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I cannot get rid of electoral cycles—fortunately, because we do not have a dictatorship, which is a good thing. However, we need to be pragmatic, and that is a political challenge for all parties—not least my own, which is in government, but for the Government of the day in 10 years’ time, too. We all need to be mindful that the trajectory that a Scottish Government operates on means that we have to operate with a balanced budget. We need a forecast of the savings that need to be taken across Government.

The member makes specific points about education. The Deputy First Minister is going to set out more detail of that at stage 1 of the budget process, but I am more than happy to hear members’ suggestions in relation to how that should operate. As the cabinet secretary responsible for education, my personal view is that we need to protect the education budget as best we can. The budget settlement has done that, but we need to be mindful of the fact that investment in education is not just about my portfolio area. Throughout the budget process, every cabinet secretary is keen to make those points.

I believe that an investment in education is a preventative investment that can help to alleviate pressures in other portfolio areas. That needs to be better understood through the public service reform agenda, recognising that taking investment away from certain parts of my portfolio might have unintended consequences for other parts of Government.

The invest-to-save option, which the DFM is also pursuing, gives us an opportunity to do things radically differently in education. On the reform agenda—again, we will talk about this later—Mr Dey was at committee last week talking about some of his work. There is much more opportunity for us, in education, to take a holistic approach to reform that will help to drive efficiencies but also help to improve outcomes for our young people.

I do not think that, at this time in the financial year, in budgets of the past, we would usually have published our public sector pay policy. However, I recognise the need to work with those agencies and organisations. We did so last year and we have done so in previous years. This time last year, I would have been in front of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee to talk about some of the challenges that we were facing in relation to ScotRail. We worked with ScotRail around the confines of public sector pay for that organisation in setting its approach to resolving a pay dispute at the time.

We will continue to work with the organisations that we support, but, to be blunt, there is significant financial pressure on this year’s budget—a financial pressure that I do not think the Government has ever faced—which has been compounded by inflationary pressures. We all—including our public bodies—need to be mindful of that with regard to what that will mean for the offers that they are able to make this year in relation to public sector pay. However, I do not want to say too much on public sector pay policy, because that is outwith my remit.

It is quite a general question. I gave the specific example of transport as an area that came to mind in which I played a role in Government in bringing about a resolution to a dispute. We worked with ScotRail at the time to bring about that result.

My view, as cabinet secretary, is very much that we will support those agencies in trying to square what I recognise will be a hugely challenging financial settlement for them. It is a hugely challenging settlement for Government, too, which has meant that I have had to make some pretty tough and not particularly nice choices in relation to the prioritisation of the budget. I am not sure that, in an ideal world, any cabinet secretary would want to make such choices, and I am sure that members around the table will sit in other committees and hear cabinet secretaries say something similar. However, I think that, through this budget, we have been able to best protect education.

I recognise the point that the member makes, and I will continue to work with those organisations in supporting them to bring about resolutions. We do not yet have a public sector pay position, and I do not want to prejudge the outcome of that. Nevertheless, any cabinet secretary would tell you—I will say the same, from my experience—that it is hugely important that we work with those organisations to bring about resolutions and to ensure that they can deliver reform, which we will talk about later. To some extent, that will give us an opportunity to make some of the efficiencies that public service reform requests that the Government deliver.

As I mentioned, I listened to Mr Dey’s contribution to the committee last week. I think that the trajectory in relation to skills reform is in a similar position to that of reform in our school space, which I will talk about later.

There are opportunities through reform for efficiencies, and we need to be mindful of that in the current challenging financial context. Mr Dey spoke with great passion last week about the opportunities that colleges see in that endeavour, and I think that the reform agenda lends itself to our working more closely together. Currently, responsibilities between portfolios—and, if I may say so to my officials, even between directorates—can often feel quite siloed. There is a need for close portfolio collaboration in relation to the budget, particularly given the challenge that we all face at present.

I am keen to support Mr Dey in his work in leading on the skills side of reform. As the committee will know—again, we will go on to talk about this—I have reformed some of the governance arrangements for skills reform, to bring skills into a space alongside schools so that we can take a cross-portfolio approach to delivering change across the system. However, that must be funded. I spoke earlier to Michelle Thomson’s point about school reform—there is a budget to support that through the school reform programme, and we will continue to work with the college sector on how we can best support colleges, too, in that endeavour.

I agree with the member—there is no additionality in my budget for the support that might be needed in that respect. I would say to the college sector that I am keen to work with it—very much so. I heard that the committee took evidence from Colleges Scotland in which Shona Struthers talked about duplication in the system. I have discussed that point at length with Mr Dey, given our responsibilities in relation to qualification delivery and the levels of duplication that may currently exist in the system.

It is important to say that we have done our best to protect spend across the portfolio, and I am particularly mindful of colleges’ issues of financial sustainability at the current time. I suppose that a precariousness has built up as a challenge in the sector over a number of years. Indeed, since I have been an MSP—certainly since 2016—there has been industrial action in the sector every year, perhaps bar one. That has proved detrimental and challenging in trying to change the narrative about the importance of colleges, and we really need to start celebrating the importance of our college sector.

I am not going to pretend to the member that I have any additionality to provide other than that which is provided for in the budget, but I can commit to working with the sector on areas where we can support it. That might involve looking at working differently in the reform space—indeed, I heard some quite helpful suggestions for that from committee members—but I cannot pretend to the member that I have any additionality to support some of that work. It is not in my budget. I should also point out that we have not yet reached stage 1 of the budget process, so, if the member has any suggestions from where in my budget or from which other portfolio that money could come, I am happy to hear them.

That is the reality that I am currently working in, and I will not pretend that there is additionality in my budget if it does not exist.

I saw some of the coverage of the finance secretary’s appearance yesterday, and I have seen the press coverage, too. It is my understanding—though I am prepared to be corrected on this by my officials, with whom I have discussed this at length—that these are the additional places that we built into the system during the pandemic to protect students and support them through their learning.

We should remember that, during the pandemic, higher numbers of young people went on to higher education largely as a result of changes to the qualifications and examinations at the time. I heard Alastair Sim say that on the radio this morning. We expected higher numbers to flow into our university system, which is why we built in the additional numbers. In the period since the pandemic, we have progressively withdrawn those places, and this represents, I think, the final removal of the additional places that were built in prior to my time in office. It removes the uplift in funding for more than 1,200 places that were added during Covid.

I think that the member asked specifically about places for Scottish students. The latest official statistics show that, in 2021-22, record numbers of Scottish students started full-time first degrees at Scottish universities, which I know has been welcomed by Universities Scotland. I do not think that there is evidence at the current time that we do not have enough places for Scottish students at institutions or that Scottish students might be choosing to study elsewhere, but I am keen to keep a very close eye on that.

I go back to my initial response that these places are additional ones that were built in during the pandemic. The committee understands well enough the challenges that all portfolios are facing. To me, this was a decision that I had to take to protect outcomes for our young people, given the challenges that I am facing elsewhere in the portfolio. As I have said, it is additionality that we built in during the pandemic.

I am not sure that I would characterise university funding in those terms. I have seen evidence from, I think, Universities Scotland, requesting that the funding for those additional places be removed and given to the sector to help it to respond to some of the points that the member makes. In an ideal world, I would be saying exactly those things, but the reality is that I must balance my budget and identify where savings can be taken from.

The member asked about socioeconomically deprived areas. Our work on widening access continues, and we will work with the sector to make progress on that.

However, I go back to my original point, which is that those were additional places that were built into the system during the pandemic, so I am not sure that I would characterise the removal or cutting of those places as swingeing. We are simply moving back to where we were prior to the pandemic.

The member also asked about the further removal of places. We are not in a position to give the member detailed information about that at this stage in the budget cycle, because the SFC must work with institutions. It is for ministers to provide the SFC with guidance on our expectations about which places should be protected. I want to work closely with the SFC on that very point.

On the member’s point about socioeconomic disadvantage, we want to protect places for our most disadvantaged young people. That is the point of our widening access policy.

I am not sure that we can quantify that impact at this stage in the budget process, but I am happy to provide the member with written detail about that.

I explained in my previous response that we will work with the SFC on those allocations—they go through that robust process every financial year; it is not something that is new to the portfolio—and we will work with the institutions on what they will mean for them.

More broadly, the socioeconomic impact that the member asked about will be quantified in due course. We do not have that clarity or detail from the SFC at this stage in the budget settlement, because the SFC has to work with ministers to look at the allocation and what that might mean.

I cannot give the member more detail at this time about where we are with the chronology of the budget, but I will be happy to write to him, or perhaps to the committee, with more detail about that as we progress through the budget process. We are not yet at stage 1 of the budget, so, if the member has any suggestions about where else finance could be deployed or where else we could meet requests from the university sector, I would be happy to hear where that money might come from.

I do not agree with the member’s assertion. The Deputy First Minister published details of the in-year savings that were made back in November. We spoke to some of those savings at the start of the meeting. The member is well versed, for example, in the removal of the transformation fund, which was in the region of £46 million, at the start of this financial year. However, additional savings had to be made during the year to balance the budget.

More broadly, the member cites specific examples of course reductions that I do not yet have in front of me. Of course, during the budget process, the SFC has to carry out robust consideration of the number of places that are available. I do not yet have that data in front of me, so those calculations have not crossed my desk. However, if the member is happy to share her working with me, I am more than happy to hear it.

The SFC has to make those savings in a way that minimises the impact on learning and teaching. I have been clear about that. On the member’s supplementary question about disadvantage, we need to ensure that there is support for students, particularly from disadvantaged areas. The SFC is doing some of the work on removing the strategic transformation fund that I mentioned. It has also taken savings from a range of demand-led and other budgets. Some of that has involved underspend—as I intimated in my response to the convener, I am happy to share the detail of that with the committee—and the European social funds income.

The savings that were made during this financial year are baked into the allocation for next financial year. A lot of what we are talking about is not new but is already in the public domain. The DFM spoke to that back in November. The SFC now has to look at the return of savings and to provide me with advice about the allocations going forward. We have not gone through that robust analysis yet. That would not usually happen at this point in the financial year. However, we know that the 1,200 spaces that the member spoke to, which I have accounted for in responses to her and other members, relate to additionality being baked into the system during the pandemic.

I would not expect us to have that figure at this time in the year, because it must be forecast for next year. We need to have a degree of accuracy in responding to the member’s point about media reports, but I cannot imagine that the media reports have the accurate update. I often hear figures quoted in the media that are not necessarily accurate. Once we have an accurate picture from the SFC about that provision, I will be happy to provide that detail to the committee. We are at quite an early stage in the budget process, and some of that will be worked through in the iterations of the budget.