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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 1 July 2025
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Displaying 1313 contributions

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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

I thank the witnesses for coming along today.

Staff at the university are hurt and angry, and they remain anxious about their employment. I know that a large number of them will be watching this meeting live. Students are graduating as we speak, and others will be starting their studies soon, so there is a lot of deep concern. I think that your apologies will be welcomed by those listening, but I have to agree with the convener’s comment earlier that your involvement in how we got to this situation seems to have been unsettlingly relaxed, particularly given what is said in the Gillies report.

I will initially focus on some of the points that have been raised about the court. Thanks for the points that you have made, Amanda. You have said that you had to deal with the information that you had.

10:00  

I turn to Dr McGeorge and Peter Fotheringham. Following on from Jackie Dunbar’s question, was there a degree of deliberate misleading of the court? Amanda Millar, as the chair, and the rest of the court had to work with what they had. The former chair has accepted that the court should have been asking more questions and probing more. Was it not your responsibility, as public servants, to ensure that the court had the information that it needed to understand the scale of what was happening at the time?

Universities across the United Kingdom are going through a difficult time just now, but something particularly different clearly happened at Dundee university. The court appeared not to be able to grasp that. Was that not your responsibility, Peter Fotheringham?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

Are you able to put a timeline on when there was a realisation that things were a lot worse than you had previously realised? We have had a lot of conversations in the past about the challenges that the university was facing, but this was clearly something different. Can you give a timeline—roughly by month—of when you realised that this situation went beyond those challenges?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

As late as that?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

Although you have said that people knew, is it the case that you do not think that anybody in senior positions in the university knew?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

When did you realise the scale of the black hole? When did you realise that it was so huge that it was putting the very future of the university at risk?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

Unfortunately, Baroness Alexander is not able to be here today; she is doing something else and is unable to access the internet. We therefore have a written submission from her. As Mr Adam said, she is very critical of all of you in it. She maintains that she raised concerns earlier, which were discounted. Dr McGeorge, it would be interesting to get clarity on your understanding of whether she raised those concerns. She was the vice-principal with responsibility around one of the big areas. Was she trying to raise concerns about the student numbers with you, Dr McGeorge? Did you sideline her?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

She was in a very senior position, and was paid more than the First Minister of Scotland to do that job. Did she ever raise a red flag with you?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

In her evidence, she suggests that, on the back of those questions, there was an attempt to buy her off with lavish overseas trips and pay-offs. Were you aware of that? Were you part of or involved in trying to buy Wendy Alexander off?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

Mr Fotheringham, when did you start to have sleepless nights about how bad things were?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

University of Dundee

Meeting date: 25 June 2025

Joe FitzPatrick

When you say that you did not realise until September, that is the thing that people who are watching this meeting—students, lecturers and staff who still do not feel completely secure about their jobs—will find incredible. They will find it incredible that folk in your position would not have realised how bad things were until that late. That is incredible.