Seòmar agus comataidhean

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—

I am not sure that that is necessarily required to go in the bill, given the process that Andrew has laid out. We will reflect upon that.

There is a balance to be struck here. The committee has, rightly, taken an interest in events at the University of Dundee. The Parliament and wider society are entitled to develop a degree of confidence about the oversight of any and all of our institutions. Andrew has articulated very well that we are not talking about the minutiae of the day-to-day work of universities, but a balance has to be struck so that we can all be satisfied that we can have oversight over the use of public money.

That is your football allegiance, of course.

We will look into it and get back to you.

That is one of the areas that I explored when I was considering what action to take. As well as wanting to encourage collaboration, we wanted to avoid getting into a situation in which there might be predatory behaviour or the duplication of provision. There was an existing informal structure between the colleges that facilitated that. I am satisfied that the concerns that I might have had about what that arrangement might have led to were unjustified. The SFC will work with the colleges to develop appropriate collaborative arrangements, which will be overseen in line with existing accountability and assurance processes, and in compliance with statutory requirements.

It is also important to recognise that collaboration arrangements could be broader than the obvious arrangements that you might think of. For example, in your region of Glasgow, you might think about the three Glasgow colleges collaborating, but the strategic regional planning board, which I met yesterday, is working across a six-college area with West College Scotland and the two Lanarkshire colleges. I know that some thought is being given to more collaborative working between one of the Lanarkshire colleges and a Glasgow college, because the public transport links are better than they were between the two Lanarkshire colleges.

The proposed changes in the draft order will facilitate greater collaboration of the type that I think we are all looking for. The SFC will work with colleges to ensure that that happens.