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The guarantee is access to supported employment opportunities, and ensuring that, as with further and higher education, the range is provided on an employment basis. It is up to individuals whether they wish to take that employment, but it is a guarantee that opportunities will be available to ensure that they can advance.

I will end by saying that the final element of the amendment is the publication of a progress report on the number of care-experienced people supported into employment, training or apprenticeships.

The minister is aware that The Promise Scotland has indicated its support for Martin Whitfield’s amendment 127 and that it believes that there is a gap that needs to be closed, so I am puzzled as to why she is so firm in her opposition to that quite reasonable amendment. If young people leave care before they are 16, they will not get the support that they need.

I know that the minister will probably not move from her position today, but I appeal to her to have a discussion with The Promise Scotland, because it believes that Clan Childlaw raised valid concerns in its evidence about how things should be articulated, so it supports amendment 127. I hope that the minister will take that into account when we come back at stage 3. I suspect that she will not change her position today, but I am concerned that she is opposing something for which The Promise Scotland has indicated its support.

It is a unique form of negotiation to say, “We can talk, but I am not going to move.”

If the minister’s position today is to oppose the amendment, that is fine, but I hope that there is flexibility when the issue comes back for discussion. I will conclude on that point.

The minister has accepted that there will be some improvement for some people.

Like the convener, I appreciate the Government’s new approach of accepting amendments that will be subject to change at stage 3. I fully expect all my amendments for the rest of the morning to be accepted by the minister on that basis, and I am prepared to work with her at stage 3 to improve them even further.

I worked with Who Cares? Scotland on amendment 169, which provides for streamlined data collection, reporting and planning duties for corporate parents in relation to the bill’s existing provisions on corporate parenting responsibilities and other outcomes of the Promise that are to be produced in agreement with the Scottish Government and COSLA. That data, which would include information on how care-experienced people view their relationships with their siblings, would support existing data collection and internal decision making. Amendment 169 is intended to provide a greater and clearer record of decisions that are made about sibling relationships.

The data that is collected would also include data on the provision of independent advocacy for care-experienced people. In the Who Cares? Scotland report “Is Scotland Keeping The Promise?”, several areas are identified in which better data collection is needed in order to keep the Promise. The areas outlined in amendment 169 are important. It seeks to ensure that corporate parents take a more proactive approach to data collection and that accountability for future and previous legislation will be maintained.

I have been working on amendment 142 with Duncan Dunlop, to whom I referred earlier, and it seeks to build on the proven success of national education support schemes by extending the same ambition and accountability to employment, ensuring that care-experienced people can achieve economic independence and stability.

The amendment seeks to require the Scottish ministers, in exercising their functions, to ensure that every person who is care-experienced is guaranteed access to supported employment opportunities, whether part-time or full-time, up to the age of 30. Ministers would have to work with public bodies, local authorities and employers to establish a national employment scheme for care-experienced people, modelled on the successful bursary and support programmes for further and higher education; ensure flexible routes combining employment and education; and, finally, publish an annual progress report—

Does the power imbalance not operate equally in the other way as well? If a care-experienced person believes that they must ask for something, is it not in itself daunting to need to choose where to go? How do we get the balance right between those two opposing elements?

Thank you for your evidence so far. I appreciate it and I understand your frustrations. The committee has taken lots of evidence, but trying to get to the truth has been really quite challenging, because there are some really complex matters.

There has been quite a lot of reform in recent years, including having elected chairs at various universities, and that has not been a roaring success. What are your observations about the reforms of recent years, including the election of chairs and the recent Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill, which brings greater oversight for the Scottish Funding Council? What are we not getting? What needs to change and what comments do you want to make about what has happened so far?

Is it?