Further Education
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-05506, in the name of Hugh Henry, on further education.
14:40
I begin by addressing the last part of the motion. Scotland’s colleges have been given an exceptionally bad deal by the Scottish National Party Government. They have been treated like second-class citizens compared with our universities, and it is as if their product is not as highly valued.
Worse still is the contempt that has been shown to staff and students, who were told by Mike Russell—aided and abetted by Alex Salmond—that funding was increasing when it was actually being cut. Mike Russell and Alex Salmond had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the Parliament to reluctantly admit that what they had been saying was not true. Had they not been forced to apologise, no doubt they would still be insisting that college funding is increasing.
Students and staff want not just an apology but a recognition that the cuts are having a profound and damaging effect on college education. Courses are being removed and cut, and students are being denied places on the courses of their choice. We have heard in this chamber the disdain that SNP members have for many courses, with contemptuous remarks about “hobby courses”. Just as bad is that the idea of lifelong learning is becoming a distant memory, which is bad news for the thousands of workers who are being made redundant and who want to retrain in colleges, but who will now struggle to find a place.
College staff and students across Scotland know exactly why there is a crisis and why morale is at an all-time low: it is precisely because of the budget cuts that the SNP Government is imposing. Mike Russell needs to break the habit of a lifetime and eat some humble pie. He needs to reverse the cuts to the teaching grant, not to work some sleight of hand with money for Skills Development Scotland or some other indirect route. He should give our colleges the money to deliver what they excel at and give a boost to the students whose life chances depend on our colleges.
I turn to the main part of my motion. We know that Mike Russell has a high regard for himself and that he probably thinks that the rest of us do not measure up to his high intellect. That is why Opposition members have tried to ask simple and straightforward questions about college waiting lists, hoping that the great oracle might actually give us the facts. However, even on that issue, Mike Russell could not bring himself to be straight with the Parliament.
On 23 October, my colleague Neil Bibby asked Mike Russell:
“Are you saying that there have been no waiting lists for college places?”
We might think that that was a fairly clear question but, no, apparently Mr Bibby is not equipped to ask a question on college waiting lists. Mike Russell’s haughty apply was:
“You have to know something about the college system before you ... make that assertion.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 23 October 2012; c 1561.]
Leaving aside the fact that Neil Bibby had made no assertion, it is clear that Mike Russell believes that only so-called experts should pose even simple questions to someone in such an exalted position.
Undeterred, Neil Bibby tried again on 24 October. He asked Mike Russell in this chamber to say
“how many people are on waiting lists for college places.”
Gallantly, Liz Smith also entered the fray. She asked a direct and unambiguous question:
“how many people in the 16 to 19-year-old group are on college waiting lists?”
Those were two direct questions.
To be fair to Mike Russell, he at last answered in a very direct way and left us in no doubt that Neil Bibby and Liz Smith were wrong. He said:
“I am happy to explain again that the concept of waiting lists as presented by Neil Bibby and Liz Smith is utterly false.”
We cannot get clearer than that. Neither Neil Bibby nor Liz Smith had placed any wider construct on the issue; they had simply asked how many people were on waiting lists. They were told that the concept of waiting lists “is utterly false.”
Given Mike Russell’s track record of playing fast and loose with the facts, my colleague, Neil Findlay, can be forgiven for wanting to nail the issue once and for all. Like Neil Bibby and Liz Smith, Neil Findlay did not suggest that the figure in the Scotland’s Colleges press release was correct; he just wanted to make sure that he clearly understood what the grand panjandrum was actually saying. Neil Findlay, for once in a suitably humble manner, said:
“With no preamble and no prejudgment, can I ask a simple question? How many people are on college waiting lists? We are asking for a number.”
The cabinet secretary rose to the occasion with all the authority of his office and Alex Salmond behind him. He said:
“The concept that Neil Findlay raises is a false concept and a false construct. There are no waiting lists of that nature.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2012; c 12503-4.]
So that is that: waiting lists are a false concept and a false construct, and there are no waiting lists of that nature. I am not sure what “that nature” is—I do not know what that means. Neil Bibby, Liz Smith and Neil Findlay did not state any figures or suggest that everyone who applied for a college course and was not accepted was on a waiting list; they merely asked a simple question.
To be fair to the cabinet secretary again, he then ordered an audit to get to the bottom of the problem. The difficulty is that only seven colleges, all in urban Scotland, were picked. The cynic might think that that was because it gave the greatest chance of showing duplicate applications to different nearby colleges. Indeed, the interim report of that shallow audit, which was issued by the Scottish Government, points to inconsistencies and duplications, and we should all accept that. However, even that partial work has confirmed that there are waiting lists in Scotland’s colleges.
The officials of the Scottish Government have contradicted their own cabinet secretary. The report says:
“Analysis of waiting lists confirmed that there is duplication of applicants”.
If there are no waiting lists, how could there have been analysis of waiting lists? Elsewhere, the report states:
“Follow-up analysis is continuing to clarify the status of those on waiting lists”.
If there are no waiting lists, how could Scottish Government officials look at the status of those on waiting lists? The report goes on with reference after reference to waiting lists—not a false concept or a false construct, but reference to waiting lists.
It is perfectly clear that, even if the Scotland’s Colleges figure from October was incorrect, there are still students on waiting lists. In December, I submitted a freedom of information request to all Scotland’s colleges. I asked how many people applied for but did not receive a place. I did not mention the words “waiting list”, but, unprompted, at least seven colleges admitted that there are waiting lists. All of them gave details of students who were not offered places. That is the reality. If colleges have admitted that there are waiting lists why will not Mike Russell do so?
When Neil Bibby, Liz Smith and Neil Findlay asked how many people are on waiting lists, the cabinet secretary could have said that there was duplication. He could have pointed to inconsistencies in data collection. He could have said that he would investigate and report back to the Scottish Parliament. Instead, he chose to mislead Parliament and belittle the people who had asked questions.
We are often told that the way to hold the Government to account is through questions in this Parliament. How can that be done when ministers persistently mislead and give false information to Parliament? The cabinet secretary clearly believes that he can say what he likes. He admits the facts only when he is wrong.
If the Parliament is to have any credibility, ministers need to be open and honest. If the Parliament is to have any integrity, we cannot allow weasel words to be substituted for the truth. Mike Russell owes it to this Parliament and to staff and students in our colleges to admit that he was wrong. He needs to admit that there are waiting lists—irrespective of how few—and he needs to apologise. We cannot allow Alex Salmond’s majority to trample on what is right. The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people deserve to be shown respect by this SNP Government.
I move,
That the Parliament notes that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has stated that college waiting lists are a “false concept”; further notes that the Scottish Government’s interim report on the audit ordered by the cabinet secretary and carried out by the Scottish Funding Council has indicated that there are waiting lists; accepts that it is important for Scottish Government ministers to be truthful to the Parliament and the public; believes that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning should apologise and correct his misleading statement, and further believes that the cuts to the college teaching grant that are causing these waiting lists should be reversed.
14:51
I have been looking forward immensely to this afternoon’s debate, after the sudden change of subject that Labour brought about on Sunday afternoon—that was strange timing. I have to say that Mr Henry’s ex-militant-tendency classic analysis of the situation did not disappoint me.
I will stick to the facts this afternoon—[Interruption.] Labour members might laugh, but I think that they will find the facts somewhat unpalatable. The facts will prove to Labour members that I fully understand why they brought the debate this afternoon. They had to have the debate before the final report of the audit of so-called waiting lists is published next month.
So-called!
I suspect that Mr Henry and his Conservative allies, who are sounding from their benches, are becoming increasingly uneasy about what the audit will reveal. I suspect that Mr Henry fears—as he should do—that it will expose as nonsense the highly exaggerated claims that we have heard about the number of people who are, allegedly, currently waiting for a college place.
Mr Henry is right to be concerned about what the evidence will say about his pronouncements on the issue. As he looks to wriggle his way out of the spot he has got himself into, I note that his latest blog has stopped quoting any numbers at all. I will say more about that in a moment.
However, it would be quite unfair to single out only Mr Henry. He has been ably supported by Messrs Findlay and Bibby—an odd concept, I know—in particular in his quest to use internal college so-called waiting lists as some kind of measure of the number of Scots who are genuinely waiting on a college place.
In an effort not to be outdone, Liam McArthur—the Lib Dems being opportunists, as ever—has outbid even Hugh Henry’s most ambitious exaggeration. Nor have the Conservatives, alas, been able to resist getting what seemed like a piece of the publicity action.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
No, I will not take interventions, because I have a lot of facts to get through and I want to get through them.
Let us start by looking at some of the most extraordinary claims that Mr Henry has made. In the Daily Record on 11 September, Mr Henry told the world that, for “at least 10,000 Scots”, the colleges have “slammed the door shut”.
Let us be absolutely clear about what Mr Henry was telling us. He was not referring to students who might have been unsuccessful in gaining a place on their first choice of course but were then offered a place on another course. He was not referring to students who make multiple applications, as many do, and so appear on several so-called waiting lists. No, he was telling us that 10,000 Scots had had the door slammed shut on them by our colleges. In so doing, he was sending a false and deceiving message to prospective students, at a time when places were available.
A few days later, on 17 September, Mr Henry turned up in The Herald, this time claiming that 10,000 Scots had been “turned away from colleges”. Colleges had not just slammed shut their doors but physically turned people away. However, that was not enough for Mr Henry. By 26 October, he was adamant that 21,000 Scots had been—in another ramping up of the rhetoric—“denied the opportunity” to “improve their education”. Shortly afterwards he reduced the figure to 20,000 on his website, presumably in the interests of accuracy.
Mr McArthur, not to be out done by Labour, came in with a figure of 21,280, although he qualified that later by saying that the number of would-be students on waiting lists—that is his concept—was thousands. That was nonsense.
As I have said repeatedly in the chamber, colleges keep what are described as “waiting lists” to manage their application process. [Interruption.] Labour is unable to learn, which is why it repeats its mistake. It should ashamed of how it has operated.
Those lists are not in order to provide a running total of people waiting for a place at any given moment. That is a fact, which our audit has revealed.
Will the member take an intervention?
No.
That is why the claims of 21,000 Scots
“sat waiting for a college place”
are utter nonsense.
To tally up what are termed waiting lists in each of our colleges, and to represent—as members from other parties have done—that that total is the number of people waiting for a specific course, is inappropriate, inaccurate, misleading and wrong.
It simply will not do for our opponents to claim that those are the figures produced by the college sector. Colleges Scotland has never claimed that the figures that it has released represent the total number of people awaiting a college place; it has never claimed that there are no multiple entries; and it has never denied that people on one waiting list can end up on another course. Therefore, we are talking about false concepts.
When we are talking about giving apologies, any queue to do so should be headed by Mr Henry and Mr McArthur, and they should be joined by Mr Bibby and Mr Findlay because they are the people, unfortunately, who have misled not only the chamber but Scotland’s prospective students. That is unforgivable. It is also unforgivable that Liz Smith has joined that bandwagon—a bandwagon that is rolling quickly towards a cliff.
The final results of our audit will be published next month. I would be happy to debate the figures again because I believe that they will confirm what I have said. The Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties have presented a false concept to mislead Scotland and Scottish students. That is utterly wrong in regards to what students expect.
I will briefly mention student numbers. Hand in hand with the claims about the numbers waiting for a college place go equally inaccurate accusations about commitments to maintaining student numbers. The fact is that we provide funding in a way that maintains student numbers.
For reasons that I have explained before, head count on its own can never be a true measure of activity in a sector in which the majority of students are part-time. Head count has always been a volatile measure, capable of varying between years for reasons that have nothing to do with funding. The only way to iron out inconsistencies between years is to express student numbers as full-time equivalents. It is absolutely clear that those are being maintained.
Colleges are responding to the needs of the economy by targeting resources more intensively among students.
You should be drawing to a close, please.
It is right that colleges have the freedom to deliver courses in the best way. It is simply wrong to measure college activity in a way that makes no distinction between a short course of limited economic relevance compared with, for example, a year-long intensive course that delivers high-level engineering skills—just ask any employer.
Minister, you should be drawing to a close, please.
Time is up.
Presiding Officer, I think that you are the one who tells me whether my time is up, not Mr Findlay.
It is. Your time is up, please.
That was a point worth making, in case Mr Findlay thinks that he is running the chamber. [Interruption.]
Order.
In conclusion, let me say that the neglect of the college sector by the previous Administration was disgraceful. It cut the benefit to learners, but we are providing greater benefit to learners. Scotland deserves better than the approach that Mr Henry has taken.
Cabinet secretary, you must close, please.
I finish by moving the amendment in my name, which contains the facts.
I move amendment S4M-05506.1, to leave out from first “notes” to end and insert:
“congratulates the Scottish Government on its decision to undertake an audit of college “waiting lists” to better understand the application and “waiting list” process in colleges and the reliability of recently quoted figures; notes that the preliminary findings have exposed as wildly exaggerated many of the claims made about the number of people who are waiting for a course; notes that the quoted figures do not give any accurate indication of unmet need; further notes that under no previous administration has anyone had an entitlement to their first choice of college or university place; welcomes the current administration’s efforts in going further than any of its predecessors through the Opportunities for All guarantee; recognises the efforts made by colleges in redirecting applicants to oversubscribed courses toward other courses; welcomes the fact that the college sector is being funded in a way that is ensuring that student numbers are being maintained; recognises that the college reform programme is creating more efficient colleges of scale with, as proposed in the Post-16 Education (Scotland) Bill, improved governance and accountability, and welcomes the intention of the reform programme to create colleges that can better address economic need and consequently boost the employability of learners.”
14:59
I would be inclined to give the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning a little more time, because the more he goes on explaining the facts in that manner, the more confused he gets.
At a time when the Scottish Government has embarked on a major process of tertiary educational reform, and when the provision of new educational opportunities is critical to address the unemployment situation, it would have been surprising indeed if colleges had not been one of the main features of Holyrood debate during recent months.
However, the extraordinary frequency with which we have debated the issue, in full debates and at ministerial and First Minister’s question times, tells a rather different story. It is a story of a cabinet secretary who is having great difficulty in keeping the focus on colleges where it should be and allaying the fears of the college and university sectors—never mind those of the public and Opposition politicians—about some key issues.
I understand very well that different colleges use different measures to assess the length of their waiting lists. That is not new. They do so not just because of the reasons that the cabinet secretary gave, which are to do with some students taking up other courses, getting a job or not getting the necessary qualifications. Those are all perfectly valid reasons, which is why we should be extremely careful about double counting. The use of different measures also reflects the flexibility of colleges and their ability to adapt courses quickly to the business and industry demands of their local communities, which is an issue that is fast taking centre stage in the current debate about college regionalisation.
As Hugh Henry rightly said, the mistake that the cabinet secretary has made, yet again, is in the attitude that he has adopted. He has dismissed the perfectly legitimate questions of Opposition members, including me, and—more importantly—of the college sector. By stating that waiting lists are a false concept, he has given a highly misleading impression of the situation. Although we could undoubtedly spend a lot of time picking through all the semantic details, the implication from, in particular, the manner in which the cabinet secretary spoke was that waiting lists do not exist, when it is quite clear that they do. We now have a new definition—the cabinet secretary calls them “so-called waiting lists”.
What is at issue, of course, is the definition, just as it was the definition that was at issue when the cabinet secretary got himself tied in knots—double knots, in fact—when he pontificated about college spending. At the time, he tried to pretend that nothing was wrong and that it was just that the Opposition parties were ganging up on him. Well, we are ganging up on him.
The cabinet secretary has made the comment:
“I know how desperate members are to weigh in on this matter because they think that, somehow, they are going to get a political advantage”.—[Official Report, 16 January 2013; c 15509.]
That is not the case. We want to raise the issue because there is genuine concern—most importantly within the sector—that the Scottish Government finds it extremely difficult to adopt the right approach to what is clearly a complex problem.
Instead of saying that waiting lists are a false concept, would it not have been much more sensible to say, “Yes, they exist,” and to explain why there are so many complexities and what the Government is doing to address them? Exactly the same thing happened over college budgets: we heard persistent denial and a dismissive approach, which I understand became a feature of a Christmas YouTube video at Edinburgh College. That is not helpful to the promotion of a clear understanding of what the main issues are and what needs to be done to address them.
Notwithstanding the fact that colleges use different measures to identify waiting lists, are we really saying that it is not possible to come up with an agreed definition that tells us the aggregate total of students across Scotland who, during any one period, have made an application for a course or courses and who have the right credentials, but who cannot find a college place? I do not think that any of us knows whether that figure is 21,000 students or fewer, but I know that it is extremely unhelpful when the cabinet secretary tries to dismiss the issue as though no one else has any understanding of the true situation.
I would be grateful if you could begin to conclude.
The debate on waiting lists follows hard on the heels of the debate about college budgets. They are not unconnected. That is the Scottish Government’s problem, and it is why we will support the Labour motion.
We come to the open debate. We are very tight for time, so speeches should be of four minutes.
15:04
Once again, we find ourselves talking about further education. We have heard Labour’s parallel-universe version of what is going on in further education—nothing could be further from the truth than some of the information that Mr Henry provided. Mr Henry states that college staff are demoralised. If they had listened to his speech today, I can understand why they would be demoralised.
All that we get from Mr Henry is negativity, poison, bile and personal attacks. He has history on personal attacks. I have known the individual for a long time and I am aware of the personal attacks that he has made. He believes in discussing personality over policy and over making a difference to people’s lives.
Will the member take an intervention, as he mentioned me?
I will gladly take the intervention.
Will George Adam confirm that the Educational Institute of Scotland and Further Education Lecturers Association branch at Reid Kerr College has passed a motion of no confidence in the cabinet secretary?
What I will say to Mr Henry is that the principal of what will be the new west of Scotland college or whatever it is to be called is keen on the regionalisation and the plans that we have.
Labour has been found out. Once again, it is attempting to make political gain with its scare tactics and its bile. Its only policy seems to be that of fear. The audit of college waiting lists has so far found that, on average, almost three quarters of those on the alleged waiting lists are not waiting for a college place. The 21,000 figure that is often quoted by the Labour Party now seems to be complete fantasy. [Interruption.]
Order.
Labour was warned. It was told to deal with the issue in a mature manner. We said, “Let us have the debate. We are dealing with young people’s lives and people’s futures.” However, it decided to just batter on and carry on regardless. I have often said during debates in the chamber that, outwith this bubble, there is a real world out there, with real people and their lives. I think that they are extremely disappointed when they hear some of the debates that come from the chamber, particularly those from the Labour Party, because it just believes in dealing with its issues and trying to make personal attacks on individuals rather than discussing the issue that we are here to discuss.
The audit has also confirmed that there is duplication of applicants on the alleged waiting lists. The majority so far appear to have found a college place at another college.
I was interested to hear about Mr Henry’s very scientific freedom of information request, whereby he went round every college and probably got similar figures to those that Scotland’s Colleges already had, which had already been found to be extremely difficult. On the whole, I would say that some of the figures that Scotland’s Colleges brought to the Education and Culture Committee were not particularly great at the best of times.
We have to ask the Labour Party what it would do differently. Only last week, Ken Macintosh called for the full £331 million of capital spending that was restored to Scotland’s budget in the chancellor’s autumn statement to be spent on housing, even though John Swinney said last year how £205 million of the money would be spent, which included £19 million being earmarked for capital investment in further and higher education.
Will you come to a conclusion, please?
Would Mr Henry take the money from further and higher education?
We see the duplicity of the Opposition, which is here to try to get a headline instead of looking after the people we should be looking after—the students of Scotland.
15:08
It is unfortunate that we are once again having to debate further education and challenge the Government’s savage cuts, which are having a devastating impact on thousands of people across Scotland. Rather than highlighting the valuable training and retraining opportunities that colleges provide to thousands of Scots, we are once again having to challenge the education secretary, who continues to deny what is happening in our colleges.
Given that the education secretary said last year that college budgets were increasing but, in fact, they were decreasing, it is unsurprising that he has been caught denying reality yet again. When Mike Russell was asked a simple question about college waiting lists, he said that they were a “false concept”. The only false concepts around here are Mike Russell’s answers. He disputes the figures that were mentioned earlier. How many people are on college waiting lists? We still do not know, and the cabinet secretary does not know. What is clear is that the Scottish Government’s own sample interim audit has stated that there are people on lists, in Scotland, waiting for college places. If there was any more doubt, even the SNP Government’s amendment admits that there are waiting lists.
It should not be a surprise that we have college waiting lists. It should not be a surprise that that is where we end up when 1,300 staffing posts are removed from our colleges, colleges’ teaching budgets are slashed, and student numbers are cut by 70,000.
It took Mike Russell six months to apologise for misleading Parliament the last time, when he falsely claimed that he was not cutting the college budget. How long will we have to wait for an apology this time? How can anyone have any confidence in him when he continually misleads the Parliament and, more seriously, implements policies that continue to damage the life chances of thousands of Scots?
The key issue is to address the cause of the college waiting lists scandal. The cuts to college teaching grants should be reversed in full. We need to reinstate that money to allow those who want to train or retrain for employment to have the opportunity to do so, and to increase opportunities for young people, women, people with learning disabilities and lifelong learners.
In my region—West Scotland—Reid Kerr College in Paisley has seen its budget cut by more than £1 million. I have met students and staff at that college to discuss the damaging impact that the cuts are having and the serious challenge that it faces in continuing to provide education and training. I wonder whether SNP members have done the same.
Following George Adam’s speech, the big question ahead of the budget next week is: will SNP back benchers vote to cut their local colleges’ budgets yet again?
You are in your final minute.
Will, for example, George Adam, who represents many local students, vote to cut Reid Kerr College’s budget yet again?
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is not taking an intervention, Mr Adam.
It is a one-way debate.
Mr Adam, please sit down.
Will I get extra time if I take an intervention?
I am afraid that there is no time in the debate.
Okay.
It is time that the SNP members who claim to stand up for their areas and local young people started to listen to their constituents. SNP members like to talk about free education regularly, but the reality is that SNP policies exclude many Scots from education.
In October, Mike Russell said that waiting lists were “a false concept”.
You must conclude.
He now says that they are exaggerated. The only false concepts around here are Mike Russell’s answers, and the one thing that is surely wildly exaggerated is his tenure as education minister.
You must finish now.
It is time that Mike Russell listened, apologised and dealt with his college waiting lists scandal.
15:12
Despite the Labour Party’s claims about college waiting lists, it is clear from the interim audit report that, on average, almost three quarters of those on Labour’s waiting lists are no longer looking for college places.
Will the member take an intervention?
No, thank you.
On the claim that 21,000 students were waiting for a college place, the report states:
“It was clear from discussions with Colleges Scotland that its survey results would also be subject to the factors identified in paragraph 4 (i.e. waiting list figures will include duplicates, individuals enrolled at college, those who do not meet entry requirements or who no longer wanted a place). As such, the Colleges Scotland results cannot be considered a reliable measure of those waiting for college places or a reliable measure of unmet need.”
Even though the Scottish Government is facing increasing cuts in its budget, it is maintaining college student support at record levels and protecting full-time-equivalent student numbers at 116,000. A further £17 million has been allocated to colleges in the 2013-14 budget.
I must admit to finding a fall in college enrolments in the “Review of Scotland’s Colleges—Inspiring Achievement” report, which states that further education vocational enrolments had fallen by 12 per cent, or nearly 47,000 places. However, that report did not relate to 2012-13; it related to the period from April 2001 to March 2005. It highlighted that, during that period, in one year alone—2004-05, which was the last year of data—activity in science subjects was down 14 per cent, activity in maths was down 14 per cent, and activity in business management was down 13 per cent. The report, which was published in June 2007, related to the period up to March 2005 and referred to the period in which the then Scottish Executive was controlled by a Labour-Liberal Administration. The same report also highlighted a reduction of 3 per cent for those undertaking part-time study. When the economy was buoyant, Labour was losing college places. In a recession, the Scottish Government is maintaining places.
There is a continuing youth unemployment issue. In the current economic situation, there is greater demand for full-time places at colleges throughout Scotland. We must ensure that young people are offered high-quality courses so that they have valued qualifications when the economy improves.
The motion refers to teaching grant cuts. Despite Westminster making significant cuts to Scotland’s budget, the Scottish Government has been able to ensure that the teaching grant of Scotland’s 41 colleges will fall by no more than 8.5 per cent. Compare that with the situation in England, where the teaching grant for universities and colleges will have been slashed by a total of 80 per cent. The current spending review announced cuts of a further 40 per cent by 2014-15. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government remains fully committed to the college sector, and it will continue to invest significantly in it, with more than £500 million of programme funding in 2012-13.
The Scottish Government is making a record investment in the college estate, with the new City of Glasgow College—the largest ever investment in any one college ever made in Scotland—plus the new colleges in Inverness and Kilmarnock. There is also the investment in Anniesland, Coatbridge, Dundee and Forth Valley Colleges, all of which comes to more than £400 million of capital investment. Compare that with the £86 million that was spent by Labour in its first term from 1999 to 2003. That record investment will improve life chances for our young people and, through opportunities for all, will guarantee a place for training or education for every 16 to 19-year-old who is not in employment.
15:16
This is a brief but important debate, and I congratulate Hugh Henry on bringing it to the chamber. I confirm that Scottish Liberal Democrats will support the motion, not least because it echoes calls that we have been making for some months for the SNP Government to reverse the cut of more than £34 million from college budgets next year.
The case for such a rethink is compelling, and it benefits from a consensus—at last—that college funding is going down, not up. Reversing that cut enjoys cross-party support. I suspect that, despite what we might hear again from SNP members this afternoon, in their more private moments many of them accept that a budget cut on this scale undermines claims by their ministers that they are protecting the range, availability and quality of course provision in colleges throughout Scotland. That is certainly the message that they will have heard from colleges in their constituencies and regions. It is the strong message from the National Union of Students in Scotland, whose excellent fund Scotland’s future campaign has already elicited 27,000 emails to MSPs in a matter of weeks. It is also the message from business, which might support sector reform, but whose representatives told the Education and Culture Committee during our scrutiny of the budget that cutting college course provision and quality could harm Scotland’s economic recovery.
That broad-based alliance in support of a rethink by the Government is not one that ministers can afford to ignore. Indeed, I very much hope that ministers will listen—although the self-congratulatory tone of the SNP amendment and the minister’s speech suggest that he is not in listening mode. That has unfortunate echoes of his assertion during the previous budget process that cuts to college budgets were
“a fair, full and final settlement”.—[Official Report, 26 January 2012; c 5795.]
That claim was made to look ridiculous when John Swinney agreed to provide an additional £40 million of support. It is of concern that the education secretary has chosen, once again, to adopt such a dismissive attitude and to reject any notion that aspects of what he is doing may not command support in the college sector or require to be changed. That is a feature of the hole that Mr Russell created for himself over funding at the end of last year, and it is characteristic of his behaviour in relation to what he is now dubbing “so-called waiting lists”.
Let us consider how that issue has developed. When Colleges Scotland first published its figures in October, Mr Russell was perfectly entitled to question the basis and to ask for details. It was accepted that multiple applications and other factors had to be taken into account in establishing the actual level of unmet demand for college courses. However, as Hugh Henry suggested, Mr Russell took his argument to an illogical extreme when speaking in the chamber on 24 October. Clearly annoyed at repeated requests from Opposition members simply to acknowledge that waiting lists exist and to put a figure on them, Mr Russell overstated his case.
Neil Findlay asked:
“How many people are on college waiting lists?”
Mr Russell thundered that they were
“a false concept and a false construct. There are no waiting lists of that nature.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2012; c 12504.
In answer to Hugh Henry’s question, that probably falls into the context of the debate reference.
It is strange that a fortnight later Mr Russell should invite the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council to carry out an audit of that “false concept.” Not surprisingly, the initial results of the audit confirm a much lower figure, but they also make uncomfortable reading for the education secretary. In his determination to deny the extent of the problem, Mr Russell went as far as to deny the existence of any problem. The funding council does not believe that; the chair of Colleges Scotland does not believe it; and students certainly do not believe it.
Once again, Mr Russell’s inability to resist dismissing any and every concern that is raised with him about what is happening in the college sector has landed him in hot water. On that basis, not only does he owe the Parliament an apology, he owes our colleges and their staff and students an apology. Better still, he could ensure that the £34 million cut in college budgets is not a “full and final settlement” and is reversed.
15:20
I echo what the minister and my colleagues have said about today’s business in the chamber. Despite what Labour and the other Opposition parties claim, there are not massive waiting lists for college places. No amount of political spin or of calling for apologies from the minister will change that.
I was struck by the fact that Mr Henry appeared to backtrack on the previous figures that his party quoted that suggested that there were massive college waiting lists. The minister exposed that through the quotation from the Daily Record, the veracity of which I can vouch for as I am a columnist for it. Mr Henry now says that it is not about numbers. He is shifting the goalposts a bit. He also questions why the audit focused on colleges in west central Scotland, implying that they are somehow more likely to suffer from cross-enrolment or duplication. However, that was not the position of his colleague Drew Smith, who said in questioning the cabinet secretary:
“It has been reported in the media that 936 potential students have been turned away from North Glasgow College. Stow College says that it has turned away more than 17,000 potential students in the past three years. Langside College, Anniesland College, the City of Glasgow College and John Wheatley College all say that they could not accommodate requests, and the City of Glasgow College, which the cabinet secretary mentioned in an earlier answer, says that it has had 8,021 applicants on a waiting list in the past year.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2013; c 15508.]
We now know from the interim audit that those figures are wildly exaggerated, as the cabinet secretary said. Suggesting that the issue is not about figures but about the concept, as Mr Henry seems to do, is just to divert from the facts.
As my colleagues have said, it is completely misleading to suggest that each person who appears on a waiting list is equivalent to one person being turned away. Many successful applicants will appear on lists for other courses simply because they have made more than one application, and some courses will inevitably be more popular than others, which means that applicants will not be guaranteed a place on their first choice of course. That has always been the case, but it does not mean that students will not thrive on alternative courses.
Our college reforms will establish a stronger collaboration with employers to ensure that their needs are met and that our young people are trained for the right jobs. That was highlighted recently in my constituency through Skills Development Scotland. The Scottish Government is supporting Scottish Power in Dumfries and Galloway College to develop specialist training provision to meet expected demand for trained linesmen in the area because of the planned upgrade of the national grid. In addition, in November last year, ScottishPower Renewables announced that it will fund courses at Dumfries and Galloway College that will allow students to gain industry-recognised qualifications to help them on their way to become wind turbine technicians.
That is what is happening already through our college reforms and we will see more of it in the future. The Scottish Government recognises that colleges are key for employability provision. Right now, colleges are having to adapt and deliver due to a period of considerable change. The Scottish Government has responded positively to calls from the sector for stability, which we can see in the allocation of £19 million of capital funding for further education. I think that that is a very impressive record indeed.
A further £17 million has been allocated to colleges, which forms part of our £500 million-plus commitment to colleges that was previously announced in the draft Scottish budget. On top of that, the Scottish Government has allocated £17 million to maintain Scottish student support at record levels and protect the number of students in further education. In addition, the Scottish funding council envisages that the regionalisation reform of the college sector will reduce duplication and deliver savings of more than £500 million per year.
15:25
I read with interest the exchange in the chamber in October last year between Michael Russell, Neil Bibby and Liz Smith, during which Mr Russell stubbornly insisted that waiting lists are “a false concept”. Some people, when confronted with facts that they would rather not face, have a propensity to create their own reality. If the world does not fit with their world view, the world is simply the wrong shape and must be bent and twisted until it is the right shape. In this alternative universe, Scotland gains automatic entrance to the European Union; our hands flow with gold on the day after independence; the college budget is going up, not down; and college waiting lists are a false concept and do not exist. If only life were so simple. Sadly for all of us in general, and Mr Russell in particular, it is not.
The Scottish Government’s interim report shows that waiting lists definitely exist. For those of us who are familiar with the recent Audit Scotland report on colleges, the potential extent of unmet demand is not surprising. We cannot reduce real-terms college funding by 24 per cent over four years and expect there to be no impact.
In attempting to explain why waiting lists are a false concept, one of the mitigating factors that Mr Russell referred to is duplication. However, as the interim report makes clear, duplication accounts for only 9 per cent of the total from the seven colleges that are included in the sample. Moreover, the extent to which duplication can be cited as a legitimate factor varies according to the number of colleges and the availability of courses within a specific area.
Some communities are within commuting distance of several colleges; others are not. Residents in North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire have access to four colleges but residents in the Falkirk area have access only to Forth Valley College. It is therefore unlikely that applicants to Forth Valley College will submit multiple applications to other colleges or will apply to other colleges if their application to Forth Valley College proves unsuccessful.
In addition, although Forth Valley College has multiple campuses—at Stirling, Falkirk, AIIoa and Clackmannan—some courses are available only at certain locations. For example, only the Falkirk campus offers all three of the business courses and all five of the construction courses. Civil engineering and chemical science are available only at Falkirk. The combination of limited places and awkward geography will leave failed applicants with few alternatives and many successful ones facing a lengthy commute that will add significantly to their financial burden.
With youth unemployment stubbornly high and the economy still in the doldrums, we should be doing everything possible to help young people to get the education and training that are necessary for them to secure long-term, sustainable employment or to progress to higher education.
Well-funded and adequately resourced colleges are essential to that goal. However, according to the Audit Scotland report that I referred to earlier, colleges are likely to face
“significant financial challenges in the years ahead”,
due in no small measure to the Scottish Government's decision to drastically reduce further education funding.
Meanwhile, some colleges are already under financial strain. In 2010-11, Forth Valley College had the second-highest operating deficit of any college in Scotland, at approximately £2.4 million, or 7.7 per cent of its income. It also had a £6.6 million deficit in its pension reserve. As Audit Scotland has made clear, without a U-turn by the Scottish Government, things are unlikely to get any easier.
While law degrees at prestigious universities are increasingly the preserve of a privileged few, more than 20 per cent of college entrants come from Scotland’s most deprived communities. They will be the disproportionate victims of Mr Russell’s assault on further education.
If that were not bad enough, yesterday we learned that, in 2011-12, 490 fewer college students from deprived backgrounds received an education maintenance allowance than did in 2010-11. That is the grim reality, yet all that we get from Mr Russell are cuts and excuses, posturing and pomposity. The cabinet secretary can continue creating his own reality, but those of us who live in the real world are genuinely concerned about the cuts to college budgets—cuts leading to fewer lecturers, fewer courses, fewer places and, yes, higher waiting lists.
I have, therefore, no hesitation in joining my Labour colleagues in calling on the cabinet secretary to put an end to this embarrassing episode by apologising unreservedly and reversing his damaging and short-sighted cuts to the further education budget.
15:29
I suppose that, when the motion was written, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Tens of thousands of students—maybe 21,000—stuck on a waiting list must have sounded like perfect fuel for another dig at the Scottish Government. Alas, it is yet another scare story from Labour and, when subjected to the scrutiny of audit, it falls apart at the seams.
The findings of the audit so far are that nearly 75 per cent of those on the so-called waiting lists are not actually waiting for a place at college at all. In one college, the so-called waiting list reduced by 95 per cent when it was examined a little bit more closely. Those are quite incredible findings, given the sensational headlines that we all saw. A combination of duplicate applications, enrolments elsewhere and students no longer needing places has exposed the motion for what it really is: a cheap shot at the cabinet secretary.
Kilmarnock College confirms that some students who were not successful in their course of choice were referred to other courses. As we are all well aware, no one is guaranteed their first choice. Also, some people who applied to Kilmarnock College did not attend for interview.
Not even the briefing from the NUS mentions Labour’s waiting lists theory. There is not a single word about it in the five-page briefing. Instead of mentioning waiting lists, it concentrates on highlighting the budget cuts that have been imposed on Scotland as a result of Labour’s incompetence when it was last in office in the UK and recognising the SNP’s efforts to protect student numbers in further education.
The truth is that Scotland’s SNP Government is getting on with the job of transforming further education. By 2014-15, the SNP will have invested £5 billion in our colleges since it came to office. That is 39 per cent more in cash terms than the equivalent period when Labour was in power. Since 2007, the SNP has also increased student support from £67 million to £84 million—an increase of 25 per cent. In this year’s budget, another £17 million was added. Despite being opposed by Labour, it was described as fantastic news by the NUS.
Figures published this week show that more than 34,000 school and college students in Scotland continue to benefit from the education maintenance allowance. The average EMA payment to Scottish students is now £729 per year. More students from our communities most in need benefit from that payment, which was abolished in England.
On the college estate, despite huge cuts to Scotland’s capital budget, the SNP is spending £200 million on a new City of Glasgow College. That is the biggest single investment made in any college in Scotland. We are also spending £50 million each on new colleges at Inverness and in Kilmarnock—my constituency. The latter will provide a massive boost to the town.
If the Labour Party was serious about more funding on top of that for colleges, it could have presented an alternative budget, but it did not. It could also have suggested allocating some of the additional £331 million of capital that was announced last week to the colleges but it did not do that either. The Scottish Government did. It allocated another £19 million out of that for capital investment for colleges.
When we start from the base budget of £511 million, which is acknowledged even in the NUS briefing, and add the additional capital investments and non-profit-distributing allocations, the total funding for colleges in Scotland amounts to more than £632 million. That is well up even on last year’s figure of £574 million.
Scotland’s students and the Scottish public can be proud of the investment in our colleges, our students and our reforms of the sector, which will meet the needs of our students and our economy in the 21st century.
I am happy to support the cabinet secretary’s amendment.
15:33
The cabinet secretary was clear that he wanted facts in the debate, so I will try my best to ensure that we produce the right ones.
First, colleges use different measures for their waiting lists. That is not new and it is perfectly legitimate. They do it for many different reasons.
Secondly, several members—myself included—asked legitimate questions.
Thirdly, instead of receiving explanations as to why it is difficult to answer those questions about the nature of the waiting lists, we were told that those waiting lists are a “false concept”. The implication of what we were told was that the rest of us do not know anything about what we are talking about. I tell the cabinet secretary that that is simply not true.
Those facts speak for themselves. The debate is not about the numbers—no member is in a position to come up with the relevant numbers, because we do not know what they are. It is about the language and the manner in which the matter has been debated. Yet again, the Scottish Government claims that there is a false concept out there. It is dismissive and acts as though the rest of us, and the college sector, do not know what we are talking about. That is plainly untrue and does not help to ensure that the focus in the debate is in the right place.
I will be brief, as I did quite a lot to sum up in writing other things. We would like one question to be answered by the cabinet secretary this afternoon: what is the definition of the waiting lists to which he has referred in the audit that has taken place?
I repeat that we will support the Labour Party’s motion. I would be grateful if the cabinet secretary gave us an answer to the question that I asked.
15:35
I do not think that the debate has been good, alas. I regret that the tone was set in a somewhat poisonous way by Mr Henry. I am reconciled to the fact that he and Mr Findlay do not like me; I can certainly live with that. However, it is regrettable that, instead of debating the facts, members have set that tone—we should not do that. Taking part in the debate has not been pleasant for anybody; the experience—particularly of Labour speeches—has been unpleasant.
The debate explains something in Scottish politics—it explains why the poll at the weekend showed that, if an election was held tomorrow, our majority in the Parliament would be the same as it was in 2011. The bitter together approach, if I may put it that way, does not work, so I suggest another approach.
Mr Henry and I will never be friends but, in the remorseless search for the positive—I am trying to search for the positive and find a way forward—I would be happy to discuss the final audit with Opposition spokespeople after it is published. If they want to approach me, we will have that meeting and get officials into the discussion.
As a starting point, can we confirm that—irrespective of how few or how many are on them—there are waiting lists in Scotland’s colleges?
I am sorry, but that is exactly where we started and exactly the type of so-called cleverness that Mr Henry thinks is politics. The reality is that the way in which the issue has been presented by Labour, which has been, alas, aided and abetted by the Tories and the Lib Dems, has been wrong. Labour has presented false concepts and has tried to prove something that is untrue. I regret that, but I will return to the positive, because I want to keep trying, despite Mr Henry’s intervention
Once the audit is published, if Opposition lead spokespeople wish to discuss it with me and my officials, the door will be open for them to do so. We can then address all the definitions, such as the one that Liz Smith raised; exactly what the figures mean; and why the concept is false.
We are working hard to ensure that young people and others in Scotland are entitled to every opportunity that we can give them. For example, the opportunities for all guarantee is a guarantee and is being observed. That in itself should have made Opposition members a bit cautious.
Some things in the debate were extraordinary. Liam McArthur said in an open and very Liberal Democrat way that he was of course entitled to question things and that the figures might be questionable. Is that why he published a press release that said that there were 21,280 people on the list, accepting that figure as if it was the case beyond peradventure. There have been a lot of those things.
Let us try to make progress. I regret that we will not agree on the need for college reform, because college reform is long overdue and must happen. However, I would be happy to sit down and discuss the detail, which is available. When we see the final audit, the detail will be even clearer than it is in the interim audit.
The detail tells us that a lot of figures that were untrue were quoted last year. The people who quoted those figures were the Opposition spokespeople, so they should have pause for thought. They were dealing in false concepts and they were telling potential students in Scotland that no places were available to Scottish students when places were available to Scottish students. To be blunt, I regard that as unforgivable.
However, I would be prepared to forgive that if we could have a sensible conversation about how to take forward change in Scotland’s colleges. Such change is unavoidable; indeed, it is highly desirable. That change will focus and is focusing Scotland’s colleges on the economic opportunities that exist.
I do not think that anybody in the chamber denies that reform should take place in tertiary education—that is an on-going process in any case. We are asking for an honest debate that focuses on the right things. That is difficult because of the complications and the muddle that the Scottish Government is getting into about the numbers that it claims are on waiting lists. That is the problem.
Not at all. I am sorry, but I entirely disagree with Liz Smith. The debate has been called by Labour for a political reason and, alas, the bitter together parties are determined to be part of it. I regret that, because it is important that we work with Scotland’s young people and older people for colleges. We can do so, and it would be good if we sat down and tried to do so. I make the invitation for the third time that I would be happy to sit down and have that conversation in such a way that we could all agree on where we are with this, because I repeat that waiting lists of that nature—those are exactly the words that I used—do not exist and the figures cannot be used to aggregate demand. There is no doubt about it. It is extraordinary that, in the course of the debate, Hugh Henry not only disagreed with that—he is entitled to disagree when he wants—but essentially said that the audit was rigged, which is a nonsensical accusation.
The audit was partial.
The audit was neither partial nor rigged. It will produce the full results. I am open to discussion—I make that invitation and I am interested to see who takes it up.
15:41
Before Christmas, when Mr Russell had his disastrous spell, he tried humility for a few weeks. However, it would appear that, after Christmas, his new year resolution was to cast all that aside.
For the past 18 months, Scotland’s colleges have been under unprecedented pressure. The teaching grant has been reduced and it will be reduced again this year; there have been staff losses of 1,400 in the past year; courses have been cut across the board; places for adults with learning disabilities have been cut by, at best, 34 per cent; and in some colleges all outreach work for that group has ceased entirely.
Colleges are being forced into shotgun mergers and new tiers of bureaucracy are being established, with powers being further centralised in the hands of the minister. College unions have been passing motions of no confidence in the cabinet secretary; there have been demonstrations; and, in just over a year, if we count last year’s campaign and this year’s campaign, more than 127,000 emails have been sent to members of the Parliament by students protesting about the colleges policy. If what Willie Coffey said is correct—that everything is just fantastic—what are they all complaining about?
Next week, the Parliament will vote on a budget that proposes yet another £34 million reduction in college finance. If this were a time of economic boom—
Will Labour be proposing an alternative budget then?
Mr Macintosh clearly explained our position on colleges last week. [Interruption.]
Order.
Mr Macintosh proposed that we would reverse every college cut. [Interruption.]
Order.
If this were a time of economic boom, with jobs aplenty and reducing demand for colleges, there would be some logic to the Government’s approach, but of course that is not the situation. Unemployment is disturbingly high and people are desperate to train or retrain and gain an education to help them move on in life. However, as we have heard, the Government’s deliberate policy on colleges is denying that opportunity to a growing number of our citizens.
Despite the weight of evidence exposing the policy for the disaster that it is, its chief architect—the cabinet secretary—ploughs ahead regardless, with that toxic mix of arrogance, denial and self-delusion that we have all become so familiar with over the past year.
We all know that there has been growing concern about the extent of waiting lists in Scotland’s colleges. That concern has come not from Mr Russell’s favourite bogeymen and women, whether it be Westminster or Labour councils. It has not even come from sound recorder-wielding college principals, or—to be more accurate—former college principals. No—that concern has come from young people, from the NUS, college unions, and business leaders, but also from Scotland’s Colleges, the very organisation that was trusted to bring together these institutions.
In a study that Scotland’s Colleges—not Labour—carried out, more than 21,000 people were estimated to be on waiting lists. That is a Scotland’s Colleges figure—it is not ours. George Adam and Gordon MacDonald both said that three quarters of those who were identified in the Scotland’s Colleges report were not truly on a waiting list. Even if we accept that, it will still be the case that a quarter of them are on a waiting list. We seem to have consensus across the chamber that waiting lists are not a false concept and that in fact they exist. Even Mr Russell’s own audit accepts that waiting lists exist and, when we look at it, there are no quotation marks around waiting lists, as far as I can see.
As with the budget, student finance, jobs and courses, the cabinet secretary could not face up to the reality of his own policy and instead sought solace in yet more creative accounting. As he did with curriculum for excellence, he ordered an audit. However, as we have heard, this in-depth and extensive audit looked not at all of Scotland’s colleges but at seven in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Lanarkshire. Do seven central belt colleges, each with another college in close proximity, and some with several, provide a fair representation of how the applications system and waiting lists have developed across Scotland? I think not. As Siobhan McMahon explained, is it any surprise that a Lanarkshire student might apply to Coatbridge and Cumbernauld or that an Edinburgh student might apply to a few different colleges in the city? Of course not.
However, let me highlight my local situation at West Lothian College, where 94 per cent of applicants come from the county. There are no nearby options. What are the figures there? In 2012-13, 3,800 people applied for full-time courses but only 1,848 gained access. As for part-time students, there were 6,390 enrolments in 2007-08 but this year the figure is down by more than 50 per cent to 3,000. Of course, that situation will be repeated in similar colleges across Scotland, but such colleges were—surprise, surprise—omitted from the audit.
The cabinet secretary’s audit took a different sample at a different time from that taken by Scotland’s Colleges in its much larger study; however, there is no explanation as to why those seven colleges were selected. The report is full of assertion rather than fact and, focusing on one college, claims that waiting lists are only 5 per cent of the original Scotland’s Colleges estimate. The truth is that this survey started with embarrassingly flawed methodology and inevitably ended up with flawed and distorted findings that were grasped and championed by the cabinet secretary because they fitted in with his fantasy view of the world.
I am sorry but, while Mr Russell comforts himself with these figures, no one else out there in the real world believes a word of them—not Colleges Scotland, not college principals, not college staff or students and most certainly not the thousands of applicants who have been left without a place. When Mr Henry talked about false concepts and false constructs, I noticed the cabinet secretary nodding his head. I should caution Mr Russell, because the last time we saw such vigorous head gestures from him was when he was supporting his gaffer with the dodgy statistics at First Minister’s question time.
As other members have mentioned, on 24 October I asked the cabinet secretary:
“With no preamble and no prejudgment, can I ask a simple question? How many people are on college waiting lists? We are asking for a number.”
The cabinet secretary replied:
“The concept that Neil Findlay raises is a false concept and a false construct. There are no waiting lists of that nature.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2012; c 12504.]
The “nature” that I was looking for was a number. Given that even his flawed audit repeatedly acknowledges the existence of waiting lists, a number must also exist. I think that it is right for the cabinet secretary to apologise not only to me but to Mr Bibby, Mr Smith, Anne McTaggart, James Kelly, Liz Smith and others for misleading Parliament once again, because he accused us all of falsehoods in relation to the existence of college waiting lists. I ask him again: do these lists exist? How many people are on them? Will he at some point give us a number?
A few weeks ago, we were treated to the sight of the cabinet secretary—let me put this charitably—being interviewed by college students at Edinburgh College. I am sure that, as an enthusiastic information technology user, he applauded the initiative of the students who put the video on YouTube so that their fellow students could see and hear the cabinet secretary share the great news about his college policies. Those students told it like it is on places, courses, jobs and waiting lists, but the denial continues. You cannot hide for ever, Mr Russell.