Chamber and committees

There is no freeze on apprenticeships—

You have asked me whether they are carrying out the reform work. Although they have an important role to play in it, they are not leading the reform work. Government officials are doing that, and I am leading the reform process.

I am genuinely surprised—I think that we went through this yesterday—that there seems to be a suggestion from some Opposition members that we should have increased the budgets for the SQA and Education Scotland, to allow them to have more staff to carry out some of this work. Again, I think that—

There have been no suggestions about how money could be moved within a portfolio or across portfolios. However, as the committee is aware, we are still going through the budget process, and I would be more than willing to receive and discuss some suggestions by correspondence.

I will broaden it out and say that we need to look at the assistance and advice that come from Government and the Scottish Funding Council on ensuring that universities, which are independent of Government, have policies in place to ensure that they are not at risk of one situation—Mr Rennie has referred to one situation—adversely affecting them in a way that would cause difficulties. All institutions are required to consider risks, and all universities are aware of situations such as the one that Mr Rennie suggested and the implications of them.

It varies widely across the system—a number of universities would not be that impacted by the situation that Mr Rennie suggested, but they would be impacted by other changes in international markets. It is for individual institutions to look at how reliant they are on a particular segment of international students.

I hope that we can all agree that encouraging international students to Scotland is a good thing. In Mr Rennie’s constituency, we see fantastic diversity around international students and what they bring to student and community life. However, quite rightly, institutions should consider whether they are overly reliant on one particular part of the international student market and whether they should make changes if there is a concern that they would be adversely affected by some of those situations.

I do not recognise that figure, but we have an important piece of work going on—yes, within the SQA and Education Scotland—and there is also further funding for the reform package in Government to allow us to carry out that reform. When it comes to the money for the SQA and Education Scotland, clearly, they must still carry out the tasks and functions that they have as we go through that process.

No decisions have been taken on how the money will be allocated. We are keen to assist the college sector with flexibility, as I mentioned, and with any need for colleges to transition their offer so that they provide the right curriculum and so forth. The Scottish Funding Council will work with the sector to provide draft allocations. There has not been a decision on that, and we will work closely with the Funding Council on ministerial direction and priorities of travel but the allocations are for it to make.

We have seen an increase from the RSR. I hope that we can ensure that college funding is maintained into the future, but we need to come to that year by year, as we do for everything. The RSR is the long-term forecast that we have at the moment and we are cognisant of the fact that a number of changes that colleges need to consider, whether on the design of curriculum or workforce requirements, require them to have that long-term view. The RSR is still our long-term forecast for budgets, and we will work with the college sector on that.

On the different rates, which I have seen, further education and higher education are very different sectors and are funded in different ways. The ability of the college sector to seek other sources of funding is exceedingly different from that of universities. Therefore, the comparisons are a bit too simplistic, but, as the Funding Council said, we need to understand those figures better. I am happy for the Funding Council to continue to investigate that.

The fact that we have been able to increase the college budget by £26 million demonstrates the Government’s awareness of the important role that colleges have. Bob Doris is right to point out the number of young people—and, indeed, adult learners—who use further education to then move on to university or, indeed, complete higher education within the college sector.

There are a number of ways in which the college sector can deliver for people who are furthest away from the labour market all the way up to those who are taking degrees. Colleges’ flexibility and their determination to have an offer for many different demographics is a real testament to their ability to innovate and move forward with where the skills agenda needs to be. That demonstrates a real willingness to perform in that area, and colleges do so well.

We knew that we were making an impact because of the statistics that I read out to the member earlier, but we knew that we had to do more and that there were areas in which we still needed to improve, which is exactly why we have had a refresh. I will certainly not sit here and say that everything pre-pandemic was going at the pace or with the urgency that we would have liked. That is exactly why we have refreshed the system.

I point Bob Doris to two aspects of the impact of Covid. One is the equity audit that took place some time ago, which looked at and reported back on the impact of Covid. The other is the most recent ACEL statistics, which showed a dip in attainment. It is very difficult to draw a direct correlation between one thing happening and any impact on attainment, but I do not think it would be stretching the bounds too much to say that, during the past couple of years, Covid has impacted on attainment. That was clearly shown in the equity audit.

The context that Mr Doris points to is exceptionally important and will be taken account of as Education Scotland works with local authorities on the stretch aims. The context of every local authority will be taken into account and, as we develop our policies, we will always ensure that we analyse the impact of those policies once we evaluate.

It is very difficult to point to one policy correlating directly to a change in outcomes, but it is clear that the more that we can do to tackle child poverty, for example, the more we will be able to help families in their overall circumstances, and the more that will help with attainment. Likewise, if decisions such as the £20 cut to universal credit that Mr Doris pointed to are taken elsewhere, they will have negative consequences for families and will inevitably impact on how they cope. We will endeavour to look at and take account of the impact of different policies and understand that context as we move forward once local authorities have developed the stretch aims.

We absolutely have school and local authority plans and reports—they are a condition of the grant. However, it is for Education Scotland to collate the information. We would be happy to provide further advice after the meeting, but it is a condition of the grant that the schools or local authorities work with Education Scotland on the projects and, importantly, that they discuss what has worked and what has had the greatest impact. We also have the annual evaluation reports that look at a range of different expenditure. However, it is part of our empowerment agenda to empower headteachers to determine how to spend money, and our agencies are there to assist them to ensure that the money has been spent effectively and that other schools are learning from that.