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Obviously that process has not yet been carried out, but am I correct, and being fair, in concluding from what you are saying that part of the issue was the point at which you were informed by the institution of the challenges that it was facing, and that perhaps it would have been useful if you had been alerted far earlier?

I recognise that and appreciate the discussions that we have had in the past. Would the Government be able to put some of the costings and estimates that it has made in the public domain? I am conscious that we have had that conversation, but I was not entirely convinced by the information that was provided, and I do not want to breach confidentiality. It is the Government’s information to put in the public domain, but it would be helpful for us.

I appreciate that. Given that, what is the Scottish Government’s offer and intention for estranged students? We talked with the SFC in the witness session earlier today and it collects data on this. One of the commitments that it made to collect the data was in response to the only organisation for estranged young people in Scotland having closed last year or the year before, so no one is advocating on behalf of that group. What is the Scottish Government’s intention in supporting them into further and higher education?

I will follow up on the point about care-experienced young people. Do you collect equivalent data for estranged students?

I have a specific follow-up question about Corseford College, which I have just contacted the SFC about—that email may or may not have made it to any of you, as I sent it only about 48 hours ago.

Corseford College is a unique institution. At the moment, it is funded not by the SFC but through an arrangement involving a variety of Scottish Government funding pots that have been cobbled together over the years. For that reason, there has been a lack of certainty around the college’s funding.

Corseford provides a unique offering for students who have very complex additional needs, for whom the regular college experience will not be possible. Have you had any discussions, either with the college or with any of the existing institutions that you fund, about how we can increase access for students who have very particular and complex needs?

I will follow up on Pam Duncan-Glancy’s line of questioning about support for disabled students and disabled people who aspire to be students.

Corseford College provides a unique offering for students who have complex needs and would find it challenging, if not impossible, to attend other colleges. I am aware that there are people who live far outwith reasonable commuting distance of Corseford who regularly get in touch with the college to ask whether it is aware of such an offering being available elsewhere in Scotland. The answer is that there is none: Corseford is unique.

I know that the Scottish Government supports the college and that you have had discussions with it. What wider conversations are you having about an equivalent offering to Corseford’s being available to everyone, regardless of where they live in Scotland? Perhaps that will be wrapped up in the review that you discussed with Pam Duncan-Glancy.

We do not have the time this morning to fully unpack how we got to where we are with Dundee university, and I appreciate that that is not why you were invited here this morning, but one of the suggestions that I have heard with regard to how things have reached this point relates to the SFC’s powers of intervention and involvement when individual institutions spiral towards the situation that Dundee is now in. I recognise that processes are under way to fully understand how things got to this point, but is it fair comment that the SFC’s current statutory powers are restrictive or inadequate? Perhaps you wanted to go further and intervene earlier, but, as currently set up in statute, your organisation did not have the necessary power to do so.

Finally, on the savings exercise that the cabinet secretary announced in September, a couple of programmes that it was announced at that point would be cut, paused, suspended and so on have been agreed in the coming year’s budget. I am thinking of, for example, the rolling out of free bus travel for asylum seekers and more free ferry travel for young islanders.

Is there a point towards the end of the financial year when the Government will be relatively confident about its position and can put in some of the up-front money—that is, the start-up money—for those kinds of small schemes? At this point, it does not look like balancing the books is going to be a huge challenge. The initial operating costs—or the set-up costs—for asylum seeker bus travel are, as far as I recall, in the region of half a million pounds. If that is available in this financial year, does it not make sense, by the time you get to January, February or March, to just allocate that money and get the ball rolling so that the scheme can be up and running as soon as possible?

I appreciate the need for spending controls, but there must be a point at which you and the cabinet secretary are confident enough about the Government balancing the books that you can look at what has been paused, reduced and so on throughout the year, take a cross-Government approach and ask, “What are our strategic priorities? Where will we get best value if we put the money back in now, instead of waiting until the next financial year?”

I appreciate that. Most of my examples were of things that had been pushed back to the start of the financial year and that probably could have been brought forward to some midpoint in the year, but I take the point.

That’s me, convener.