Chamber and committees

That is always the way.

Thanks, convener. I have been struck by that conversation on the student pathway, irrespective of a student’s age, but I am more interested, for the purpose of this question, in the pathway from school through the college process and into, potentially, higher education. We have heard that four in 10 young people from SIMD20 areas who are at university went there from college. That is a huge achievement for the college process. Is that figure up on previous years? Is it about right? What should that figure be?

More importantly, can you say a little bit more about the experience of young people from the most deprived backgrounds, however we define that, as they journey from school through the college process and, potentially, into higher education? I am conscious that a lot of community outreach programmes were disrupted during the Covid pandemic. Could we be storing up issues in the next couple of years in relation to those young people going through the college system?

Can I push you a little bit further on that? The consultation stated that one aim of regionalisation was to enable colleges to offer

“a range of courses to the communities that they serve”,

which is what colleges were hoping to provide. In my experience, in Glasgow, they provide that, but local colleges tell me that a lot of the work that they do involves short taster courses in communities, which is labour intensive, with staffing on the ground being needed to build up relationships. Those types of activities, which can be quite expensive ones, were among the first to fall. You could not recreate that digitally. In the next couple of years, will some of the positive statistics that we have heard today start to decline? With challenging budgets, will we need more of a focus on that?

How can we track progress? I get that it was disrupted for two years because of Covid, but what data exists to monitor the success of the intensive community work to get young people and others on to the education pathway through the college system and with partners? Can you point to data that says that, for example, one in 10 or one in 50 of the young people who are engaged with such work eventually find themselves in a full-time college course and go on to achieve a certain outcome? I am certain that that work is positive, but how do we track the data to prove that it is successful? It feels successful and the colleges in my area appear to be successful, but how do we monitor that?

Rather than just putting on record what those inequalities might be, do the witnesses have any thoughts about how to address them? On broadband, for example, could the Parliament book a specific suite where there is good internet connectivity close to where the person lives, to ensure that there are no issues with connectivity or house space?

I have one final question, in case I do not come back in on this topic. As Artemis Pana and Bill Scott both mentioned, if someone has caring responsibilities or lives in a remote or rural area, it is great that they can contribute from home, but that should not cut them off from being able to come to Parliament. Might there be some inequalities in that regard? If we say to people, “Well, it’s difficult to get you to Parliament, so just go remote,” an inequality emerges. How can we address that sort of stuff?

I name-checked Artemis and Bill, so I should give them the opportunity to come in. Perhaps Bill can go first.

Good morning, everyone. To give some brief context to my question, there is consensus that, during Covid, great opportunities have been taken to improve equality, but every measure that is taken can inadvertently create some form of inequality. We have heard that remote participation is great unless a person’s device or broadband connection is not as good as someone else’s. Have there been any equalities issues that specifically relate to the change to online? Things can get better, but inequalities between different groups can still increase.

Do you want me to roll my second question together with this one, convener?

It is not, of course, for me to speak for the committee, because it will have its own deliberations, but, if the committee thought that it would be useful for the Improvement Service to do that work, would you be interested in doing it in the months ahead?

Can I ask another question, because we have time constraints? The process has been outlined by you and COSLA, and there was a health check in August last year. That all sounds good, and it is very positive that 1,000 partners have fed in on what the costs pressures are and so on.

Rates are being set just now, so engagement is taking place. If we were to fast forward a few months, would we get a report from the Improvement Service on where improvements have been made and—just as important—on the local authority areas where more work still needs to be done? If, later in the year, we were to ask, “How did things go?”, would we be told how they actually went instead of getting some reflective general comments about the process of engagement? How will we be able to measure success in a few months, after the rates have been set?

That all sounds great, but is there a disconnect between all of that and what happens locally on the ground? Is there a best-practice template that every local authority should use? There should, absolutely, be flexibility, but surely there are certain key things that every local authority should do in relation to the matter. We heard from witnesses that not every local authority is doing that, but they did not take up Mr Dey’s offer to name and shame or to put on the record the local authorities that have not stepped up to the plate. This is not about naming and shaming; it is about improving practice across the 32 local authorities and having an open, transparent and structured approach to engagement.

I ask Matthew Sweeney, then Adam Hall, to respond. I want to know how we can say, “Tick—that local authority is doing what we anticipated,” or, “That one has some work to do.” Unless we know what is happening on the ground, we will not drive up improvement. It is not about naming and shaming; it is about identifying who has to do a lot better.

Thank you. I had another question on diversity in the workforce, but I am looking at the convener. Do I have time to ask it just now, convener?