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If you look at some of the evidence that the committee heard, you will see that organisations have said that they have immediate concerns, but can see the potential merits in the bill. When the Withers report was published, there was widespread support inside and outwith Parliament for what he proposed. Withers wanted us to go further and expressed the merits of moving to a single funding body, but I have taken the view that that would be too big a leap at the moment. I am sure that we will go on to explore the various reasons why the change is necessary, but there is support out there.

We have covered the point about what the bill does and does not do. At all times in my engagement with all the affected agencies’ staff, I have made the point that I want to hear their thoughts. I have heard directly from them on how engagement works currently and what could be done differently.

There has been a mixed bag of responses, and I accept that some people have expressed concern. Overwhelmingly, the feedback has been constructive and their point of view has been to say, “Well, you know what? We could have done this, or you might want to look at that.”

I will give an example of that, if I may. One of the things that exercises me is that I am not sure that the current apprenticeship offering entirely captures the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the lifeblood of this country. There are two conflicting statistics—forgive me if I get them the wrong way round—but SDS says that 92 per cent of its apprenticeships are with SMEs, but the Federation of Small Businesses says that 83 per cent of its members have never had an apprentice. That statistic troubles me. There is a disconnect there.

One of the issues for small businesses that was brought home in a series of pilots in 2015, I think, is the hassle for small businesses and the grief that they say they would face around human resources and training and so on. It all becomes too much for them to take on apprentices even when their business needs it for succession planning. It was actually a staff member who came to us and suggested a possible solution, and we are looking at that.

I absolutely accept that there will be concerns, as has been expressed to the committee. I have been open with the convener about what we will do in response to that. I have been as open as I possibly can be. I have met staff members at a session who then met me at something else and said, “I did not feel that I could raise the issue on the day, but I just wanted to say.” That has all been taken on board.

I absolutely share the concern that you are telling me that the committee has about it. I totally share it.

The reality here, from my perspective, is quite concerning. I will give the committee a couple of examples, because the evidence that you received certainly caught the interest of the college sector. I talked to a couple of colleges about this, and the numbers are really quite stark.

One college, for example, gets 48 per cent of the £8,700 that was referred to to the committee. However, it then draws down, over a three-year period, £16,000 of credits in order to deliver the training. Plumbing is a particularly intensive course; it can sometimes be one to three or even one to one, as it goes through.

Another college that I know of gets 46 per cent of the £9,500 that it is pulling down. In this instance, circa £5,000 of the money is retained, and college credits are utilised to deliver the training. I am really uncomfortable about that as a use of public money.

The managing agents will tell you that they do lots of good stuff, and CITB is doing some really good collaborative work with us. I do not have a black-and-white view of it. The English system is quite black and white—for example, it caps the amount of money that managing agents can retain.

That has been quite unhelpful, and it means that I have not seen the specifics of the issue that you raise. However, I figured that you would ask that question.

I understand the argument that is made around the principle of remuneration for senior staff, particularly in the university sector—I think that that has been the biggest challenge from the point of view of the University and College Union. However, it is difficult to legislate to address that issue.

It is a fact that some of our larger institutions are competing salary-wise with multimillion-pound businesses for the very brightest and best. However, I absolutely recognise the concerns that trade unions and others have raised about remuneration packages and the increases that have been offered.

Earlier, I referred to a meeting that I had a couple of months ago with the university chairs of court. I would be wrong to go into too much detail, but I took the opportunity to point out to them how the increases were viewed out there. You are absolutely right about institutions wanting more public money at a time when they were offering large remuneration increases, particularly to principals but also to others. I read some of the media stories, and I have made it clear to them that they are expected to exercise restraint and self-awareness going forward. That is probably as much as I can do currently, but we need to see that play out.

I guess that there has been a disconnect between the expectation of what the engagement would look like in reality and what the unions took it to be. I contend that, when there have been developments in the process, we have engaged directly with the trade unions.

I also make the distinction between that engagement and the direct engagement that I have had with the staff. I have gone in front of the staff, updated them on where we are and answered any and all questions that they have had as openly as I can. It is a combination of things.

This Government is absolutely committed to enhancing the apprenticeship offering in all its guises, whether it be, for example, modern apprenticeships or graduate apprenticeships. There is an absolute commitment. The apprenticeship offering is critical to the needs of the economy, and we are in the business of improving it.

As for your initial point, Mr Rennie, I would just caution that we should await the Pamela Gillies report on Dundee.

ONS classification pertains to universities.

We do not know the exact quantum, but it will be in excess of 100 people.

Instead of apprenticeships being, as Andrew Mott has said, an add-on to the organisation, they will become a critical part of the SFC’s activities. The Government’s view is that there needs to be a growth in apprenticeships, both numerically and in quality.

In that sense, it will—I cannot disagree with you on that. However—and I do not think that we can make this any clearer, convener—the new organisation will, in every respect, put a huge emphasis on apprenticeship delivery.