Seòmar agus comataidhean

I cannot speak to what Michael Russell said all those years ago. My position is realistic. We have been very clear with colleges. As I said earlier, for the most part, college boards and principals want to do anything that they can to avoid compulsory redundancies. That is where we are.

The regional set-ups congest the landscape a little bit. To go back to the original point, it is not for ministers, as I have kept saying, to intervene in individual disputes, but there are processes in place. If we take the example of Glasgow and the current set-up there, the escalation route is to the regional board.

In the context of the dispute that has been running at one college in Glasgow, that route has not been followed. I met the trade unions last week and, to my surprise, I learned that they had not pursued it. That raises the question about the board’s role: should it be proactive when it sees a dispute?

On the back of those discussions, I met the board last Friday. I encouraged the board and the trade unions to get together—I did not care who made the first move—to explore some of the claims that have been made around the dispute. I am pleased to say that, on Monday, they took that opportunity. There have been discussions, and I understand that, as of today, the trade unions are to go back to the board with further information.

I outline that example because it shows that processes exist. I am not saying that they are perfect. As you know, we are considering future governance arrangements in the regional set-ups. That is the process that can and should be followed. If a regional board comes to the conclusion that there is something of concern to it, it has the opportunity to escalate that to the Scottish Qualifications Authority [Graeme Dey has corrected this contribution. See end of report.], which I would expect it to do, if that were the case, in any such circumstances.

First, I thank the committee for allowing me to contribute from Stornoway, where I am visiting the local college.

The lifelong learning offer is a work in progress—there is no doubt about that—but I think that we have made significant progress, and the reform agenda on which we are embarking will afford us further opportunity to build on that.

Mr Balfour will be aware of the increasing levels of financial support that we have been providing. We recently increased undergraduate support by £900 and announced an 11 per cent-plus increase in the maximum bursary rates in further education for 2023-24. We are now considering how we prioritise our programme for government commitment to reform student support within the context of the fixed budget and the challenging financial circumstances that we are in. That is an on-going exercise, as is looking overall at what we can do to best deliver for people who need the most support to access the post-school education system.

I am sure that Mr Balfour would recognise the progress that has been made in improving matters through the widening access programme, given that we hit our target as early as we did. However, we are absolutely not resting on our laurels. We are working closely with our partners in further and higher education to consider what more we can do to improve access to both sectors for people from the poorest backgrounds.

As I have already touched on, we are currently considering how we can prioritise that commitment. I am sure that you will recognise the challenging financial circumstances that we are in. However, we are working on the matter.

The commitment made was to do so in this parliamentary session. That is what we are working towards.

I am sorry that I cannot be more specific. I am not trying to be difficult or vague in any way; I am being as open with you as I can. We are considering that currently, but we are in an incredibly challenging set of financial circumstances.

I will bring in my official Jane Duffy to give you the detail on that.

I cannot speak for what Wales is doing. I hope that Mr Rennie will also appreciate that I have been in post for only 12 weeks. What I would say about where we are and what we need to do is that we need to look at a number of things to get this right.

For example, I would like to assess the allocations for Turing that were made to Scottish institutions in 2022-23 to help determine what the gaps are. It is about asking what gets awarded funding, what does not, and why. That will help us to understand what we would need to look to plug. As the committee knows, there is no inward mobility element to Turing and no inward or outward mobility for staff. Of course, there is also no youth element. We know that, but we need to understand the basis on which Turing awards. We will see shortly what the awards will be for 2023-24, which will also inform our thinking. We are waiting to see that.

On where we are currently, we are actively engaged on the issue. In the next short while, I would anticipate us launching a pilot project in conjunction with the sectors that I have mentioned and taking it from there. That is my intention at the moment.

As we have just started those conversations with Universities Scotland, you will appreciate that I cannot do that. However, I anticipate it being in this financial year.

I recognise entirely the role of research and universities in all this.