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Well, anything can happen in Scottish education, Mr Greer. Thinking of the most recent conversation that I had with the NASUWT and the EIS, which was last week, I would say no, but that does not preclude it from happening in the future.

I sat in the stage 1 debate, which Mr Macpherson was thrown into in his first week after being appointed as the Minister for Higher and Further Education. There are a lot of things happening in tertiary education, which Government needs to reflect on and respond to as a result of the stage 1 debate. I am not going to answer the specific points that Mr Greer made, but we are considering those things in the round. I cannot think of where there has been a legislative block to ministerial action in relation to what has happened at Dundee, but I think that there is a need for greater reassurance.

The issue is that these are independent and autonomous institutions, and we need to be mindful of the Office for National Statistics classification and what bringing any institution closer to Government might do to those institutions. In my view, it would be extremely dangerous if that were to take place; I am sure that Professor Seaton and others will have a view on that when the committee hears from them shortly.

We need to be careful about the role of Government and the role of our independent institutions, but we also need reassurance. That is the point that Mr Briggs was pursuing, and I am in firm agreement with it. We have been raising these issues with the SFC, and the outcome of the Gillies review gives us some pause for thought about how there can be better transparency with regard to some of the financial issues that arose at Dundee university.

I saw the reports at the time and, like you, I shared some of the concerns. As I understand it, at that point, the SFC had undertaken to work with Deloitte but Deloitte had not, at that point, undertaken to look at the plan, because the plan was not acceptable to the SFC. That was dealt with in correspondence. The requirements from the SFC were sent back to Dundee, and it was my understanding that Deloitte was then to look at the updated plan.

Oversight will be hugely important—this is public money—and there will be a role for the SFC in that regard and a role for ministers. We will have oversight of the public money and the conditions, but the university is independent, and we need to be careful about the interplay in relation to the section 25 agreement, which allows us to award money to the institution—or rather to provide it with financial assistance—because of the unique set of circumstances in which it found itself.

There are two points to make in that regard: first, that we have certainty in relation to the conditions and that the SFC will ensure, on behalf of ministers, that those are adhered to; and, secondly, that the institution itself has to run independently. In the future, that is where Dundee university needs to get to, and we have a contribution to make in relation to the public money that is being provided.

Is it better? We need to go back to what happened. Dundee university—

Officials can correct me if I am wrong on this, but the bill was introduced in March, I think—

I read Pauline Stephen’s evidence. She made the point about child protection services, which I think that I mentioned previously, because that would create a situation in which this guidance was on a statutory footing and then, behind that, there would be a child protection service and systems that are not provided for in the same way. She raised a very important point.

If we were to do what Pauline suggested—what I think that she said that she would do if she ran the world—the bill would become something that it is not currently. It would be a far more extensive piece of legislation. We talk about legislative timescales, and we are all aware of how close we are to dissolution now, so I suspect that that might become a much more unwieldy piece of legislation. That is not to say that it is not important, because, in principle, I agree that there is an opportunity to look across the piste, but the bill is quite focused.

I am sure that you will want to put these points to Mr Johnson to get his views. My view is that we should look at it, but I am not necessarily convinced that the focus of the bill currently lends itself to that approach. However, if the Parliament decides that that is where it wants to go, that is, of course, in the gift of the Parliament.

I have said to Mr Johnson that we will work with him on his member’s bill. I am not going to be more definitive than that today, Mr Rennie, because these are discussions that we would have at stage 2. However, I have said that we will work with him, and we have had a very positive working relationship thus far. I hope that that provides the member with some reassurance.

I think that part of the issue—this does not apply only to restraint—is that there might be reticence on the part of teachers to report, as they might be concerned about or fearful of doing so. We hear that quite often in relation to behaviour in schools, and we have debated some of those issues. In my time as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, I have been clear in calling for better and more consistent reporting, which I think has helped to shift the dial a bit.

However, fundamentally, teachers are often scared to report. The committee heard evidence from the NASUWT to that end—I spoke to Mike Corbett about that last week—and the Educational Institute of Scotland. Committees therefore need to be mindful of that and provide reassurance to the teaching profession, because they might be fearful about how reporting comes across.

As I think that the committee has also heard evidence on, local government is fearful that, were we to have greater reporting, that might lead to the creation of league tables, for example, and it is fearful of what that might mean for individual schools. I think that those issues can be dealt with more sensitively in the round. For example, the NASUWT has asked that we do not publish school-based data, which would certainly be a position that I would support. We need to be careful about how that is done.

However, in my experience, there is a reticence, and perhaps a fear, in the profession when it comes to reporting and what the use of restraint says about them. We need better reporting across the board. That is not true only in relation to restraint; I would highlight that we also need much better reporting on and recording of additional support needs.

My view on the bill is that it speaks to the relationship between local government and national Government in carrying out their responsibilities on education. There is an opportunity for us to learn from that experience and provide for better accountability and transparency, which is an issue that the committee has been pursuing in evidence sessions.

Yes, I do, because I have asked the SFC to undertake that work, and it is in train.