Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning and welcome to the 25th meeting of the Finance and Public Administration Committee in 2025. The first item on our agenda is evidence from two panels of witnesses on responding to long-term fiscal pressures as part of our pre-budget scrutiny for 2026-27. Our first evidence-taking session is a round-table discussion.

I welcome Andy Witty, director of strategic policy and corporate governance at Colleges Scotland; Stacey Dingwall, head of policy and external affairs for Scotland at the Federation of Small Businesses; Elaine Morrison, director of boosting capital investment at Scottish Enterprise; Tom Ockendon, external affairs co-ordinator at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations; and Lesley Jackson, deputy director of Universities Scotland. Thank you all for your written submissions.

We have around 90 minutes for this evidence session. I will kick off by putting a question to Andy Witty. If anyone wants to come in on the back of that, let me know: put your hand up or nod as if you are at an auction—you will not end up buying any candlesticks or obscure paintings, so do not worry. Let me know if you want to come in, and we will have as free flowing a discussion as possible.

If we get stuck at any point, I have questions arising from each of your papers, which I might come in on—and I might come in on those anyway to move things forward. Please feel free to say whatever you wish, when you wish, and to make as many contributions as possible. It is the same for members.

Andy Witty, at the very start of the Colleges Scotland submission, on the subject of specific fiscal sustainability challenges, you wrote:

“it is vital that Scotland maximises the participation and contribution of its population … Gaining the participation in the labour market of those who are currently not in work, education or training, and with support for people who face barriers to work such as neurodiversity or disability”.

You went on to say that it is important to

“Ensure access to appropriate training, qualifications and upskilling which are aligned to Scotland’s economic needs.”

Could you expand on that for us, please? Where does Colleges Scotland fit in with that objective?

Lesley, you will have heard what John Mason said, but I note that your submission says that

“86% of new jobs in Scotland by 2035 will be at graduate level”,

which I found really astonishing, given that, as we have just heard, we need welders, plumbers, bricklayers and people to work in retail and hospitality and God knows where else. Surely that 86 per cent figure cannae be right.

When you say “considerable impact”, do you mean a positive or negative impact?

You seem to be prepared to answer it, from what I can see.

You say that the £25,000 limit has been unchanged for the past 10 years. I must say that, when I was at university, it was part time, because there were only 12 hours a week of classes. I do not know what you mean by part time, because that was pretty much part time as far as I recall, and I understand that things have not changed that much.

Moving swiftly on, I call Liz Smith to be followed by Michael Marra.

Has the situation arisen partly because the universities were overdependent on overseas students and the UK Government brought in visa restrictions? The number of overseas students reduced immediately because of that, which has cost the sector a colossal amount of money, not just in Scotland but across the UK. There does not seem to have been a plan B in case that happened; everything was sunny uplands. This is going to continue indefinitely, and universities were not prepared for any change in policy.

I think that there is a frustration. According to your paper, 8.7 million individuals across the United Kingdom have work-limiting health conditions, but about 4.1 million of those people, which is about half of them, work.

We still have a situation where about 800,000 people are economically inactive, although we do not need to count the 200,000 of those who are students. The Federation of Small Businesses says that only 37 per cent of those aged 16 to 24 are economically active, but if we take the students out, that figure is totally different.

Your submission makes some really innovative suggestions, such as incentivising employers to recruit, retain and retrain older workers. A lot of older workers have a habit of going to work: not everyone wants to retire and some people who retire from one job might want to do something else or move to working part time. However, your paper does not really say how that could be achieved. Can you enlighten us a wee bit about that?

You also talk about empowering employers

“to reimagine job design and embed flexible and phased retirement options across their workforce”,

which seems to contradict that. In one paragraph, you talk about almost making it easier for people to retire while, in another, you are trying to get more older people into the workforce.

Finally, while I have you on the spot, you say that there is

“a growing trend of employers requesting workers return to the workplace”

but you say that almost as if it is a bad thing. Transport networks rely on the workforce to boost their incomes, as does the hospitality sector. For a lot of people, their mental health surely benefits from working with colleagues and exchanging ideas. I am the kind of person who does not want to spend their life on a screen or in their house; one of the reasons why I want to work is that I want to be with people. Everyone is different, obviously. Will you respond to some of the points that you made on the second page of your submission?

It used to be the case that, in many companies, you had to leave at a certain age.

I know a garage owner who takes on apprentices; he says that, during the first couple of years, they just break stuff. [Laughter.] It has always been like that; it is just about getting to know how things work.