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As I understand it, the plan will be supported by the investment that we have put in in relation to the budget—it is the capital uplift.

Shirley, do you want to come in?

I see that Shirley Laing wants to come in, but my understanding is that it is a significant change to our view of how we provide funding to the college sector. I am not shying away from Mr Rennie’s point, but we do not have a lot of detail to share other than what was shared in the chamber last week. We are working up plans and working with the SFC on how the money will be distributed.

We are looking at radical steps. This is cross-Government work: Ms Somerville leads the work on tackling child poverty, but every portfolio has been asked to make a contribution. We in education have therefore been thinking about what we could do. Mr Rennie is quite right to talk about the role of colleges in tackling poverty in communities; they are rooted in some of our poorest communities, which offers us an opportunity to provide shared services. For example, many local colleges have childcare provision, but there are ways in which we could strengthen that, and that is what this budget allocation is about.

The reason why we have not focused on that today is that we do not have concrete plans to share with the committee other than those that were shared last week. It is a radical shift—I see that Shirley Laing would like to say more on that point. I recognise Mr Rennie’s point, because we are shifting away from ways that we might have funded the sector in the past.

My view—I will check that my minister is content with this—is that the funding very much has to support transformation; it cannot be about plugging holes. We have been really clear throughout our engagement with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government on that point. She has also been clear with us that if this additionality is going to be protected from the centre of Government, the college sector has to play a role in public service reform. We see transformation as being very much tied to the funding, as opposed to the funding being used to plug holes, as it were, for one financial year, which is not my understanding of the way that we will administer the funding and how we will support that kind of change in the sector.

Mr Macpherson, I do not want to speak on your behalf.

The increase in sector-wide resource funding is £25 million, which is equivalent to 3.2 per cent, and the increase in capital funding is £30.3 million, which is equivalent to 8.2 per cent. Therefore, the sector is receiving an overall increase of £55 million, which is 5 per cent more than it received last year.

I accept your point about there being challenges in the sector, but I go back to the point that I made earlier: we should accept that a one-year budget was never going to ameliorate all the challenges that the university sector is experiencing.

We should also accept that institutions in Scotland do not exist in a silo. Across the United Kingdom, there are challenges in our university sector, not least in relation to immigration changes and a reliance on overseas students. The changes that have been introduced by successive Westminster Governments have not helped. Universities Scotland estimated that the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which I mentioned earlier, cost the sector in the region of £45 million last year. There is also the issue of staff costs. Therefore, external factors have had an impact on some of the challenges that our institutions are facing.

I very much support the points that Mr Macpherson has made. The wider work with Universities Scotland to create a clear path forward will be fundamental in providing the support that the sector will need to thrive in the future.

Okay. The trade unions are currently taking that action. I am very clear that we need to see progress on reducing class contact time, because that will make the difference. Since 2021, the teaching unions have come to the Government and negotiated pay settlements, which is not new, and they do not attach conditionality to their pay settlements. Other unions would put those things together when negotiating with other parts of the Government—for example, that was the case when I was in transport—but the teaching trade unions do not. For the past four years, there has been a real focus on pay, perhaps to the detriment of moving things on in relation to reducing class contact.

This year, we have put an extra £1 million into the budget to help support pilots of reductions in class contact time to see how that would work. Mr Rennie will know that, in November, I announced plans to pilot a four-day teaching week, enhance maternity pay and look at creative ways to essentially timetable a reduction in class contact, which will make a huge difference to teachers’ working lives. Work is under way, but we need to get tripartite agreement, which means that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Scottish Government and the trade unions must all agree. I am very focused on how we can do that.

I recognise that the EIS will reballot and I will attend its political hustings tomorrow, which I think that Mr Rennie is also attending. I will listen to and engage with the EIS because I want to avert industrial action, not least because of the risk that it might run into the exam diet. I would like to avert that for our children and young people, but also for our teachers. It is important that we have a focused resolve on reducing class contact, and we will take forward the plans that I set out towards the end of last year with the Scottish negotiating committee for teachers.

Because you need to plan these things, and—

I was not in post five years ago, as Mr Rennie will accept, but—

I am unable to give a statement today because I need the SNCT to agree to the approach. I could get up and give you a statement, if you want, and tell Parliament my view.

I need the SNCT to agree.

I am aware of that, Mr Rennie, but the convener alluded earlier to a number of things that the Government has not been able to deliver on. There are challenges across the board as a result of inflationary pressures, but I am very focused on how we can move forward on that.

Last year’s budget was a real opportunity to deliver the right number of teachers in our schools, because we had had a couple of years of falling teacher numbers. In the past year, we have increased the number of teachers by 63. I accept that that is not enough, incidentally, but it is a start in terms of having the numbers required for reducing class contact. We also need to look at creative ways in which that might be delivered.

I had a really helpful round-table discussion with the General Teaching Council for Scotland, the teaching trade unions and COSLA two weeks ago in St Andrew’s house looking at what short-term, urgent action we can take to help alleviate the challenges, because, as Mr Rennie knows, we currently have lots of primary school teachers who cannot get jobs. Pauline Stephen from the GTCS—whom I know Mr Rennie has engaged with substantively—is of the view that we can look to support primary teachers to go into secondary teaching, through dual qualification or retraining opportunities with the GTCS, for example.

My view—I think that the trade unions would agree—is that we can have primary teachers in secondary schools as long as they are qualified to deliver those subjects. We are very much focused on those short-term actions to plug the gaps where they exist and create opportunities for teachers, because we currently have an excessive number of primary teachers. That could help to lighten the load in terms of reducing class contact.

The pilots are there; we need SNCT agreement. I am happy to give you a statement every week until dissolution, should you so wish, Mr Rennie—that is in your gift at the Parliamentary Bureau—but I still need COSLA and the teaching trade unions to agree.

We have a COSLA group leaders meeting on, I think, the 30of this month. In addition to that, the EIS has suggested that it will re-ballot members. I am engaged in considering further advice from officials, which I received last night while we were in the chamber voting on Mr Macpherson’s Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill. This afternoon, I will consider the urgent next steps that we can take to try to unlock the situation, because it is really important. We need the profession to have the headspace to engage in reform. I accept that that is not where we are, and I also accept that we should have delivered our manifesto promise by now, so getting that through the SNCT is very much my focus at the current time.