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It most definitely will, because, apart from anything else, there will be clear ministerial direction about the importance of apprenticeships.

As you have acknowledged, the SFC has written to the committee in greater detail. I will not comment on the evidence that was given at the time, but I do recall Paul Grice, I think, expressing considerable confidence to the committee about the capabilities of the organisation under its new leadership. I would reinforce that.

Forgive me if I am being presumptuous, but I do not think that anyone in this room thinks that Withers was just an opinion—a point of view. It was an extensive piece of work that was carried out by a highly credible and respected individual. I do not know about other members but, at the end of my reading of the Withers report, I realised that I had sat nodding in agreement with pretty much everything. The work that I have done in the period since then, engaging with business and various stakeholders, has reinforced that.

To come back to your point, Mr Adam, about some of the evidence from SDS, the chief executive was, clearly, proud of the fact that 76 per cent of apprentices complete their apprenticeships, and I recognise that that is a better performance than elsewhere on these islands. However, I am not proud of the fact that almost one in four apprentices does not complete. I do not think that that is success. Some of the retention rates in a number of our colleges are not good enough. We have to aspire to do better.

There are lots of factors with regard to young people not completing college or apprenticeships. Often, those are outwith the control of those who are charged with delivering the programmes. Members of the committee know that the way in which we measure college retention is a bit unfair on the colleges. Nevertheless, we need to improve completion rates.

That is where the read-across to other areas of reform comes in. Getting that careers offering right is important because, at the moment, we have too many square pegs in round holes. That is what is happening in reality. It is one of the major contributory factors to the rate of lack of completion.

I do not want to focus entirely on SDS and apprenticeship delivery, because Withers set a challenge for everyone—and we have all been challenged, particularly Government. I have held up my hands and said that I think that his criticism is justified and that we can do better. We need to see that level of self-awareness across the landscape.

I was struck by something that the committee might be interested in. Construction is a remarkably important sector for the country and its economy. The Construction Industry Training Board tells me that around 18,000 young people go to college in Scotland every year to study construction but that only 15 per cent of those go on to work in construction. That is an example of some of the ideas that have arisen from the reform work and it challenges us to ask ourselves why that is the case and what lies behind it. If people are going to do courses, they should surely be ones that they are interested in and that will deliver to meet their needs and those of the economy. We must ensure that we have the workforce that we need, not for tomorrow but for now.

We must be honest with ourselves, because the numbers show that we are not getting it right and we must all ask what we should do to tackle that. I absolutely agree with Mr Rennie’s point about immediate challenges, but if we do not take the opportunity that Withers has presented to us and that the bill presents, and if we do not recognise the concerns that have been articulated, what will we do then? Are we saying that we are not going to respond to the places where we are coming up short? Are we going to let this slide because we are in challenging times and it is too difficult? That is not where I am. We must address some of the immediate challenges, but we absolutely must take a strategic view of the post-16 landscape and get to the point where the young people who are best suited to go to university are doing that—perhaps by doing graduate apprenticeships—and the young people who should be going into apprenticeships if that is the right thing for them are in the right apprenticeships. That is what the overarching reform is about.

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.

That is a very good and fair question. The bill will not, in itself, achieve any of that, as that is not what it is about. The bill will enable things.

Let me talk about the bill in the context of the other work that has taken place in order to address some of those issues. We are doing a lot of work on skills planning, because we need to ensure that we provide the apprenticeships that are needed for the economy and to give sustainable long-term employment to the very people that you are talking about. We are doing an extensive piece of work that goes right the way back to the careers offering in the country, because we need to improve that—we need to support people into making the right choices.

There are also individual workstreams on foundation apprenticeships and graduate apprenticeships. Bear with me, convener, as I want to explain those in a bit of detail. An assessment is being done on the effectiveness of foundation apprenticeships and on the wider vocational offering in schools. You heard evidence about the excellent foundation apprenticeship offering that is available in Aberdeenshire. However, that is not universal—it is nothing like universal. I visited another part of the country, where a business told me of its experience. The local authority provided it with three foundation apprentices, none of whom were remotely interested in the work of that business. That is a waste of resource and it is a waste of time for the young people concerned. At times, there is an element of local authorities using foundation apprenticeships as a means of getting disruptive young people out of classrooms, regardless of whether they are being placed somewhere that suits their interests and talents. We are considering that closely.

That is set alongside the vocational offering. For example, New College Lanarkshire is doing a fantastic piece of work with its local authority in which they are delivering higher national certificates in sixth year at school. We are looking at that in the round with a view to getting the offering into the kind of shape that it needs to be.

On graduate apprenticeships, a workstream is well under way, which is being led by the principal of Glasgow Caledonian University. I charged him with the task of coming back to me with a more wide-ranging model that would be better aligned with the needs of the economy. He has been given a blank sheet of paper to get on and do that for us.

That is an example of the opportunity that the bill presents. As we take apprenticeships into a different setting, we are interrogating every aspect of how they are currently delivered and how they can be made to be better than they currently are. I have had many conversations—including with stakeholders who have expressed concerns to the committee—about the opportunities that will arise from the proposed move.

SDS has made it clear that it does not think that there is an issue here—it does not think that there is a problem to fix, particularly when it comes to the delivery of modern apprenticeships. I think that there is a problem to fix—I hear that loud and clear from stakeholders. We have spent a lot of time engaging with stakeholders since the Withers review came out.

I will give some examples—several of which have been raised with the committee—of things that the bill will enable us to tackle through the work that is already well under way. Phiona Rae of Tullos Training said that a bureaucracy had grown up around apprenticeship delivery. I have heard other training providers, particularly private providers, say that. We will explore that.

The committee has heard about how managing agents operate, which involves the retention of a sizeable proportion of the moneys that are contributed to training. Again, that is an issue that we have been heavily involved in looking at, because it troubles me.

The fact that we have a process whereby the apprenticeships that are allocated can run over more than one year, in a one-plus-one model, ties our hands with regard to our ability to be more agile. A case in point is the fact that we have identified a pressing need in the economy in relation to engineering, but if we wanted to be able to pivot a little to focus on that in the next year, under the current model, we could not—our hands are tied.

I go back to what I said to you: in the consultation, there was 80 per cent support for the move. We are hearing a bit of a conflation of certain current challenges, which I fully accept are significant, with the need to do this. People fundamentally recognised and were in favour of the need for this move, and they have taken the opportunity presented by the bill to highlight their current challenges and issues. Fundamentally, the need for this bill—and the change that it brings—remains.

I will bring in Andrew Mott to talk about the drafting of the legislation.

I have made a commitment with regard to the Government’s view of the importance of apprenticeships. If, in your stage 1 report, there were a view that you would want to see something in the bill that reinforced that, I would be happy to consider it, convener.

From my perspective—that is, from the position of a minister who is absolutely committed to apprenticeships and who sees this growing, not reversing—I do not see a problem there. If we look at the appetite for earn-as-you-learn models, the move being made in the university sector towards having more graduate apprenticeships and wanting to enhance them, and the needs of the economy, we see that there is a direction of travel. Because of the cost of living crisis, it is more challenging for young people to embark on some of those courses. Therefore, I envisage more of an emphasis on earn-as-you-learn models.

I do not see an issue at all here, but if the committee were to take the view that it would like some reassurance, we would be happy to consider that.

In terms of the money, yes, but in terms of presence in the new SFC, that will be massive, too.