“The 2012/13 audit of North Glasgow College: Governance and financial stewardship”
We move on to agenda item 4. We have written submissions from the Scottish Government and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council regarding the AGS report. I invite colleagues to comment.
I am doubtful about how far we, as the Public Audit Committee, can take this, but I want to raise two things. First, reference is made to four other colleges that have had problems. It would be irresponsible of us not to start asking questions about that, at least, and try to understand the issues involved. I do not know how far the Auditor General has been able to look into that, but anything that we did would need to be on the back of that. The options that we have are limited.
I think that we should produce a report on the matter and not just pass it on to another committee hoping that it will pick it up. I am happy for anyone else to suggest what we could do over and above that. Some progress has been made in ensuring that this will not happen again—the SFC has tightened things up. However, it is a concern and a worry, and I do not think that we should just close it down, pass it off and walk away.
Another section 22 report is due that refers to the other colleges, so we are in a position to seek further information from the Auditor General on them.
Is that coming forward now?
At the end of June.
Good.
That will allow us to seek further information from the Auditor General on the matter.
I agree with Colin Beattie’s comment about putting together some kind of report on the matter. I welcome the fact that further information is coming and I look forward to seeing that in due course. The North Glasgow College issue has been around and has been discussed by the committee for some time. It would be useful for us to try to pull together some of the information that we have received. It is not as though we have inquiries that run every week on particular issues.
It would be useful for us to put together a report on the information that we have received and the evidence from the oral sessions and then, possibly, to hand it over to the Education and Culture Committee or even to take a decision to do some further work on it at some point. It would be useful for us to collate information in a report first of all.
I am a substitute member of the committee, so I have not been here when the other reports have been discussed, but I think that the response from the Scottish Government is good. It is fairly up front and honest.
I hope that, when the committee looks at the other colleges, it will look at the fact that sanctions were visited upon Glasgow Kelvin College because of the actions of the colleges that it succeeded. That is quite a telling aspect of the report—that any college that succeeds another college inherits responsibility for anything detrimental that the previous college did. That includes a lot of the problems that happened at North Glasgow College.
Perhaps I should declare an interest, as I have met the college. It is not in my constituency any more, but I have met the staff and the trade unions and they are concerned about what has happened. Anything that can be done to prevent the same thing from happening in any other college would be more than welcome. I certainly recommend that the committee looks at the other colleges that have been mentioned.
I agree with colleagues that we need to publish a report. I presume that, in considering a draft report, we would know the contents of the other report that is coming from the Auditor General. That would enable us to decide whether the issues in the two reports from the Auditor General on colleges should feed into the same piece of work or whether the issues are entirely separate and we should publish a standalone report on North Glasgow College.
As Stuart McMillan said, the North Glasgow College issues have been around for some time. We should also bear in mind on a morning when we have talked about skills gaps that money that is handed out in severance pay is money that is taken away from training and educating young people.
I am with Colin Beattie. It is a serious issue. We are an audit committee, and nobody should get away with such a lack of an audit trail. Everyone who takes from the public purse, such as us, has to be absolutely open and accountable and all procedures must be robust and emblematic of good practice. I also agree with Sandra White that the Government’s response is helpful, but it is mainly based on recommendations, such as not allowing the same person to be the chair of the college and the remuneration committee, as that allowed the lack of an audit trail.
I would like something a bit more robust than recommendations, because this will not be the last time that we look at severance payments. Given that, and that more concerns about colleges will be coming to us from the Auditor General, I am in favour of our publishing a report and ensuring that the Government responds and ensures that the correct systems are in place.
I want to follow up on the valid point that Sandra White made. We can consider this when we are discussing our report, but we could recommend that the SFC considers sanctions against the college. The difficulty is that, as Mary Scanlon said, the money that was paid to people came out of the pockets of the students, and if the college is penalised, we will again take money out of their pockets. It is a difficult one. All of us round the table would like to see some sort of sanctions imposed, but that would harm the very people whom we do not want to harm.
Exactly.
I will try to bring our comments together. We agree that there will be a report, but we will need to consider its scope. I take on board Sandra White’s point about sanctions, but Colin Beattie qualified that. Actually, it is not only the students but the employees who are left at the college who would be affected by sanctions.
We know of some well-publicised examples in Glasgow where those at the lower end of the pay scale do not enjoy the severance arrangements that others have enjoyed, and those people are more affected. Perhaps we can look at the approaches in which the arrangements for senior members of staff are different from those for employees at the lower end of the pay scale. We could consider that at the same time to ensure that there is a consistent approach given that substantial sums of money have been spent on the merger process and on severance payments. Where is the consistency when those who are paid much less appear to be given less consideration? We need to look into that.
Do we agree to collate a report in private at a future meeting?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you, colleagues.
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