Seòmar agus comataidhean

I said earlier that we have strong foundations to build on. We do, and we should recognise that. Some of the very people who have established those strong foundations in apprenticeships will move across to the SFC. Thanks to Frank Mitchell, the SDS chairman, I have had direct conversations with those people and have set them two immediate challenges. The first is to look at what they would do differently if they were not working within their current framework and if we let them run free. That is a bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I am getting at. We asked what they would do differently.

The second challenge is a question about what impediments or perceived impediments there are to being able to deliver the vision that they believe would be better. We are awaiting feedback from them on that.

Some of what the OECD report suggested featured in Withers. There are elements that we have taken on board. However, we cannot sit back and say, “Well, the OECD said we are doing well, and we are doing better than England. That is good enough.” I do not think that it is. I do not think that a one-in-four dropout rate is good enough. I am not apportioning blame to anybody in particular in relation to that, but we should all aspire to better.

I will pick up on that point. I fully accept the financial challenges that universities have, for a wide range of reasons. A narrative has developed that suggests that financial sustainability is achieved only through the provision of more public money, but institutions also need to look at custom and practice issues in how they operate. I do not say that to deflect in any way; I just offer that observation.

There is an operating model, certainly in some of our universities, whereby, when a new market and a new source of income is identified, the university recruits quite heavily in order to deal with that. If that market and that source of income is subsequently diminished, for whatever reason, the same number of people face losing their jobs. We have seen that in a number of universities, where there have been significant job losses.

Some of that is down to how universities operate. Collectively, the UK and Scottish Governments need to look at the financing of our universities, and I take on board all the things that have been said in that regard. However, to be frank, it is also for universities to do some work on the way in which they go about their business. I think that they know that.

No, because that information is not shared with us.

The UK Government shared it with us up to a certain point, a number of years ago, but then it decided to take an approach in which it said, “We’re just going to include a relevant amount in the block grant.” I cannot tell you what that amount is, but that is the situation that we are in—that is how things operate at a UK level. There are some plans to change the English system, but we await the details. Greater clarity might emerge, but, as things stand—as has been the case for a number of years—that information is not shared with us.

Sorry—what membership?

I think that I am right in saying that there have been conversations with SAAB about continuing the current offering through to when we get into the full transition process.

The two committees that currently exist within SAAB—the standards and frameworks group and the apprenticeship approvals group—would form part of the transition, because they offer expertise. Their membership might well morph into the membership of the new committee.

However, it is important that we take the opportunity to expand not just numerically but in terms of the breadth of employer voice that is available to advise. I talked earlier about SMEs as an example. We need to do more in that regard, but we need to consider what it is that we need to do more of in order to improve the situation.

For the transition period, we will have SAAB, including those two committees, right up to the transition, and then the new overarching committee will be formed to make the transition work.

As I said earlier, I want to enhance employer engagement in this area. Some good stuff has been done—I do not deny that—but there is an opportunity, as we do things differently and better, to enhance the employer voice in all this.

Thank you for the warning.

I absolutely concur with the point that you are making. However, I do not think that that is an issue for the bill—I do not see that that fits into what the bill sets out to do in this space. However, it touches on some parallel work that we are doing with colleges. A lot of work is being done on curriculum transformation, and one of the things that we have recognised—which has been brought to us by some of the college chairs—is that there are colleges that see an opportunity to get more commercial income but do not have the knowledge and resources to go out there and secure it. We are doing a parallel piece of work on what we can do to support that.

There is an accompanying issue to that, however, which is that some colleges have raised with me impediments involving restrictions in the qualifications that are available to them that prevent them from fully utilising the kit that they have, particularly in relation to green skills. Therefore, I have undertaken to consider that issue further. Again, we need to think about the impediments to colleges’ ability to maximise the opportunities that are available to them.

As I said, I do not think that those issues sit with the bill, but I am more than happy to continue this discussion with Mr Briggs.

That is an interesting question. When I first came into this post, the SFC sometimes used its powers with quite a broad-brush approach. If it saw a problem, it would take action and inform the whole sector that a restriction was being imposed. An example of that is school-college partnerships: an issue was identified in seven colleges and the SFC issued an edict that said, “We’re going to cap this for everyone,” which was not altogether helpful.

To be fair, the SFC has become much more surgical in how it deploys its powers, which is how it should be. The SFC deals with individual instances when a problem arises. By and large, the SFC now has sufficient powers.

I want to say a word of caution—it sounds as though I am sitting on the fence, but I am not—about the allegations that are sometimes made against colleges and college principals and the substance of those allegations. There is often a grain of truth in those allegations but there is also a lot of exaggeration—we have all seen instances of that. That adds to the unhelpful atmosphere in some individual colleges in particular, which is not helpful.

One of the things that has gotten in the way of resolving some of these issues is something that we will deal with later this morning, which is additional layers of bureaucracy. The SFC has felt unable to take a lead on something because the regional body has first dibs on it, and vice versa. I hope that the committee will vote later today to remove those layers of bureaucracy. That will give the SFC a clear run—with the exception that there will still be one regional board—at dealing with some of these issues.

There are opportunities in the bill—I think that Andrew Mott will back me up on this—regarding powers that could deal with issues that relate to fair work. However, I stress again that allegations need to be proven before action can be taken.

Last year, there were only two colleges that were subject to recovery—by the way, I am not allowed to call it “clawback”; it is “recovery”. The SFC has moved away from taking money back for underperformance—that is the direction of travel that was set by my predecessor. You know how flexible we are trying to be to support colleges in these challenging times. As a tool—or in any other form—recovery is not used as widely as it once was. However, there is no doubt—