Seòmar agus comataidhean

You said that you have been at SAAS for two and a half years. Do you fear that things will be lost in translation? We are hearing that none of this work is happening. I am not sure that I have heard a commitment on where the responsibility will sit—will it sit with the board or with a subsection of the board? You are doing a lot of important work, which could potentially be lost.

There is also the 10-year projection—we do not have time to wait 10 years for the system to deliver for our economy. It should already be delivering.

I will bring in Ms Topley in relation to the concerns about the winding up of SAAB, which I also raised with the previous panel. The bill does not provide detail on what will replace it; that is all up for discussion. I have concerns about that. A lot of people who submitted evidence to the committee said that we could lose a lot of good value by doing that. What are your views on the questions that I have put? Is there another way of preserving what has been going on and improving the provision of advice? We are all acutely aware of what is needed in relation to the skills shortages, but the bill will not necessarily be the answer to that problem—it might simply shift organisational responsibility.

The apprenticeship board.

I fully understand your internal processes. However, we are currently in a very different space, with lots of different organisations, including Edinburgh university here in my region, coming forward with major cuts to their institutions and job losses. That information needs to get to us almost live so that politicians and all of us can scrutinise that situation.

I want to move on to governance questions. Responses to the call for views highlighted a lack of clarity on the proposals on board reappointments, on the skills and experience of council members, and on co-opting provisions. Can you outline further details around that and around the setting up of that, which you have said is planned?

I agree that it is not about every single complaint being investigated. The petitioners would certainly point out serious complaints that have not been investigated. As an Edinburgh MSP, I am concerned about Edinburgh schools, but this is not just an Edinburgh issue—it is an issue across Scotland.

I hope that, at stage 3, there will be a workable way of giving the inspectorate a new opportunity to hear concerns and decide which ones it should take forward under the complaints procedure. That is why I have tried to keep the amendments open for the inspectorate to be able to do that. I am happy to hear the cabinet secretary’s view on the matter. The petitioners have a specific ask, and the amendments are just one step towards improving the whistleblowing and safeguarding culture in Scotland.

I move amendment 157.

That goes back to Willie Rennie’s point about the local authority’s responsibility around inspection. Through the wording of the amendment—I wait to hear what the cabinet secretary has to say on it—we could look towards that documentation being included. To go back to my earlier point, it is about transparency, so that we can see whether any concerns have been raised. I do not think that it should take a freedom of information request to find out that there have been 150 concerning incidents—as was the case back in 2018—and to get full transparency.

The bill has no targets or minimum levels of rights, either for apprentices or for employers. Is that something that your members have highlighted and fed back to you on?

The Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board is to be shut down, but we have no details of what will replace it. It has a key function in looking at the skills that we should be developing and having a voice about those.

The problem on the table is that we have 25,000 apprenticeships when 40,000 could have been delivered. Focusing on why that is, and the resources needed, seems to have caused a completely new restructuring, which will not necessarily help to deliver a solution to the problem of resourcing for apprenticeship places.

I take on board those points. The amendments would expand the new inspectorate regime to include what people want, which should be welcome. We know that there are on-going issues with the school estate, with RAAC being one of those issues. It is welcome that the vast majority of schools have now, I think, corrected that, but parents will want to be confident that there is an on-going inspection regime and that the certificates, which are sometimes provided by private companies, will not be lost, because they will be asked for when an inspection takes place.

I take the member’s point, and given my colleague Stephen Kerr’s point about when inspections take place, there might be a different or better framework for making that documentation available from local authorities. I understand that, and I am sure that Liz Smith will be open to discussing and developing that further.

As with Liz Smith’s amendments, amendments 165 and 209 in my name are probing amendments to consider the opportunity to explore how we can improve child protection and safeguarding in educational establishments. Given what the cabinet secretary has said, I do not intend to move them.

Given the cabinet secretary's comments, I will not press amendment 181.

Amendment 181, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 40 moved—[Ross Greer].