Chamber and committees

Okay, deputy convener. I want to finish off this line of questioning, which I think is important.

When I raised the issue in the chamber, I added the caveat that we cannot just magic up money to address the funding gap. However, the direction of travel, aspiration and policy are all about working towards ending that divergence. Given that 43 per cent of the young people from the most deprived areas who are doing undergraduate courses at university started their careers at college, we can see that colleges do fantastic work. I do not want that work to be put at risk. As and when resources arrive, minister, do you agree that the desirable direction of travel is towards closing the gap?

I absolutely accept that. When I raised the issue in Parliament, I—

It is almost as if we had planned it, deputy convener.

A student at Glasgow Kelvin College or any other college may be studying for a higher national certificate in social science at Scottish credit and qualifications framework level 7—I will put my teeth in there—which is the equivalent of an undergraduate first-year social science course at university. Why is there more funding for that student if they go to university than if they go to college?

Derek Smeall from Glasgow Kelvin College and others told the committee that they were concerned about how we estimate completion rates in Scotland’s colleges. For example, if a young person starts a course for a few days, does not like it and switches to another course, or if a college student gets offered a well-paid job in a sector in which they are already trained, that might count as non-completion. In Scotland, we gather the statistics in a very different way from how it is done in England. Audit Scotland has also raised those concerns. Although I absolutely agree that we want to improve the current non-completion levels, we need to ensure that those levels consistently reflect what is actually happening in colleges and that we are measuring positive outcomes, because we should not use arbitrary data that might not be relevant. Will you take that on board?

Again, the evidence session has progressed quite appropriately for the direction of my questions. We have been looking at the future of colleges more generally, but I will refer specifically to the situation in Glasgow.

When college regionalisation first happened, there was concern that community-based colleges and very localised provision such as the pre-employability work that Ruth Maguire and I highlighted in previous sessions would be squeezed out. However, regionalisation has not made that happen. There has been a flourishing of community-based, grass-roots development to enable those who are furthest away from education to get involved in college, including in Glasgow Kelvin College—I thank you for the visit that we have spoken about, minister.

However, there are further reforms down the line. Last year, the Scottish Funding Council spoke about the need for Glasgow’s colleges to work closely together. At that time, there was concern that that could mean a further merger in the Glasgow region—something that I have consistently opposed and that I think would be a negative thing.

The Glasgow Colleges Regional Board has been described as “transactional” and as a duplication of the work of the Glasgow colleges group, in which the college principals get together as a senior team to get on with the job of delivering for Glasgow and beyond. What assurances can the minister give that Glasgow’s three highly successful colleges are secure in their future and that their grass-roots work will continue? If any reform is needed in Glasgow, despite the good work that has been done so far, perhaps it is the GCRB that, although it has been doing a good job up to now, may have served its purpose.

I know that my question is lengthy, but this may be worth noting. I understand that the Scottish Funding Council has asked the Glasgow Colleges Regional Board to decide what future reform may look like, including whether there is a future role for the GCRB. That is pretty unfair on the regional board, which may potentially have to decide on its own future.

There is a lot to unpack there, minister. Given the time constraints, I will not come back in—I wanted to throw all of that in at the same time, because I was not sure whether I would get a supplementary question.

That is a helpful answer. I raised that question with you previously in the chamber, so I am following through on a more general line of questioning. I picked the example of social science deliberately because there are no laboratory or significant infrastructure overheads; the course simply involves young people interacting with a lecturer or tutor. I do not see, therefore, what the additional cost for universities would be, unless the point is that a social science degree can cross-subsidise other activities at university.

I understand that the average student reimbursement rate for college is £5,054, whereas it is £7,558 for a university student. The difference is quite striking. When I raised the issue with you in the chamber, you said that those matters will have been discussed in on-going dialogue—not only through that, I should point out—with the Scottish Funding Council, Colleges Scotland and Universities Scotland. Can you give me any more details on how those discussions are going?

Okay. Thank you.

I would like to check something. How do those providers know that they are financially viable if they do not know what the uplift in the hourly rate is going to be before they submit to work in partnership with you? Surely that has to be co-produced.

It sounds as though there is quite substantive and meaningful dialogue going on. The sector might not be getting everything that it wants and it might still be dissatisfied, but there seems to be on-going meaningful dialogue. Are all three local authorities committed to closing the pay differentials between the local authority sector and the PVI sector? I appreciate that all the evidence suggests that, financially, it will not be possible to completely close the gap, but is there a commitment year in, year out to narrow it? If so, how will you monitor that and, if not, why not?

Do you have that discussion ahead of setting the hourly rates?