Chamber and committees

I appreciate that. Your comments are useful.

I was heartened by your response to the previous set of questions, in which you said that the university will recover. I note from The Courier this morning that you were asked on several occasions whether the university was, in essence, too big to fail. Let me say that it is too big to fail. One in seven of Dundee’s population are students at that institution, and there are 3,000 members of staff. The university has a critical relationship with the NHS, whether that be joint contracts for the provision of oncology services or in all manner of other areas, such as the training areas that have been pointed out.

The university cannot be allowed to fail and, although it is an independent institution, that is a responsibility of Government. I see that the cabinet secretary is nodding at that point; it would be good to have her agreement on the record. Do you agree that the university is too big to fail, cabinet secretary?

Can I push you on one point, then, minister? When the Scottish Funding Council, as you have said, looks at and evaluates the recovery plan, the pain that you have referred to will, without a doubt, be felt by employees. After all, that is who we are talking about—we are talking about job losses as a result of this. If those job losses are, frankly, too high, because of the immediacy of the problem that I have described, what can the SFC do to assist in the short term and to make sure that there is a recovery plan that is more sustainable and which can win the confidence of staff? By that I mean some form of bridging loan or financial accommodation that can give them support to allow for a more acceptable situation. None of what has been described by other colleagues is, I think, acceptable to staff, but that would be real action from the SFC if it could look at the situation and evaluate it in the context of what it can then do.

I thank everybody for the conversation today. It has been very useful for understanding the breadth of the issues that universities are facing, particularly my home university in Dundee.

Will there be a report? Maurice Golden referenced a report. I have heard that there will be a recovery plan. Will a report that details what has happened be published? Who will it be published for, where will it be published, and who will have access to scrutinise it?

Thank you.

That is critical, and I welcome that response from the minister.

Earlier, John Mason mentioned that reserves in Dundee university are at £160 million. The year-end position of July 2024 was £34 million in reserves. That had gone down by more than £30 million in-year. There is also an in-year cash flow deficit of £30 million. There is no reserve position to maintain a viable institution, even in the short term. That is the context of the recovery plan in which the management is operating. It is important to put on the record the most recent set of accounts, because that is the scale of the challenge that is in front of the university.

We have usefully covered income in the discussion today. However, my reading is that it is a question of expenditure, which has increased dramatically. The previous figure of £160 million that John Mason quoted was accurate at one point, but there was a rapid diminution in the level of reserves as cash went out the door. In relation to the financial position, is it the minister’s understanding that, as well as the income situation—which he has already covered in some detail—expenditure is also a significant part of the equation?

On the convener’s point about productivity, I note that a report that the Institute for Fiscal Studies produced recently says that the productivity changes in Scotland have been much worse than those in the rest of the UK. There has been a productivity rebound in the NHS in other parts of the UK but not in Scotland. Can you give us any reflections on why that would be the case given the reform process? Is the pace of change not strong enough? Why has the position in the rest of the UK not been reflected in Scotland?

You have been clear that that is partly due to the Government not having clarity of its own intent around post-school skills reform. Until the Government does that, how on earth are colleges meant to know? The idea is that we will have a public sector reform board and a change fund of £30 million, which accounts for 0.05 per cent of the overall budget. Will those things not simply be paying lip service unless work is actually done to say “This is where we want to go”?

Is transparency not also a key issue in that regard? I have similar concerns to the convener. In NHS Tayside, no vasectomies have been carried out for two years. None were carried out for a whole year and then, using the kind of arrangements that you have described, we managed to secure 400 procedures—these were family planning decisions—to be carried out elsewhere. Those services have, in effect, been withdrawn locally but nobody has been told that. People are sitting on waiting lists and they need to be told about that situation. Is engagement with the public in the processes that you are talking about key to what you do?

It might be useful to have some indication of the guidance that was issued, convener, given the committee’s interest in interoperability, particularly when new systems are being built.

What I am hearing so far from the various contributions is that you are all doing your jobs: you are delivering against the mandates that are set out for you in legislation and as directed by Government. We are interested in the opportunity for reform and change more broadly.

I suppose that what you are describing, Alison, is the changes that you are making in Transport Scotland to increase demand for public transport, and that is you meeting the mandate that is set out for you. I am interested in whether organisations feel that they have the agency to respond to the broader vectors with regard to the need for reform, not just the financial limitations of budgets—Garry McEwan mentioned the downward pressure on budgets—but the external pressures of demographic change, climate change and technological change, and to adapt what they are doing.

I was struck by NHS National Services Scotland’s submission. It refers to—this is the top of its list—a

“compelling case for change”

being a

“Burning platform”.

That seems to me to be about an emergency response rather than an organisation having the agency to say what it thinks that it, as part of a set of public organisations, will have to do to respond to the context that Scots find themselves in and how they live their lives. I want to know about the leadership opportunities that you as organisations have to respond to that. Maybe the witnesses could give me a flavour of that.