Seòmar agus comataidhean

I would like to return mostly to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s earlier question and a couple of interesting points made in the written submissions.

I will start with Nicola Jackson’s submission, if that is okay. I recognise that this relates to a different section of the union from yours, Nicola, but Unison has made a point similar to the one that I put to the colleges and university management last week with regard to the concern that clawback is a pretty blunt tool. Very often, if an institution is in a position where the SFC is considering clawing money back, taking more money off it will probably make the problem worse. Does Unison have any proposals for alternative enforcement mechanisms that would not only provide the appropriate level of scrutiny but improve the situations in which institutions find themselves instead of, in the worst-case scenario, taking money away from them and more people losing their jobs as a result?

Absolutely. Thank you.

Sarah Collins, you mentioned the view of the EIS Further Education Lecturers Association—or EIS-FELA—that the SFC has existing powers, but it does not use them. Are you talking primarily about the clawback of finances, or are there other powers that the SFC is currently not exercising, or not exercising sufficiently?

If it is your position that, although it could have more powers, the SFC already has a sufficient level of power in this area that it is not using, am I paraphrasing the EIS correctly in saying that, from your perspective, there would be more benefit in putting more duties on the SFC to exercise these powers than giving it more powers without any duty to exercise them?

Your submission makes an important point about the duty on the institutions to “have regard to” the SFC’s guidance perhaps not being strong enough, as they can just have regard to it without having to follow through on it, and there appears to be no clear recourse if that is what transpires.

Do you have any alternative proposals? How much further than having regard to the guidance would it be appropriate to go? The EIS University Lecturers Association—or EIS-ULA—section makes the point that reclassification is certainly a balancing act for universities, while colleges have a bit more flexibility. How far would you like the bill to go with the duty on the institutions to do what the SFC tells them?

Thank you very much.

I apologise to the witnesses now, as I need to head off to another appointment before the end of the meeting.

I come to Vikki Manson first. You spoke about the absence of the word “employer” in the bill, which was interesting, and you highlighted the apprenticeship committee as a specific example of where the employer voice can be heard. That is useful—parliamentary committees are always keen for witnesses to make specific proposals for how a bill can be improved.

Do you have any other proposals for how we can make sure that the voice of employers, industry or business—however we are phrasing it—is heard? That could involve amendments to the bill, or changes that could be made as part of the transition process rather than in primary legislation, to ensure that the employer voice is mainstreamed through the system.

When it comes to funding apprenticeships, do you have the power to claw money back or to disqualify a provider where there have been fair work issues—for example, where the apprentice has not been treated appropriately or where minimum wage levels have not been adhered to?

Yes—there is definitely a way that we can rebalance the parliamentary week. That goes back to what I said about the value of chamber time. I absolutely agree on the importance of getting out of the building, not only for teamwork and team bonding but for the perspectives that we would get.

I almost pose this as a question, because I am not, and have not been, a committee convener—I know that there are multiple current and former conveners in the room. My understanding, having been a member of multiple committees in the past, is that the challenge in getting authorisation to go outwith this building is often in getting the Conveners Group to sign off on that. That has varied, depending on the composition of the Conveners Group over the decade that I have been here.

Very briefly, on defining committee roles, I think that we could do a lot more at the start of the session, both in how we define the committee roles and in the new member induction.

In its recent review of the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development clearly recommended more training for all members of Parliament on issues of financial scrutiny. We have certainly been aware of that issue in the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Members on other committees realise that the financial issues around most of what we deal with in Parliament are difficult, but they think, “It’s fine—don’t worry; there will be a financial memorandum, and the finance committee will deal that.” We want every committee to be a finance committee.

We would err on the side of preferring a bit less chamber time and a bit more committee time. That could easily tip too far—if we ended up spending twice as much time in committees as we currently do and far less time in the chamber, there would come a point at which that would be impractical. For example, we are now at a point in the parliamentary session when we are considering a lot of bills at stage 2; we will quickly get to the point where there are a lot of stage 3 proceedings, for which there will be a necessity for more chamber time.

We could probably all acknowledge—certainly in private—that, at present, the topics for debate in a lot of our chamber time are not born out of necessity. We would skew towards having a bit more time allocated to committees and a bit less chamber time than is currently the case.

Equally, one could argue that there are simply more effective ways to use the chamber time. There is no shortage of topics that deserve chamber time but that are not currently getting it.