Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Amendment 181, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 40 moved—[Ross Greer].

First, I put on record Liz Smith’s apologies, as she is unable to attend this evening’s session and was also unable to attend this morning.

Amendment 24, in her name, is an important amendment that I support, especially as a Lothian MSP. Members will recall the tragic incident that occurred in April 2014, when Keane Wallis-Bennett died while changing for a physical education class, as a result of a prefabricated wall collapsing at Liberton high school here in the capital. That was despite repeated warnings about the instability of the wall for several months before the fatal accident.

We all understand that there are situations when freak accidents—storms, for example—can cause unforeseen damage to a school building. That happened at Oxgangs primary school in 2016, when a cavity leaf wall collapsed. Notwithstanding that, there are other situations that naturally give parents and carers cause for concern.

In 2018, my colleague Liz Smith made a freedom of information request to all 32 local authorities, which brought out that 150 safety incidents had been reported in our schools. Since then, we have had the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete situation in schools, including the worrying incident at Queen Victoria school in Dunblane.

To be fair to the Scottish Government, it has put in place measures to ensure that there are additional checks on school buildings. I suggest, however, that parent, pupil and teacher anxiety remains, especially in areas where some aspects of poor school estate still exist. I fully appreciate that local authorities have a statutory obligation to carry out building inspections of their school estate. That is right and proper, as Willie Rennie has outlined. It means that, for each school, there is certification of safety, or, if there are issues, the relevant local authority is obliged to take urgent action. In the independent sector, that would apply to the board of governors.

The key thing is to ensure that there is full transparency when it comes to the physical school estate and school campus. Through her amendment 24, Liz Smith suggests that, when the results of the usual school inspection are published, currently by Education Scotland, accompanying certification should be signed off by an independent qualified building engineer professional to prove that the school campus has been declared—

Yes.

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 want to go back to the question about annual reporting on the financial sustainability of the higher education sector. For clarification, is it correct that you have received the information about new financial forecasts that you have been awaiting?

Mr Yeates, do you have anything to add in answer to that range of questions?

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?