividends rather than being something else that we are going to do. The sequencing of a lot of that can be quite challenging. There are certain things that need to happen to accommodate other things. That is probably the largest piece of work that the team is developing at the moment, so that when we get to the end of the game, we have done everything in the right order. I am more than happy today to commit—the committee appreciates that this is a complex piece of work—to keep the committee regularly updated as we proceed on that, so that the committee has a full understanding of what we are doing and when we are doing it. James Wethers told us back in November that cherry picking things from reviews would worry him, so it would be good to know where your space is around making sure that we are not missing some of the key elements. In the context of withers, one way or another, I would anticipate us taking forward pretty much everything that is in there. There are a number of small things that we are still considering the merits of, but overwhelmingly, the piece of work that James Wethers did. You can tell by the reaction of the various elements of the sector to that review that we understand that he is right in what he is calling for, and we are proceeding on the basis that that is what we are looking to deliver. He spoke of the north star of what that successful skills reform should look like. I wonder how you will measure success and define it and how it will be judged. I know that it is difficult—that is like a cart before the horse element, almost—because we are in that sort of… I think that there are a number of strands to that. There are a lot of structural things that we need to do to deliver on the agenda that we have, but essentially what we are about here is making the experience of the learner better than it is currently, and ensuring that employers have a better access to the skills that they require to deliver for the economy and to give particularly young people sustainable employment. Those are the ambitions that we have, and I think that the judgment will be made in however many years' time then as to how successful we have been in achieving that. That is one of the reasons that I have taken a bit of time just now, because if we look at the unintended consequences consider the practicalities now, we will save time as we move to the implementation phase, because we will have determined what the hurdles are that we have to overcome first. That is great. I have got a sense of urgency about this, so it would be good to know that there is a timeline that will be available to us to what we can expect and by when. We will be evolving, as you will appreciate, but in the context of the timeline, I would… I am probably being a bit conservative here in using this particular timeline, but by mid-March, I would hope that we would have some tangible information on the first elements of what we have committed to, which is the things like the consolidation of the apprenticeship funding in one locality, the consolidation of the students aboard one locality. I would hope that by mid-March, hopefully at the latest, I would be able to share publicly what that will look like. That is helpful to have that timeline in our heads. I ask Michelle Thompson now to take on the question. Good morning, minister. Thank you for joining us this morning. I am fully appreciative of the scale of the challenge that you have got in front of you and the multiple stakeholders. I wanted to talk to you this morning a wee bit about the role of enterprise agencies in post-school education reform and how you see that working and in particular reference to workforce planning and that interface to ensure that we are getting the skills that we need for the future. I wonder if you could give me your thoughts thus far about that. If we take the role of the enterprise agencies in the first instance, James Withers, I think, had a view about the lead role that they could take on some of the regional planning. I am not entirely convinced that that is a one-size-fits-all approach at the moment because, as I have travelled around the country over the past six months, I have seen instances where I think that other entities might be the best lead for that, perhaps the local college, for example. I am kind of open minded as to what form that would take at the moment. That is the rip that I referred back to and said earlier about. There are elements of what Withers has called for that we have not finally been reminded of. In terms of workforce planning, and I know that you will differentiate between workforce planning and skills planning. I think that it is important that we get that on the record because there is an awful lot of what is talked about is shortage of workforce, not the skills element. We have gone through an exercise just now with ministerial colleagues looking at trying to plot what the actual skills shortages are and what form they take. If we are told, for example, that we are short of 4,000 engineers, my question is, what kind of engineers? We need to plot that to map it properly. That is something that needs to be done at pace. Sitting alongside that is not simply to do that and then say, well, what do we do about it? What we are looking to do is to have the universities and colleges in part of that conversation. The next question is, well, if those are the shortages, do we have the capacity currently to train the individuals required to meet those skills shortages and if we do not, how do we go about it? That is one of the more immediate things that we are doing currently. There will be geographical differences here. There will be hotspots, perhaps your constituency would be one of those, where there is a particular type of demand there that is maybe not the same in other parts of the country. We are utilising in particular the staff at SDS who have been involved in that work. There is not a lot of them that has to be said, and that is something that we will have to look at. However, there is some decent information there that is helping and informing our thinking. That is a particularly active work stream for us at the moment. That is a very helpful response. In your opening remarks, you alluded to who might have the best oversight of future requirements. In doing this exercise, one of the challenges that we have is how do we get correctly mapped the gaps here and now today as against what the need is in the future. Can I make the assumption in reflecting on who has the best oversight of that, that it is that future focus? That is where we need to almost get ahead of the pack as we go through the exercise. As part of the exercise, there has been a lot of employers and sectors. There are some sectors that will progress themselves on that. They understand their skillshoots. Financial services would be a case in point. That is helpful because we know what we need to do in that space. However, you are absolutely right. There is the current need and the future need. That is where we need to future-proof what it is that we are doing. If you take, for example, we are told that we are short of 600 or 700 planners at the moment. That is really important because that is the building block of construction and the economic development that needs to flow from it. However, my question is what is the planning degree of the future? Is it the same as the one that we had five years ago? From my perspective, as a layman, we now have far more need for an expertise in marine planning and aquaculture, et cetera. That is an illustration of the exercise that we are going through now of saying, well, what is the planning degree of the future where we anticipate it will require? Can our universities who are involved in the delivery immediately deliver that, if not, how do we equip them to do it? There is the question about the critical mass. If we have a need now for 600 or 700 planners, what is the pipeline there? Do universities need to know that so that they know what is in it for them to provide those courses and whatever locality, and that is part of what we are going through currently? That is very helpful. I think that you have fairly illustrated the complexity around the matter. On the independent skills review, I just want to quote. It highlights the importance of getting the structures and balance responsibilities within the system right, alongside an agreed vision for success and a shared language. In reality, the report can say that, but all the mix of stakeholder groupings need to be able to buy into that, and there are some real big keywords in their agreed vision for success, shared language, presumably shared outcomes and the structure and balance responsibilities. I would appreciate your thoughts about the approach that you are taking to pool the multiplicity of stakeholders together to achieve that. I think that, on purpose and principles, we recognise some of that, and some of the challenges. Language is important, but I think that the culture that surrounds all of that and the appetite that there is for change. It is very easy for people to respond to James Wethers and say, yes, we agree with a lot of that, we need change and then, when it affects them, they are not so keen on it. What I have found to be fair, largely, is a positivity about that, a recognition that this is an opportunity that if we get it right, we can make a huge difference. Of course, when you are talking about agencies who have got certain responsibilities currently, there is a bit of overlap. That can be problematic. My job is to pull people into the room and to make sure that we overcome those responsibilities. Some of the structural change that we are going to make will help to facilitate that, because we will consolidate responsibility in one place. Perhaps one of the most important elements of that is the role of employers, because the employer voice, if it is a constructive voice, is going to be critical in that. If what we are getting from employers is that this is what we need and this is the role that we would like to play in ensuring that this happens, as opposed to simply demanding, that is what we are seeing at the moment, then I think that we have a real chance to facilitate that. I have a round table coming up and it is not just a talking shop with employers shortly. That is probably a bit of a stock take to see where we have come so far and see what more we need to do. However, my approach is very much trying to get the right people in the room at the same time and to go back to the thing about the universities and the colleges being in the room as we discuss what the skill shortages actually are, because instead of somebody then having to go and talk to the universities and the colleges, we will just go on and do it. That is the approach that we are taking. I am not going to pretend that it is simple and straightforward. It is a big challenge, but I think that the appetite is there now to seize this opportunity. For universities and colleges, there is an opportunity to better align their offering with the needs of the economy and there are financial benefits to them from that. It makes them more sustainable, but at all times we need to be driven by the need to improve the opportunity for our young people and for those who are retraining and upskilling within the current workforce. Is it fair to characterise it given the approach that you are creating a new culture of engagement? What you are describing to me is a considerable amount of engagement, which is time consuming. I appreciate that. Are you consciously undertaking changing culture within your engagement? Yes, it is time consuming. There is no doubt about that, but it has been essential to commit that time and to listen. One of the things that has come out of all of this is that some of the really good ideas that we are picking up are coming from the staff in the agencies, for example. Some of those agencies were criticised by withers. We cannot shirk from that, and that has stung for some of them. What I have found among the staff is that we have said to them, what would you do differently? Never mind what withers have said, or is there something that we could do there that we could take further and do a bit differently? We started to get some good thoughts coming out. I was at the SQA yesterday, for example, chatting to the staff, and they threw one or two things at us that could have been quite thought-provoking. That is helping as well, but it goes back to that thing about the largely overwhelmingly positive vibe that we have around this, that people want to seize this opportunity to make things better. Ross Greer, you have got some supplementary on this. Thank you. I think that you have mentioned in the past that James Wethers certainly has the potential greater role for the private sector in funding courses to meet the skills demand in that area. You have outlined to Michelle Thomson that the extent of engagement that you have been doing over recent months and the broad level of the appetite for greater engagement. How much of those conversations have gone into the realm of direct private sector funding for the courses that address those skill shortages in their sectors? I probably want to take the opportunity to make clear that this is not privatisation in any way, shape or form. What I have found without a lot of prompting from myself, sometimes with no prompting, is a recognition from employers that they are asking for something more and that they are willing, if they can get that to support their businesses, to contribute. We should recognise that many employers currently contribute to the system quite markedly in a variety of ways, not just financially. However, in the space where we might be looking for more short, sharp training courses and qualifications that will allow them to upskill their existing workforce, I am finding a large number of employers saying that we are up for playing our part in that and contributing to it. That will be useful because the public pass is under great pressure, as we all know, and to be able to tap into those additional funding streams where everyone will benefit from them is going to be incredibly important. How does a business that needs a particular skill set or workers that skill set, how do they go about doing that? Is this something that you envisage would be a direct relationship between them and their local colleagues? Does it involve the SFC? I think that, for some businesses, they will not know where to start, they will not know who to speak to, should they speak to the college, should they write to you? We should acknowledge the fact that, in some instances, those relationships already exist. There are some colleges that are embedded in their communities and there are great relationships at Westwoodian colleges, for example, where they have those relationships with employers already and those can be developed further. I cannot sit today and say that we have a vision of how that will work in practice. However, as we look at the regional skills planning model, that should provide the platform or the opportunity for the employers, chamber of commerce and the colleges, universities or whatever to have that dialogue directly. That is where we have to strike the balance between national planning for skills and workforce and the regional need, because very often it will be at a regional and local level. Ben Macpherson, I thank you for your question. I just want to pick up briefly on some of the points that have been made around employers. Thanks for relaying to us about the round table that you are going to have with employers. I know that, from my constituency case work, skills planning is something that is a real pertinent to a number of employers in those considerations. Following from that round table, have you considered how you continue to get the skills planning expertise from employers into the considerations around how to respond to the needs of employers and make sure that there is the access to skills in the short, medium and long term that you talked about? We are still in the foothills of some of that, and we need to strike the balance between sectoral skills planning and geographical skills planning. There is a difference there. The principal conduit that we envisage will be the staff that is currently sitting in SDS on skills planning. I think that, to be fair, there has been more preparatory work done around skills planning than I probably thought when we started to look at this. It has been more the implementation. What do we do with that planning, with the data that lies behind it? We are going to have to engage more closely with individual sectors to ascertain the needs and develop a model from that that works in each locality. One of the challenges is that there are smaller businesses in all of that. What is it that they need to set against a major employer that maybe has 100 staff that they want to train in a particular direction? I am not going to sit and say today that we are well progressed in all of that. We are still working through that, but we are alive to the point that you make. In the previous answers and opening remarks, you talked about how, quite rightly in my view, giving consideration to all the different recommendations and taking the appropriate time to respond to and implement them. We did hear from Mr Whithers on the 15th of November that he would be concerned if there was a cherry-picking of elements of the review. That is not the indication that I have from you today, but I think that it would be helpful for Parliament if you confirmed that a cherry-picking approach is not how the Government intends to proceed. In order to give clarity to Parliament in due course, once you have taken the appropriate time to consider all the recommendations, will the Scottish Government set out its response to each of the recommendations? If so, when and approximately should we anticipate that? I recognise that perhaps the approach that I have taken to this has lent itself to that fear about cherry-picking. I did not do the standard Government response and said that here are the recommendations and hear what we are saying about them. I did not do that because one, I thought that it was more important to get on with it and two, we really needed to get into the nitty gritty around some of his recommendations. I would say that overwhelmingly we will end up doing what James Whithers has called for, absolutely overwhelmingly. However, there may be elements of it that are tweaked slightly because we have gotten into this in a bit more detail. We have perhaps identified unintended consequences that James had not seen. That does not mean that we will not do what he is looking for when we have to do it in a slightly different way. We may go further in our expectations in some of those areas. We are quite progressed in our thinking, if I put it that way, very well progressed in that. We are now moving more into the planning to deliver phase. If the committee would find it useful for us to respond, can I summarise in where we have gotten to in all of this? I would be happy to do that in due course and write to the committee on it. I would say that we touched on the role of employers in this. There is another element that would benefit everyone. That is developing the offering around work experience for young people. I have seen examples going around the country, but I was in Shetland last year, and I saw a post-pre-pandemic providing meaningful work experience for every pupil at the local secondary school. They expect to be back in that position later this year. That is incredibly important, because if a young person is thinking about a career and they can get an opportunity to go and test that thinking, it may be that they are absolutely enthused to carry on and do it, it may be that they are put off when they change their mind. That is better for the would-be employer, it is better for the system and it is better for the young people, because we need to drive down the attrition rates, the failure rates that we have, in all elements of the post-16 landscape. If we can develop that offering around work experience and a number of employers do that, then that will help us to move forward. That is one of the asks that I have of employers, whether that be in the public sector or the private sector. If you can provide the meaningful work experience for the young people who are thinking about a career with yourself or with a similar company or industry, then please step forward and offer us that opportunity. Through the new career setup, I hope that we have the mechanism to deliver that. It certainly sounds like a good way to progress and empathetic to the points made around wanting to take appropriate time and to test for unintended consequences and the offer to write to the committee. I would just request on top of that, perhaps once you have reached a conclusion on all the recommendations, even if recommendations are being rejected or implemented in a different way. I think that it would be helpful for Parliament to know the reasoning why on every recommendation. I should say that a lot of this is being tested at the moment with the relevant stakeholders. Some of the work that we are doing directly with the colleges is about their role in all of this. They have taken away some of that to work through and they are coming back to us with thinking in that area. The universities are coming forward with thoughts as well, so it is very much a work in progress. However, I do want to stress that we have taken that six months to do the listing and the talking or whatever. We are now very much moving into the delivery phase. Just another question. Thinking about what you said about taking time, James Withers has said that a 10-year timescale for post-school reform is not unrealistic in his view, but that results will not be seen quickly. It is important for everyone to appreciate that. That could impact momentum potentially. I would be interested in what is being done by the Scottish Government to build consensus politically across the sector and how momentum will be maintained. You talked rightly about how the review has been widely embraced across different stakeholders, but how do we keep that going? I think that, understandably, there was a scepticism when the review came out. There have been previous reviews that have gathered dust on the shelf and have not been acted upon immediately. I understand that scepticism that was there. I hope that we have removed that over the past few months by the momentum that I have tried to put into that. Momentum is the key word here. We need to build that so that people are clear that it is going to happen and get on board. On the political consensus, I have to contribute to colleagues across the political spectrum. I have had a lot of direct engagement on a one-to-one basis with colleagues from multiple political parties who have given me their thoughts and offered ideas, which have been incredibly helpful. We will disagree on an approach, and that is perfectly appropriate. However, there is a political consensus about the need to seize that opportunity, which is very welcome. My door remains open to anyone who wants to come in and offer us their thoughts. As for the timescale, I would be very disappointed if we did not see considerable change long before 10 years from now. James was right in that he was talking about structural change that would require primary legislation. That will no doubt spill into the next Parliament to deliver on some of that. However, that is about setting a direction of travel now, and that is what we are trying to do. I am trying to be very clear about the kind of things that we can do without waiting to change the badging and the labelling of organisations, although that will be essential. I think that, over the next period, there is an opportunity in terms of this Parliament alone. We may have an opportunity to get some primary legislation that we will need through in this Parliament, but I think that the MO of some of what we do here needs to change and can change quite quickly. There are substantial challenges, one of which has emerged around the qualifications landscape. We are going to need a lot more short, sharp qualifications that need to be affirmed. We will need a qualifications body in charge of that, which is agile. Over the years, we have built up a bank of qualifications, many of which do not get utilised now. We are going to have to go through an exercise, and it will take a few years to remove those, because they are no longer utilised and no longer necessary as part of the congestion in the landscape. If someone says that I have a thought to follow this type of job opportunity, what are the qualifications? Open to me, then it will be much clearer to them what they are, what the value of them are. There is that type of exercise that will need to take place that perhaps feeds into that 10-year horizon that James talks about, but I think that there is a much shorter horizon that we should be aiming at to see meaningful change coming through. The way that enthusiasm has been expressed for giving such qualifications parity of esteem has gathered quite a lot of acceleration since the publication of the review, and that all lends us in the right direction. Everyone talks about parity of esteem, but we need to deliver it. That is going to require a cultural change. It is also going to require us to help parents who are major influences of young people when they come to make their choice to recognise that an apprenticeship is no less a future than a university qualification. That is not going to take anything away from university qualifications. One of the things that we really need to do is to ban the word vocational, because we talk about vocational qualifications. Why do we differentiate between academic and vocational? The minute you do it, you are going to make people go, is that lesser? It is a simple thing to say, but I think that we need to watch our language. We talked earlier about the language of that. Going to college and training to be a joiner or a plumber or whatever is no less a positive destination than going to university. We need all of us to watch our language around that if we are going to change the view of the career openings that are there for our young people. I absolutely endorse that, and it is interesting in my experience of people I have grown up with who have gone in different directions. I absolutely need to change the public consciousness around that and look forward to collaborating with the Government on that. Lastly, people who become joiners or plumbers, just to use your example minister, often have an interest in many other things as well, of course. The arts is something that is under challenge in other parts of the UK. Some degrees are being talked about or avenues of study or human knowledge are being discussed by some politicians as of less value than more practical qualifications. I have thought for some time that we would benefit our society and also individuals in their learning journey and in their wider lives. If some of those could be combined, practical skills with an area of the arts that somebody might want to engage in, whether that is a language or a creative aspect such as art history or something like that, has that ever been considered by the Government? It is not mentioned in the review, but to me it is an issue that is of pertinence at this time. I have to confess that it is not something that we have considered. I have got enough on my plate without taking on more, but I think that our universities will always be thinking about those things. They are pretty creative places. They realise that the challenges that they face currently will require them to develop new offerings. For example, graduate apprenticeships will come to the fore more and more, but there will always be the emphasis on the arts and various other things in our universities. If they choose to offer combined degrees in those areas, because they believe that there is a need for them, I am sure that they will. I would say one thing about the apprenticeship scheme. I have come across a number of very rounded young people who have been developed under the modern apprenticeship scheme, not just in terms of the skills that they have learned, but in a wider sense. I visited an aerospace company in Ayrshire and every single person who showed me round that day had come through the apprenticeship programme. They were amazing young people. The young women who are going into the schools to try and entice engineering were incredibly impressive young people. They were being developed not only as the skillset to be engineers, but as individuals. That is something that we should look to the apprenticeship programme to do a bit more of as well. I come back a little bit to the micro-credentials that you were speaking about, because they have been spoken about in 2020-21 and, indeed, in our report in 2023. The colleges have been looking for those for quite some time. Who has been letting them down? Is it in the role of the SQA or is it going to be a new body that will be involved? That is maybe the wider reform agenda, so I am interested in your thoughts on that. I cannot talk for what was happening prior to my coming into the post. I can only talk about what I am seeing currently. If we have not met the ask of employers in that regard, there will be a variety of reasons. Some colleges may not have had the capacity to do that, for example, but that is the growth area, and it is an area that we are going to have to move into. That is the conversation currently that is taking place with colleges and with employers about how we do that. However, you are right to raise the question about the micro-credentials, because they have to be of course sufficiently high standard to be credible. That is an exercise that we have to go through. How do we deliver those? How do we become agile in that space while maintaining the credibility and integrity of the qualifications? The other thing that we need to look at is to ensure that whatever qualifications that we are offering are not so narrow—so very narrow—that individuals are basically getting a course that is only applicable to the company that they currently work for. There is an element of that as well. I said that we are progressing in a lot of areas, but that is one that is still under consideration. Just to pick up again on something that Ben Macpherson said, when by not setting out a full response to each of the weather's recommendations, it could be harder to therefore chart progress against his report. Will the Scottish Government be mapping out progress against its own outcomes in that case? In setting out the purpose and principles and the initial priorities within that back in June, which was accepting the broad general direction of travel set by James Withers, we have set outcomes for the system and will be measuring our progress against delivery of those outcomes. We are absolutely able to track through from the weather's recommendations to the work that we are taking forward under the auspices of the purpose and principles, and we will be able to make that clear for the committee and, in the longer term, as we chart that progress through. I know that we will be very interested in that progress, Leslie Ward, so thank you for that commitment. Ross Greer, can I come back to yourself now? Minister, I am interested in going back to the level of engagement that you have done since coming into post. What response has been to the publication of the purpose and principles statement and the frameworks around that? Do you get an initial sense of that? Particularly for colleges and universities themselves, the level of direction that they were expecting—you will be familiar with former member of the committee with the evidence that we took—from colleges in particular, who were really crying out for a sense of direction from Government. They wanted to know what it was that they were supposed to be doing. Purpose and principles were supposed to be not all of that, but certainly the first step towards that. What has the response been like since its publication? It is important to say that purpose and principles were developed in partnership with stakeholders from across the entirety of the education skills system, and it was the first attempt to look at the entirety of the system and try to bring together outcomes and purpose and principles that could be applicable to independent training providers as much as colleges and universities. In that sense, you are right that there is a level of that that is perhaps not granular enough for perhaps day-to-day planning. However, as you look at the purpose and principles setting the context for the strategic and operational plans of the funding council of Skills Development Scotland and others who are supporting funds into our colleges and setting clear outcome agreements and those types of things that will apply to sectors and to individual institutions, you can see the translation through. That was always our intent with the purpose and principles that it would serve as a golden thread that can run through and aggregate up to the national performance framework as well and the outcomes that we want to see for Scotland as all. However, it is important that the implementation of all of that is done in partnership. That is why we have tried, for example, the establishment of the tripartite group with the colleges, to have that kind of platform where we can discuss all of this in detail. We can have the overarching principles here and the direction of travel, but to deliver it will require the buy-in of the colleges and universities, whoever. We need their input. They will understand best how that can be put into practice. We are trying to have that much better partnership approach and the ability to say, wait a minute, if we did it this way it would be more productive. We are in the early days of that, but that is how we are going to take that forward. Response from employers, trade associations, trade unions, etc. I know that particularly EIS, FULA, UCU, etc. They were all engaged in the process. Has there been much response from them since publication? We continue to engage with all of the unions and, in particular, given the level of structural change that is mooted in the responses, particularly those unions that represent people working across the public bodies, but we continue to engage with UCU, EIS, FULA on the development of the Purpose and Principles and how we take forward the implementation of recommendations on the weather's review as well. How do we measure the success? How do we measure the outcomes from it? It is the golden thread running through a lot of other stuff, particularly most obviously the outcome agreements for the colleges, but there are plenty of other strategic documents and SFC organisational strategies as well. It is relatively clear in terms of the long-term outcomes that we measure against eventually. A year from now, two years from now, by the end of this parliamentary session, when the committee is drafting its legacy report, how are we to measure at that point and how are you measuring on that on-going short and medium-term basis what the outcome has been as this resulting in that clear sense of direction, that greater clarity around strategic objectives without thinking right will come back to it in 10 years and see whether it worked? No, absolutely. One of the things that we are doing and committed to doing is continually publishing evidence as we develop it and conclude it. Just before the Christmas recess, we published an evidence paper that sets out where, against the outcomes that we have set for the system through the Purpose and Principles, we have solid evidence of our ability to measure and meet those outcomes that we would require to develop for the evidence. One of the challenges that we have here, as you will well know, is the comparability across different types of pathway of different types of outcomes. We are recognising and starting to unpick and understand where we have gaps in the evidence that we need in order to adequately measure the progress that we are making. We will continue to develop that. We are doing that in partnership with both our public bodies and with institutions and representatives across the sectors. That will be a work in progress that we will continue to do, so we will not leave it for 10 years and then come back and look at it. We will continue to evolve that. We are certainly setting short, medium and longer term outcomes that we want to achieve. That point around data and where the gaps in the evidence are, is certainly quite interesting. That has been a wrang theme, not just for this committee, but across the board and Parliament of where there are key gaps in the data that we need to measure success. We are gathering huge amounts of data, but not necessarily what we actually need. How are you reporting on that? How are you identifying—I think that Parliament would be interested to know—where you have identified that there are gaps in the evidence that you need before we get to the stage of publishing a report on what the outcomes have been. We would be quite interested to know where you have identified those gaps and then how that can be addressed. I think that some of that is picked up in the report that we published just before Christmas, so it sets out where we have a high level of confidence, where there are gaps in the data and where we feel that we have considerable work to do to develop things. There are joint working groups that are looking at the data that is available across different public bodies, what is collected for different purposes and how best to utilise that to best effect. Can I come over to Bill Kidd now, please? Thank you very much, convener. It's been interesting. A couple of things I was thinking of asking have pretty much been stood on already, but it doesn't do any harm just to sort of go over things a wee bit again. Minister, in the 5th of December last year you said a tri-partite group, and I think that you mentioned that earlier, between the Government, the Scottish Funding Council and college principals have been established to improve engagement amongst them. How has the impact benefited those in education, please? I guess that at the risk of passing the box, you might want to ask them that question if they feel it's been beneficial. I think that they would say that it has been. I should also say that I think that the benefit has been seen from the perspective of the universities as well, who have asked if we would set a similar group up to engage with them directly. That platform has proved to be helpful. It's probably taken longer than I expected to start to pay the dividends, I would have hoped for, but as an opportunity to have very full and frank discussions about key topics, the colleges feel they would benefit from it if we took a different approach. Having the SFC there to discuss the nuts and bolts of that has been very helpful. There has been a number of meetings so far, some of which I have attended, some of which I haven't been able to get to. There have been a number of areas where we have progressed things. More than anything, it was about developing a better collective understanding of the perspectives around the table. I will give an example of that. Prior to setting up the tripartite group, the colleges had asked for flexibilities around their credit targets. They wanted the same money but a bit of flexibility as to how they used it. That flexibility was granted in part, but it wasn't as fully utilised as one might have expected or hoped for. A lot of that was down to a lack of understanding of what that meant in reality on both sides and a lack of explanation. Essentially, they had asked for a one-size-fits-all approach that didn't entirely suit all of the individual colleges. There has been a bit of a shift here so that what we are looking at is that, if there is an ask from the sector, it is an ask that it is fully understood, it can be fully deployed and it suits the interests of the majority. That has been the way in which that has been taken forward. There are a number of areas that we have been looking at in terms of increased credit flexibilities. The time scales and the time ends of decision making. Some of the decisions that were made by the SFC did not align with the timetable that the colleges worked for. It seems like a simple thing to fix. It hasn't been entirely simple but we are getting there. The disposal of assets is something that we have been looking at quite closely. Because of treasury rules and various other things, there has not been a driver for colleges to dispose of assets that they don't need for a purpose of investing in the fabric of their buildings or whatever. We are still working through an option to where we could facilitate that, and it would allow them to move forward. There is an enthusiasm in the colleges part that we get to an end point on that, which is what we are working towards. Moving forward, a lot of what is brought forward to discuss is driven by the colleges. They have a number of asks and suggestions. What I would like to do is, with the agreement of all the parties, when we get to the point where there is some very tangible return on that, that we could write to committee jointly and explain what it has delivered. I think that that would be useful. However, I would need the agreement of the other parties to do that. That would certainly be helpful for us. It is good that you are saying that there has been a good blending together and working together. I take it then that university and college principal representation on the ministerial group on education and skills reform has been beneficial also. What I talked about introducing in the statement, although that has not happened yet, we are all we have done as we have extended an invitation to the principal's groups on both the colleges and universities to put forward the appropriate individuals. They may change depending on what we are exploring, so that the practitioner's voice has heard loud and clear in the room for the cabinet secretary's benefit. I cannot tell you who will be involved, but it will be up to them who they want to put forward. It is incredibly important that we have that representation in there to put forward their thoughts and their ideas and help to drive that in the right way. That certainly makes a lot of sense. Something that college and university principals might want to be involved in anyway. Would there be further education, higher education and union representation also being considered for this? That has not been considered at this stage, but it is a fair ask. I had a useful conversation with the STUC a couple of months ago where, in the public sector bodies, we are quite well engaged with the trade unions. I met with them myself. We are obviously engaged with the staff cohort, so there is an opportunity to feed in not only their ideas but their concerns. I was asked about, in the context of employer engagement that we talked about earlier, that we tried to ensure that the voice of the staff was heard within that. That is a fair point. I am mulling over how we do that. The employers in the room at the time heard that as well. It is a good point, because very often the best ideas are coming from the people who work at the co-face of companies, not just the management. That is something that we need to develop. On direct involvement, that is not something that we have taken forward, but it is something that I will take away and consider. That would be great. Thank you very much for that. Thank you, Mr Kidd. Willie Rennie, please. The minister knows that I broadly welcomed his statement in December. I thought that it was a pragmatic progress. Other members have pressed you on timing already, so I will not go over that again. Other than to say, I think that we did not start from here. This reform has been a long time coming, and it culminated in quite a critical report from Audit Scotland about the lack of leadership. There is a certain degree of urgency. I understand what he says and we have got to get this right, but I hope that he appreciates that, when he publishes his timeline, perhaps in March, there will be pressure and expectation for that to be delivered as promptly as possible, because it is going to have a real tangible impact. It is a tangible impact that I want to explore just a little bit. The single source of funding sounds neat and tidy, but what tangible benefits will there be of having that single source of funding on the whole skills agenda? One of James Will's legitimate criticism of the landscape as it currently exists is that there are so many different funding sources. That can be all open to exploitation as well, and there is also a bureaucracy that grows up around that. If you are a college and you have got 70 or 80 different funding sources that you can throw it down for, you rightly have to account for how you spend that money. A huge bureaucracy grows up in a college around just dealing with that. If we can strip that out, albeit with the right safeguards in place, because this is public money, and allow the colleges to get on with what they are meant to be doing, that will be helpful. I think that there is a tangible benefit there. There is also a greater transparency for ourselves as parliamentarians around how that money is spent. Both of those are important. James called for this based on his conversations with employers, colleges and universities, so there was a good backdrop to what he was asked for. I do not think that it is a magic wand that is certainly going to make everything wonderfully better—I do not suggest that it is—but I think that it is a useful step. He wanted to move to a single funding body. Apart from the legislative aspects of that, I think that that is quite a leap in one go. That is why I have indicated that we are going to do that in stages. We are going to consolidate the apprenticeship funding in one locality, the student funding in another. Perhaps the former is more important than the latter in real terms. That will allow us to take it. Bear in mind that, in some instances, we will have staff having to transfer across under two pay in order to deliver that. That is why it takes a bit of time. It is not because I wanted to take time, but it just does. That will allow us to look at that, to deliver on that, and I think that that will give us a springboard to then move on to what James has called for. Recognising, of course, that the universities have expressed some concern about themselves about a single funding body that we need to address. So, reflect briefly on that. You do not think that you will threaten the charitable status of universities with that reform. You are going to make sure that that does not happen. I have talked earlier about taking time to avoid unintended consequences. That is one that has been flagged to us. We are not as convinced that it is a legitimate concern in reality as the universities do, but we respect the view that they have expressed. Of course, we will take that on board, because that would be counterproductive if we were to do something like that. I will move on briefly to Shetland College. You have been involved, but there have been some redundancies announced recently. I want to know what you are doing to try to protect provision in Shetland. Secondly, the cost base for rural provision, particularly the Highlands and Islands, is much greater than it would be in the central belt. I met recently with the principle of the new UHI for north-west in Hebrides to discuss their provision. Can you just set out what we are doing to make sure that the provision in the Highlands and Islands is protected, recognising the higher base of costs? I have myself directly engaged with UHI about the future of UHI as an entity. I also met with the individual college principles as well. The concept of UHI is absolutely committed to, but we recognise—all of us collectively recognise—that it will have to evolve to meet some of the challenges that are there. UHI internally are doing a substantial piece of work to consider what that would look like. It is a piece of work that recognises that, even within UHI, the cost base of delivering in some localities will be higher than others. I want settings, for example. I visited the college and met with the principle that you are referring to. I was in Shetland and met the principle there. Specific to Shetland and to other elements of UHI, there has been additional support provided by SFC over a period of time, recognising some of the challenges that exist. I know that SFC is very much alive to the situation at Shetland, but that does not mean that any college can continue in an unsustainable way in the long term. Colleges have to become sustainable for their own good or more sustainable for their own good whilst recognising the additional costs. We are very much alive to that. I know that SFC is directly engaged with Shetland College. They work very closely over the merger for the other calls that you refer to. It is right and proper that, in the interests of the public bus, we expect the colleges to become as sustainable as possible, and I am absolutely saddened by that. However, there is, of course, a recognition of the additional costs. What we need to see is more of what is already happening in UHI, where between individual colleges, for example, there is considerable collaboration, recognising that you might not be able to deliver every discipline in every specific locality. It may be that some apprentices will travel from Shetland to Inverness for some of the training, but then Shetland perhaps becomes more of an aquaculture centre, for example. There are already pieces of work going on between the colleges up there to help all of us. We also need to develop and grow the university offering in the Highlands. We need the centres to move more into the delivery of higher education courses than they currently are. We have a commitment to the future of UHI, but we need to see elements of it becoming more sustainable in the long term. Duncan Claesor, you have a supplementary on the thread. Just a very quick question. Will the new funding body have non-departmental public body status? The answer is that it is too early to say at the moment. We are fully considering and exploring a range of options, and we are at the exploration of options stage. The issues that the ministers rightly pointed up and that the University of Scotland has highlighted would be one of the elements under consideration. That may well knock something out that is a non-departmental public body. It cannot have too many negatives. For example, an executive agency would be one of a long list of options, but it may be ruled out on the grounds that we are talking about, because it might compromise or it could be a risk that it might compromise the ONS classification of universities. That might be something that would rule it out of a long list of options, but that is the stage that we are at currently. The independent skills review recommended that the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board should be wind up to aid the mainstream of apprenticeships. Minister, in a position to respond to this recommendation today at all? A few times, and the answer is that that is a recommendation that we will follow through on. Not because SAAB has not done good work, because it has touched on earlier the fantastic work that they did in the gender space that we will take forward, but because, I think, as James Withers recognised, we need to broaden out the employer's voice in the apprenticeship space. I have had direct conversations with the Federation of Small Business, for example. I wanted to see how we can better expand the offer into their members. There is a bit of a contradiction here. The rest of the S figures that show that there is a very large number of apprenticeships are placed with SMEs, yet the Federation of Small Business tells me that very few of their members have ever had an apprentice. We are not looking to completely rebalance that, but I think that there is something there that we need to look at. There is a relevance here, particularly in rural areas, to share the apprenticeship models. The pilots that were on previously did not, unfortunately, work out. I touched on earlier some ideas that we hear from the staff and some of the agencies. They have come forward with an idea that might allow us to look at that again. There are employers who have rightly or wrongly felt excluded from all of that, so what we are trying to do is to ensure that we have the full range of employers' voices helping to inform that. On the one hand, we will follow that recommendation. I would envisage quite a lot of the people who currently participate in SAB continuing to have a say, both on a local and national level and an input to their thinking particularly on the skills delivery. Can I ask about the work of the careers collaborative and how that will fit into post-school reform plans? Probably the bit of this, all of this that excites me most, is the opportunity in that space. Graham Smith has led some really good work, and I am delighted that he has agreed to continue in this role for us to help develop this further. However, I think that the careers collaborative was seen as something to pull things together a bit and talk these things through and produce the report. I actually think that there is scope here to develop that approach quite markedly. My thinking at the moment about the careers offering to our young people is that over-arching umbrella that makes sure that we have everybody doing their thing, but there is no-one falling through the cracks. At the moment, you have the SDS-delivered career service. It is fantastic staff doing wonderful work. I think that they probably need a different M.O. How do they operate? It is resource-intensive, I recognise that. Then you have the DYW doing really good things. You have things like career ready, you have enable. There are various strands here that are delivering for young people, but the offer has been a bit narrow because we have focused in on people who have been identified that we think will need support. There are young people who we have assumed that they will be good to make up their own minds, etc. What I have heard talking to young people who have gone through the system is that that is not necessarily the case. I have seen fantastic stuff going on from Edinburgh to Shetland and some rugged stuff in Dundee, which is informed about what it is that we need to deliver here. Currently, Graham is talking to Jane and her team. We are trying to make sure that what his report called for largely aligns with our vision, but not entirely, how we mesh the two together and how we take that forward. At the moment, our careers offering is not what I would want it to be. I think that we need to get to the place where, for a young person, there is that conversation about what are your interests, what are your skills, here are your options, because I don't think that we have done that well enough up till now. That has been particularly the case for young women. A lot of young women have fought traditional career paths and perhaps missed out on things that they have a skillset and would really enjoy. That is not about being prescriptive and directing young people to particular career paths, but I keep repeating to people about a conversation that I had with a young apprentice who said to me that his experience had been one of that had not helped him because he had parental pressure to go to university, but he really wanted to be an apprentice. What he said was that what we need as young people is to be told that here are the options and here is what they need to do. If you take an apprenticeship, that is what it means. The next number of years is the kind of salary that you will earn. If you go to college, that is what the qualification will enable you to do. If you go to university, he would also want to know how much money you are going to make. We should listen to that. The parental element in all that is that we need to perhaps do more with parents if they are that major influence on young people's career choices to help them to understand things back to the point about parity of esteem, to understand that an apprenticeship can lead to a very fulfilling and successful career. All of that feeds into the mix here. We are currently, as I say, gaming the team and talking about what that would look like, taking it forward. This is maybe one area where we can do this without the structural change that needs to come. Where the team, the substantial careers team, currently sits within SDS, we have a decision to make about where it stays or it gets rebranded as back to being career Scotland or whatever, and I am not setting hairs running, but these are the thought processes. In the meantime, we can get on and start to do that in our schools. That will require the support of local authorities and schools. We will need that culture in our schools. I have seen phenomenal stuff going on in Harris Academy in Dundee, for example, where a fantastic head teacher who has embraced us has invested his PEF money and additional guidance teachers to help to facilitate that. They have got a 98 per cent positive destination set of results. We can do that. It is a big ask, but I think that in this space we can get on and do a lot of that, whilst we do all the background stuff to put those in place. It is one of the reasons why I am so keen to support DYW and their third sector partners in the work that they are doing on the ground, particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I mentioned earlier about employers and the unsung work that they are doing. If any of you have seen career ready in action, what a testimony that is to our employers and to their staff. There is some amazing stuff going on there, particularly in Glasgow in particular. We need to support that, but we need to map it as well to see where the gaps are and what we are doing to support young people into work and then try to make sure that we get that right. I think that that is an encouraging response. I would certainly endorse that skill sets can lead you on various paths and it is good to not be too narrow with our young people. I guess also that learning is life-long and if young people wish to pursue academic routes later on in their life, that is an option to them as well. It is not you pick something and then that is you. That leads me on to my next question. Can I ask about the review of community learning and development and what you hope to achieve with that? I said to you a spin. The last six months were really listening. I have had a lot of detailed feedback on most of that, but I have struggled to get a full picture on the CLD offering right across the country. I know that there are areas where it is really good. I have spoken to people who have gone through that and benefited. Some of them simply develop life skills and that is important. However, there are also people who have had the opportunity to then go on to college and to get into meaningful employment. We cannot leave people behind. I am not satisfied currently that I have the full picture of what is happening. Although I know that most people I do at myself roam at your eyes that they thought of not another review, I thought it was important to do that so that as we take forward the overall reform, we fully understand what is happening for that cohort. Will there be young people who have struggled in the school environment and have fallen through the cracks? Will there be a bit older people who could still have the opportunity to get into work? We have set the review running. We have given it pretty broad criteria. We have tasked Kate with coming back to tell us exactly what she believes the picture is out there. We will clearly look to act on that alongside Cossack, who we are doing this jointly with. Throughout all of the reform at peace, it is clear that there are opportunities for elements of colleges or whatever, but there are also challenges for all of them. One of my challenges for the colleges will be can you satisfy us that your pathways are readily accessible for people who are identified through CLD helped and then can seamlessly move into college courses if that is what would best suit them? I know that in many cases they are there, but I want to be satisfied at that offering. Rural settings would be a case in point. Is it different in rural settings? I want to be more assured than I am about what we are doing in that space to ensure one because we have a moral obligation to those people, but we have sat and talked earlier today about workforce shortages. We cannot afford the health people who could be in the workforce, not to being there, from an economic perspective. I seek reassurance that those pathways to college and to employment are important, but community learning and development are also important for health, for tackling social isolation and loneliness. That aspect of it will not be lost. I apologise if I gave the wrong impression. I did say at the start that for some people it is just about developing life skills that will help them to tackle social isolation. On one of my visits, I met a group of older learners for whom simply becoming computer literate had made a huge difference to their lives. They felt much more engaged with society, and it is quite thought-provoking when you hear that, because we all take for granted to go online and do this and that. If you cannot do that, you become incredibly isolated in life. One of the other pieces of work that ties into the CLD piece that I touched on earlier about the third sector organisations, the work that Enable is doing with young people in schools, who have got learning difficulties, for example, is hugely important. I want to see what more we can do in that space, because there are some instances where they have access to work experience that are quite significant and meaningful. I have seen other examples where it is pretty limited, and we need to see what we can do to support and encourage employers to offer better opportunities for young people in that cohort. That reassurance is helpful. I spoke earlier about geographical and sectoral skills, planning and shortages. On the social care and sport committee at the moment, we are doing an inquiry into rural healthcare. One of the themes that has cropped up a couple of times is the lack of allied health professionals in rural areas. Several of the professional bodies spoke about the need to adapt the training for that and gave suggestions that having earned, as you learn, apprenticeship-type things for physiotherapists or for people advancing in other areas of allied health would be helpful, as people already have connections to the rural areas that they are in. They will have a grounding in the organisations often. They identified the blockers as being, to that happening, as being the universities themselves. Do you have any reflections on that, as what would need to happen to change those types of offerings so that people in rural areas could progress on those pathways? I will give a very general answer to that and bring Jane in, because I know that she is cited on that. I would be surprised that our universities were blockers to anything. The university's principles that I engage with are very open to developing their offering, notwithstanding the fact that it needs to be financially viable to do that. If there is not a critical mass of students, it becomes very difficult to put together a course and then deliver it in a cost-effective way. However, in a general sense, I find them very open to it. As you learn, there are a number of universities that are quite Glasgow-Cally, which are very much developing and can graduate apprenticeship approach. For a wish, I will say that that is my language for me. When we ask what is stopping it, it is about how it is offered. I do not think that anyone is being obstructive. I will bring Jane in, because I know that she has been working on that. If you hold on a second, Jane, it is my mic that is on, not yours. We are in discussion with NHS Education for Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council and the deans of medicine about what we can do around the healthcare sector, particularly on allied health professionals. I will call them NES for sure NHS Education for Scotland. NES is working on a plan of what it already has in place, what courses are being offered, where the gaps are and where there is a requirement from the professional body that something is a degree. That is a specific example for operation department practitioners, ODP, where the University of the West of Scotland had offered a diploma, which is slightly below a degree level course. The registration body for ODPs has mandated that it should be a degree level course, so NES and some of my colleagues in health myself, colleagues in the Scottish Funding Council, are working with the University of West of Scotland to develop a graduate apprenticeship, which will be degree level. We are hoping to have that in place in August this year for the new cohort of people starting. You talked specifically about rural. University of West of Scotland, despite being in the west of Scotland, actually delivers throughout Scotland. It is a relatively small cohort of people that we have going through the courses at the moment, which makes sense to consolidate it so that you have economies of scale there, but they are very experienced in delivering in rural areas. As we go through probably a three-year pilot, we will look at how we can expand that out and how we can make sure that the University of Highlands and Islands, some of the colleges, for example, are involved in some of that activity. However, this is one of our tests at the moment, and certainly the University seems very positive about that. If there are specific examples that anyone has about— That was my language, do not worry about that. We are grateful to hear where there are in some blockages, but, as I said, Nes are very much looking at the workforce planning and looking at what is needed and where some of the gaps are. Speaking to the existing workforce, the minister gave the example that there are often people in the workforce who know what needs to happen to progress. Is there an opportunity to speak with them? Yes, very much so. Nes and the health boards are speaking to their existing staff who are already going through the ODP route and some of the other routes about what would work for them, particularly for people who are working part-time and having to juggle that study and working as well, and shifts as well, how that will work. Also, when apprenticeships are developed, it is really important that the voice of the learner, the employee, is involved in that, so the graduate apprenticeship process will have practitioners fully at the heart of that as well. It is really important because they give us a perspective that, as they are not actually doing the job, they do not really understand it. Can we come to Ben Macpherson for a very brief message? Thanks, convener. Just going back to the points, minister, that you made around careers advice, I think of my constituency in Leith academy, for example, they run a great programme where they bring lots of employers in to introduce young people to what is available in the local area there. Drummond community high school specialises in construction. I was at Lodium buses with a third sector organisation yesterday called Powering Futures and the apprenticeships that they are creating. There is really good anecdotal work going on, and that is just in one constituency in Scotland. How do we, to a reasonable extent, get to a position where there is a consistency in introducing young people to the plethora of different opportunities that are available to them? That is some of the work that has been undertaken by the careers collaborative under Graham Smith. We need to expand on that, because, like you, I have seen some fantastic examples, but I want to be satisfied that that is available. For example, I attended a careers fair in Edinburgh. Hundreds of young people being bussed in to hear about the full range of offering. What I found particularly impressive was that there was a separate section of the building for young people who perhaps had autism or whatever, who needed a quieter space to have those conversations, not the mayhem that was going out in the main hall. There was a lot of thought going into how we met the needs of everyone here. What we absolutely need to have is everyone doing their bit. So, DYWs do a particular role. We must maintain and support that. The career service needs to do what it does. There are no tough wars. It is everybody doing their thing in collaboration. The easy bit of that is that we are not starting from scratch. It is there. We just need to build on it and make it a more cohesive and consistent offering across the country. I think that that is where we can make giant strides. Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. Funding was brought up earlier and I like to specifically ask about college funding. The Auditor General recently spoke to the Public Audit Committee and stated that the viability of the college sector is challenged, and then went on in order to address that challenge that the Government and the funding council need to have a clear plan for what the future model of provision looks like. Minister, will there be such a plan? If so, when? I recognise the commentary from the Auditor General. I also recognise the comment from Audit Scotland about the potential of the changes that we are making to improve the landscape in which the colleges are operating. The future delivery in the college sector will be shaped by what we are doing in the reform space. It will be shaped jointly between ourselves and the colleges. Recognising the financial challenges that they face, absolutely, but also recognising the opportunity that they have here. There is a short-term challenge financially that I fully accept at, but we need to move quickly into taking advantage of the opportunities that will be there fairly quickly for them. Of course, there will be some difficult decisions. We will have to be realistic here. If we do not have sufficient numbers for a college course to be delivered in every locality, we may well need to move to centres of excellence model in some instances and support young people to make whatever travel they have to do that. I am speculating here, but this is the kind of thinking that we are going through at the moment about what we need to do to make the colleges most sustainable and viable, have a realistic offering and one that aligns better with the needs of employers and the economy. There may be a pivoting away in some colleges to focus on something that they have not done until now. We will need to look at some of the courses as well. Are they absolutely fit for purpose, for the needs of the evolving ones, particularly in green skills? Green skills do not just mean fitting of solar panels or airsovers or heat pumps. There is a joint re-element to that as well. Have we got a plan for a plan immediately? No, but we are working towards having that direction for the colleges helped shaped by them as to what is going to make them more sustainable and viable. Yes, it does. I know that one of my colleagues wants to explore this further. I will carry on. In which case, on that exact point, when you talked about the colleges becoming sustainable and perhaps becoming more specialised—I am paraphrasing entirely. James Withers has told the committee that he said that colleges currently are a burning platform in relation to finance and sustainability. He was worried that there might be a more chaotic reorganisation of the sector based on the law of natural selection. You have obviously painted a very different picture, which is much more drawn out and more managed. Is James Withers right to be concerned? How can you reassure us, Minister, that such a chaotic reorganisation is not in the offing? I would not use the language of burning platform, chaotic reorganisation, as you have articulated. However, I recognise that there are challenges for some colleges, bigger challenges than others. Will there be any asked earlier on about the support for certain colleges that have been provided? We need to support some colleges to move into that stronger space. The situation is not without its challenges, and I would not pretend otherwise at the moment. However, I think that there is an opportunity to move quite quickly. I will give an example of that. One of the conversations that we are having actively with the college sector is how we might move to more of a college's first model around apprenticeship delivery. That is presumption that we would do more on a direct basis with colleges. That does not mean that we would do all of it directly through colleges. There are instances in which managing agents are incredibly helpful and useful and play a worthwhile part. That, in itself, is believed by the colleges to provide greater opportunity for them to stabilize. I have to stress that, before I would make such a move or sanction such a move, I would need to be satisfied that the offering that was going to be made to those apprentices holistically—not just in terms of the training—would be on a par with what they currently get. However, we are having very open dialogue directly with the colleges about what we could do differently to give them that stability that they are rightly looking for. Finally, you talked to the minister about an opportunity to move quickly. It sounds like there is that need. However, the strategic resolutions lesson learns report on national collective bargaining in colleges report was released on 25 March 2022. That was a report commissioned by the Scottish Government. When does the minister anticipate publishing a plan to take forward the recommendations that were in that report? That is in the context of the industrial relations in the sector. You will recognise that it has taken some time to secure the responses from all of the interested parties to allow us to come to a view. I think that all of us around this table would recognise that the industrial relations in the college sector are not good and have not been good for a very long time. I cannot impose anything on the bargaining structures. I am not able to do that, but I absolutely recognise that we cannot go on as we have been for years. We have a current industrial dispute going on, and we need to get over that. I think that there is an appetite to recognise that this cannot continue in the way that it has. I think that if we can sit alongside all the reform stuff that we are doing, if we can find a way through the current industrial action, we will draw breath and look to consider how we do this differently. I have some views, but as I said, I cannot impose those on the relevant parties. I am grateful for the answer. I am just going to press the minister on that specific report recommendation. You said that it took time to secure responses from the interested parties. Have you had all the responses from the interested parties? In any event, can I just press you on when we might see, or are we going to see, a plan for how to take forward the recommendations? If so, roughly when? As I said, I do not want to mislead you. I think that we now have, quite recently, that is my recollection. If I am wrong, I will correct the record. That being the case, as I have just alluded to, we need to see the various parties get over their current difficulty and then we can take a look at what it is that we can do differently, but it will require buy-in from all the parties to deliver that. Pam Duncan-Glancy, please. Thank you for answering the question so far. I am encouraged by the comments that you just made around the role of colleges and apprenticeships moving forward and the potential in there for some of the resources to be potentially more directed to colleges. This year, the minister will be aware that there is a resource fall for colleges and there is also the funding cut of about £100 million from the Scottish Funding Council. Against that backdrop, can you set out how you expect colleges to respond to the Wothers review? Let me just pick up an immediate point about the budget situation. If we take the starting point for next year for colleges, it will be slightly better, and I stress only slightly better than the finishing point this year. The budget that was set out originally, as you have alluded to, there were funding changes made during the year. If you match what the colleges will have ended up with in this financial year, the starting point next year will be slightly better. I recognise that there is inflation and so on, but to the point that you alluded to, of course, having less money in real terms, I accept that, does not help the situation. However, I have to balance circumstances where we are where we are with the budget that is available to us. What we are now going through, not just with the colleges but with the university as well, is that the SFC is going through a process with it over the next month or so. We are looking at how that financial settlement is delivered in a way that, you might say, is least harmful, but certainly in a way that better facilitates the challenges that it faces. Thank you. You will be aware, minister, of the report that the SFC has done on the financial circumstances facing colleges. I do not think that they forecast that it will improve in the way that you have described. The change mid-year has been significantly difficult for colleges, so I am not sure that they would characterise it in that way. Do you think that in order to respond to others in the way that you have described much of which I am heartened by? Do you think that colleges might need some additional funding in the outset, perhaps to make savings in the longer term, when all the changes have been made? I will not surprise you that I am going to come back and say that that is the issue that we have. If the argument is that colleges or any other element of the landscape would require some sort of initial pump priming support to make the changes that need to come, it has to come from somewhere. That is the immediate issue, the budget circumstances that we find ourselves in with the public finances. James Willis is also very clear in his report that there is no shortage of money in the system. One of the things that I am looking at—and it is not the main driver—is where we can free up moneys that are in the system to redeploy into areas in which we need to support them. That becomes the area of focus. I cannot—if you are away, I will press beyond—can you give me specifics? I cannot right now. However, that is one of the things that we are looking at. Where is the duplication that can be avoided? What would that free up if it can free up moneys? That is part of the thinking that we are going through at the moment. I cannot say that that is going to happen overnight because it is not, but it is a driver for us at the moment. I appreciate that. I would have obviously pressed out on where you think that duplication is. First of all, is that work on going? Are you looking at where the duplication is? When would you be able to update the committee on where you think there is duplication of resources and move it around? How do you think that colleges can begin to prepare for the reforms that are suggested without all that information and without the additional resources? I think that colleges are preparing for the reforms. They absolutely are. The conversations that we are having—as I said, the detailed conversations about a colleges first model and the illustration of that—the colleges are absolutely planning for the opportunities that they see, notwithstanding financial challenges currently, but the opportunities that they can see. It is not, though, as simple as identifying duplication and saying, that is coming to an end and that free up money. In many instances, there is a phasing approach that you need to take to that. That is why I said that it is not a magic wand here and it is not going to happen overnight, but we are looking very actively at where there is a duplicated spend that I believe is avoidable. We have got priorities and all that. We need to invest in that career service element. We need to beef that up if we are going to help our young people to make informed choices. We need to support the colleges to do that kind of transition in that they are going to have to do. Everybody has got an ask here, and that is probably one of the biggest challenges in all of the reform spaces, how we get into that momentum that we need to get into to deliver it, given the financial difficulties that are there. I assume, then, that we would anticipate that any of the reforms that are suggested and taken forward will be within the current resource allocation. There will be no additional resources. In the short term, the immediate term yet, and I think that that is a fair assumption, but we are at it. For example, there is an opportunity for colleges to get more into the commercial space as well in terms of what with employers can they generate more income through there? Of course, within that point about the resource allocation is the work that we are doing on the tripartite group. What can we do there to give them that bit of flexibility to operate in a different way that they believe—I stress that—that they believe will help them to cope with the current pressures? That is the other piece of work that is going on. Thank you. That is just where I want to end my question, which is on the flexibilities. Do you yet know the impact that any of the flexibilities that you have already put into the system have had on colleges? Well, I did say to you that the flexibilities that I have put into my tenure as Minister are not the flexibilities that I have put into my tenure as Minister. I was quite open with the committee that the previous set that had been provided had not been fully exploited. That is not a criticism of anything. That is just the reality. Those flexibilities remain in place. I think that we are better placed to exploit those to take advantage of them currently. We are in a dialogue about what more needs to be done. There are lots of little things that can be done to help colleges to operate in a freer way. That is driving a lot of the conversations that are taking place. I did say that if we get to the point where there is something tangible, we can report and get the agreement of the other participants to write to the committee and outline that. You have made bold statements regarding the overall college funding there, given some of the challenges that they faced last year between the various budget statements and budget announcements that were made, including some of the £56 million in the savings and demand-led programme that was taken away. The £26 million that was also taken away to fund the teacher settlement, so that the colleges were left with a £72 million removed from their budgets. Who is to say that that is not going to happen again? I am not quite picking that up. I was not making a bold statement. I was very clear on what I said, which was that the money that they will have when anticipating the draft budget that I am having to start on their core budget for the start of the new financial year is broadly in line slightly better than what they will have finished up with, excepting the in-year changes that were made. They were quite significant in-year changes. Who is to say that that sort of in-year change pressure is not going to be placed upon this sector again? There are external factors that mean that I cannot sit here and say that that absolutely would not be the case. We are working very hard to avoid that. For example, the UK Government will have a budget at the beginning of March. If, as has been flagged, we are wrongly, that is likely to focus on tax cuts, then that would have a negative impact on our budget. I cannot sit here and say that that will not happen again. I cannot guarantee that. However, what we are trying to do here is to be as open as we can with the colleges at the very outset and others and to proceed on that basis. The Scottish Government has taken a preferential to fund the public say settlement versus other decisions that are made. I think that we will leave that there. With respect, convener, I remember predecessor sitting here when I was a member of the committee making the point that, for that particular purpose and others, the money would have to be found from somewhere else. At that point in committee, the cabinet secretary did not quite say where it was coming from, did she? To be fair there then, the cabinet secretary was not in the position to do that at the time. In the past, I have asked quite a lot of questions on the behalf of the college sector when they might have some clarity about the flexible workforce development fund. Disappointingly, for the colleges and for myself, you wrote to us on 20 and 21 December to confirm that that has been cut. I was just wondering about some of the decisions outside of the priorities. I am just trying to understand a bit more about how that decision was taken. We, as you know, have faced very considerable financial challenges. It had remained my hope that we would have been able to provide a fund of some degree for that purpose very much right up and towards the end of the year. That ultimately proved not possible to do. I recognise the difficulty that that presents, both for employers and for the colleges and the open university who utilise that fund. Of course, we have been unable, in the draft budget, to restore that fund for the coming year, in that form. I cannot hide from that, and I am not going to. It is one of the very difficult decisions that has had to be taken. Do I recognise that, in some guys, that type of funding, ideally we would want it to form part of the offering as we go forward in the context of the whole reform agenda? In some of the conversations that we had with Ross Greer questioning about employers and some of the micro-credentials, do you think that it might all be ready to do? I think that there is a conversation to be had with employers about what form that takes, where employers may be putting money into the system or whether we need to do something to assist that. I absolutely recognise that. I am trying to be as open as I can be, convener. It is not an ideal situation that we are in, but I do believe that there will be discussions around the whole offering that we have talked about earlier and how that is delivered. It might be that, moving forward, we need to find some mechanism, some kind, to provide that opening for some employers. I want to ask about the Scottish education exchange programme. Certainly losing harassment. Arasmus was a massive blow for us and the SEP is much needed. I know that, when the committee took evidence on the Welsh Teth learning exchange programme, we were quite impressed with that. Is that influencing the SEP programme? Are they looking like they might be broadly similar or are there any big differences? Are you able to offer any further detail around that programme just now? Bear with me. I have some detail on that and I am trying to find it. That is how that help was possible. As you know, we embarked on a pilot project that was open to bids. I think that there are 21 projects that were overwhelmingly successful, all from universities, I might add. We extended the deadline to help to facilitate more applications. Those are due to proceed over the next three months to then be assessed with a view to the next financial year. I am grateful to all those who helped to shape the approach that has been taken. It would be fair to say that if there was a criticism of it, the timescale is pretty tight and that has contributed to the number of applications that we have had, but that has happened in other places as well. The plan as we sit here today is to deliver those projects, assess the outcome with a view to what we do going forward. Bear in mind that what we are looking to deliver is something that is complementary, supplementary to touring. It is not a replication of that, and it is based along, as I said, grateful particularly to the universities who helped to progress that. Is there a timeline in mind just now for it to be rolled out? There are two things at play. One is that you are on pilot projects to identify their worth. Most of the projects are European-based, but some that go by South Africa, for example, are one of the other projects. We would need to have an assessment of that fairly quickly, I recognise. I keep stressing and I mean that. The relationship and dialogue between ourselves and the university sector is quite good. Everything that we are doing, for example, we co-designed international engagement strategy genuinely is, and we will launch that shortly. I am not going to sit here today and say that we will do X or Y without having that input from college partners in the context of the pilot scheme, so I do not want to avoid the question. I will be happy to write with more detail in due course, but that is the path that we have gone down. That is quite helpful. The collaborative approach and the flexibility going forward is incredibly important. Will the Scottish Government fully fund-seep, or, if not, how much will institutions and other partners be expected to contribute to that? Do you have any ideas around that at this moment? That is a difficult question to answer, because we do not know what a fully-fledged-seep would look like. The level of application to the fund was not particularly high, and I accept a lot that was down to timing and the pilot nature of it. It is difficult to gauge what the level of interest would be if we get it up and running, and therefore the associated costs. That is very much a work in progress, but I stress that it is a joint work in progress. I am going to open up the last wee bit to any other questions, if anyone has. We have a bit of time, so I will hand it back to Pam Duncan-Glancy. On the seat programme, you said that 21 applications have been successful. Can you tell us anything about the number of other applications and what kind of sector they would come from, whether it was youth work, college or schools? I think that they were all from the university sector, unfortunately. There weren't any from elsewhere. That is something that we are obviously looking at. Again, it may have been the timescales. There was one institution through its application. I think that, in total, on a stand to be corrected, there was only ultimately one possibly two projects that did not progress. All the projects that were funded at that stage were international in scope. Thirteen of them have European partnerships. Funding range from involvement in the EU strategic network, short-term projects, creating opportunities for disadvantaged groups. It is in its infancy, but you would expect that with a pilot set-up. Can you tell us that any student has gone on exchange under the Scottish programme? Given that this is 10 January, I do not know his answer. The pilot scheme is from January to the end of March, but I know that there was quite a lot of planning going on. It may be the case, but I honestly cannot answer that. Thank you. Can I ask one further question, if that is okay? Very briefly. Is it your intention to keep or scrap the apprenticeship employers board, SAB? You mean SAB? As I said to Ruth Maguire, it would be my intention to accept that recommendation, but I was also clear that, with a view to expanding, quite markedly, the employer's voice in the development of apprenticeships. There seems to be some ambiguity about exactly what their budget will be for the forthcoming year. They are feeling that the world is very uncertain for them, in-year cuts significantly this year, uncertainty about next year, when you are trying to provide them with some direction. Are you fighting their corner enough with the finance secretary? Well, I certainly hope that I am. You talked about ambiguity. I think that the discrepancy, Mr Rennie, is between, rightly, interpretation of what was on the face of the budget last year set against now. Those are figures that are valid. What I am articulating is the difference between what they will end up with in reality this year and where we will start off next year. It may be slightly better than I have said. We will have to see how that has worked through. However, as you well know, the budget process is open. There is an opportunity for other partners to pitch budget ideas. I am sure that the finance secretary would be happy to sit down with the Liberal Democrats as previous finance secretaries do not hear their thoughts. That is not a challenge, it is just an observation. In all seriousness, it is a very difficult situation financially. I absolutely get how important colleges are to us. Within the difficulties that we face, the challenges that we face financially, we will do everything that we can to support our colleges. I thank the minister and his officials for their evidence this morning. It has been a very informative session. That concludes our public part of our proceedings. I will now suspend the meeting to allow the witnesses to leave, and the committee will then move into private session to consider its final agenda items.