Agenda item 4 relates to the response from the Scottish Executive to the committee's report, "Scottish Enterprise: Skillseekers Training for Young People". Members will have received both the Scottish Executive's response, a summary of the conclusions and recommendations of the Audit Committee and the responses from the Scottish Executive. We seem to have again a broadly positive response from the Scottish Executive; the committee's proposals have been accepted in principle.
I will raise an issue about point 5, in the summary of the Executive's response. I raised the issue about tracking of trainees during our consideration of the report. Further information on that will be in the final report, but I would welcome innovation in the use of information technology to track clients, to ensure that we have positive outcomes and, at the same time, that we are getting value for money. We seem to be clever at using information technology in other areas of industry, but not so innovative in programmes such as skillseekers.
That is a fair point. Do you want me to make it known to the Executive?
I know that we are waiting for the final report, but an integral part of the evidence was that we wanted to track the trainees—the clients—to ensure that they were not being reintroduced to other programmes and that there were positive outcomes.
It would be useful to let the Scottish Executive know about the committee's interest in that issue. We will pass on that point to it.
Again, I was not present during the inquiry. Before we get down to detail, I will raise a point about paragraph 4 of the Executive's general response, in which the Executive disagrees with the committee on achieving qualifications and on the situation in which a participant makes progress but does not complete a course.
You might find that there is a reaction to the word pressured.
I will stick with "encouraged".
On the evidence, there are many reasons why people drop out. People do not drop out only to do nothing; they drop out to move on to employment and to other forms of training. That was made clear to the committee. More encouragement must be given to individuals who drop out for no reason.
Margaret Jamieson covered the point that I was going to make about the evidence.
The Executive's précis of the evidence says that the committee
The fault may be in the précis, but no doubt the Scottish Executive will read the record of the committee's proceedings. We will get a second chance when we receive the more detailed information. If members of the Scottish Executive read the proceedings, they will know of Keith Raffan's interest. That point can be followed through when we get the report.