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I am open to doing whatever Parliament asks us to do, although I point out that it is not for Governments to talk about individual institutions and so on. There may be other ways of doing it. It may be that the committee decides to invite the SFC in—and me along with it or separate from it—to further interrogate the issue. The point that I was making at my previous committee appearance was about governance as much as anything. If there is something in what happened at Dundee that tells us that the governance arrangements—both internally to universities and externally through SFC oversight—could be tightened up, we will certainly look at that.

Later this month, I will have a meeting with the chairs of all the universities in Scotland. I have no doubt that governance will be at the top of the agenda for that conversation. I am hoping that the chairs have some suggestions about what they think would work better. Whether that is in the formation or training of courts or whatever, I would be astonished if something did not come out of that meeting that made us aware of what is available to us. It is not about taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but if something has arisen at Dundee that would benefit the sector—for example, additional oversight powers or intervention powers on the part of the SFC—we are amenable to looking at that.

I am trying to give you an accurate answer, but things are moving at a considerable pace. I could say to you that the SFC is engaging with the University of Dundee on a daily basis, and has been doing so for quite some time. However, convener, I am conscious that, when we had our exchange at a previous meeting, I was saying, “Look—we need to wait for the recovery plan and react to it.” Effectively, I am still saying that. It has taken considerably longer than I think that all of us would have wanted to get to the point where there is a degree of clarity on the scale of the issue.

Universities may, of course, choose to do that. The point that I am making is that the SFC will make a judgment on the seriousness of the University of Dundee’s circumstances and whether there are measures that the university can take, as other universities have done. The University of Edinburgh and Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen are examples of universities that have taken steps to address the issues that they faced. The measures that RGU took, painful as they were, were designed not only to address an immediate problem but to put the university on a sound footing. It should be said that the financial planning of all universities has been undermined. The ENICs situation was a nasty surprise for them, and they are all having to find money to address that.

I do not know whether you raised that question with the SFC earlier. The money has been given, as we stated, for the purposes that we stated. I would envisage, given the seriousness of the situation at Dundee, that the overwhelming majority of the money would be utilised for that purpose, but the SFC will make a judgment call based on its assessment of the situation there and set against any other institutions that might identify as having issues.

I was quite struck by Mr Brown’s question last week—

Sorry. The investigation as to how the situation arose is being conducted independently on behalf of the university, I think. We would expect the SFC to have sight of that, and it is my expectation that it will be available publicly. That is the very least that the staff deserve, and, in my opinion, the Parliament has a role in overseeing that.

There is another balance to be struck here. Yes, universities are autonomous institutions—you said that it is not for the taxpayer to bail an institution out—but they are major players in local economies. The University of Dundee employs 3,000 people, which is hugely important in the city and the wider area. It also plays a part in the wider landscape of our higher education offering for Scotland and helps to attract students from all over. Universities are hugely important institutions.

I do not disagree with you that an environment can be created in which it might be thought that it does not matter how you run an institution, because you will be bailed out by the taxpayer. That is a consideration. It is also the case that universities receive varying degrees of their income from public sources. For some universities, public funds are minimal—I think that roughly 25 per cent of the University of Dundee’s income is derived from public sources.

It is about more than just money, though, Mr Brown. Although I absolutely accept your point, it is about the importance of institutions—not only the University of Dundee—in the overall landscape in Scotland and the economy. Universities play a hugely important part in Scotland, and it is important that we preserve them.

Actually, I do recall that, when I looked at the evidence, I saw that he had said that. That is not my recollection of the reasons. I will look into the matter again, but my understanding is that it was for the reasons that I have just given you.

Again, the difficulty is what the vehicle is for doing that, because of the data-sharing issue. I will give you an insight into the depth that we have gone into on the issue. We have considered whether it might be possible, as a stop-gap measure, for individual local authorities to establish similar relationships with their local universities. The difficulty that arises is that, if it were doable—it would take a bit of resource and time on their part—it would affect only that relationship. In other words, it would not be open to the whole of Scotland, so, for example, the universities in Glasgow or Edinburgh could not dip into the information that Aberdeen holds.

It sounds like I am constantly coming up with excuses—I am not. I am coming up with the barriers that we are all working to overcome. The committee might have thoughts that we have not come up with collectively, and I would be interested to hear those.

That touches on a wider issue that is occupying a lot of my time in the area of reform—the careers advice that is available to our young people. We intend to make some changes to tackle some of the points that you have just made. There is an issue about our young people being entirely equipped to make the decisions that they are going to make about their futures.

On the point about young people not knowing that you can go to university through college, that is the right route for a number of young people. I met a number of apprentices this week in the context of Scottish apprenticeship week, and they were telling me that it was not through the advice that they had been given at school that they had ended up in their current roles—and they were really enjoying them. There is undoubtedly some work to do there.

Mr Mason, both you and Mr Briggs have reminded me that we need to do a piece of work in the context of the forum but away from the forum: to sit and engage with young people on this topic, as you have done, so as to understand their experiences and to help inform our thinking. I will take that point away.