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That matter is being looked at, as are a number of issues. I am very much alive to that ask. Every time I meet Susan Stewart, she reminds me of it.

As you would expect, I say that the pie is only the pie, and we have considerable asks from various quarters. Before the convener reminds me, I recall the committee’s ask, when I was a member of it, to address the disparity between the moneys that are paid to colleges for the first two years of courses and those that are paid to universities. There is a whole range of asks. The part-time student request is particularly valid. I cannot say that we have progressed on it, but we are well down the road with it—it is in train. I cannot say that I expect it to be resolved quickly, but we are looking at it, as we are looking at a number of things.

The situation with the Erasmus replacement programme is that we ran 20 pilot projects, as you are aware, and that those are currently being formally assessed. Anecdotally, they were a big success. We are working with the universities on a second tranche for the coming year.

What you alluded to is a full-scale roll-out of a programme. We are not at that stage yet, for two reasons: first, because of the financial position, and secondly, because the universities, with which we have worked closely, have asked that we redirect some of our funding in that area to the international promotion to which I alluded earlier. We are trying to take a twin-track approach, which is to use a bit of marketing—if that is the right word—to attract international students while we develop the rest of the programme. This coming year, I hope that we can broaden out the initiative to the colleges, which did not take part in the first year—there were no college applications—and to the wider youth sector.

As you know, our programme is set up to complement the Turing scheme, so that there is no duplication. There has been some inbound activity. I met a group of students from multiple European countries on one of those pilot programmes, and some staff.

I am sure that you will be disappointed by that answer. I know that you were hoping for us to be in an all-singing, all-dancing programme, but that is where we are. It is progressing in conjunction with the sector.

To be absolutely open with you, I was a little thrown by that information. The mental health funding for the colleges exists because the Government made a commitment for three years, which it honoured. It extended it for a year—only for a year—for a transition period, then the funding came to an end. I am therefore a little unclear about what is meant. I do not want to duck the question, because you are right to ask it. We will write back to the committee quickly—perhaps separately—on that, once I have a bit of clarity on it. We continue to fund the NUS’s Think Positive programme, but I am not clear about what is alluded to in the letter, and I want to have a look at it.

My understanding is that the think positive scheme continues, but I will confirm that in writing.

However, some colleges are providing those training opportunities direct to employers. Your point about the credits is fair. That flexibility was before my time; my predecessor introduced it. It was just that—a flexibility that allows the college to decide how best to use its funding. On reflection, I do not think that it was as well utilised as it might have been. That is why we are using the tripartite group—it is to engage with the colleges on the basis of asking, “What do you need in order to do the things that you want to do and that we require you to do?”, and that is an open conversation. I do not entirely agree that that reduces opportunities for students, because, in some cases, credits are not being used.

Colleges are deploying those in a way that they think is most beneficial to them. They already do that in the school-college partnership space. I absolutely accept that college funding is not what I would want it to be, but we are working closely with colleges to make best use of the available funding, and I reiterate that a number of colleges are getting on with this. I accept that the situation is not ideal, but we are working closely with colleges to make the best of this.

I will answer briefly. We have no assurance. We are waiting for the UK Government budget. There are concerning noises around that are making the university and college sectors nervous. We await the outcome of the budget process with some concern.

You make a good point. Everything is interconnected—I make that point in the Government. The interconnection manifests itself in areas such as health workforce planning, on which our universities and colleges are actively involved in working with the Government on how to address some of the challenges. It is about more than just money.

It is a good point. The counterargument is that all areas of Government are financially challenged; it is not an issue for the education portfolio alone. I will always advocate for education and for my element of the portfolio.

We have such conversations across Government. In fact, there is a live conversation across Government about skills planning. All portfolios are engaged in that conversation to identify the existing skills need and to find the solutions to it, through working directly with the colleges and universities. I am trying to foster that a bit more across Government and, if that leads to some financial benefit, that will be all to the good.

Colleges would not have to come to the Scottish Government or the SFC if they were going to share services; they would just look to progress that. However, if they thought that we could assist them with addressing impediments, I would expect them to raise that through the tripartite group or the many other forums that we have. That has not happened, but we would be open to listening to any issues and to requests for assistance.

Those national priorities include a recognition that some colleges are not in the fortunate position of having assets that they can dispose of, and we have to take account of that. We need to strike a balance that gives them a bit of support, as well as the individual colleges that are disposing of assets.

That is not the intention, and I do not think that the colleges would agree to that, if it was.