Chamber and committees

The minister seems to be saying that other unions have reached agreement but that the EIS-FELA has not. Is he suggesting that the EIS-FELA has been too greedy in all this, on behalf of its members?

I congratulate Richard Leonard on securing enough support to be able to debate this important issue today. I think that I got him over the line by being the only Conservative to sign his motion, although we are using our parliamentary debating time tomorrow to debate the subject again. It is such a worthy topic.

I have a very good relationship with my local EIS-FELA reps, and have had for a long time. They are representatives of staff at South Lanarkshire College and New College Lanarkshire, and I get to see them regularly—not just once a year. We have liaised on a number of issues, some of which are on-going, but what always comes up is the dire straits that the sector is in.

Richard Leonard’s motion focuses on the current pay dispute. I have huge sympathy with EIS-FELA members, who feel compelled to strike every single year. College bosses, who can be fantastically well paid, should be on the same side as their staff, who should not be having to wait for longer than 18 months for what Richard Leonard described as “an acceptable offer”. Those devoted public servants have bills to pay, and they are not paid a king’s ransom.

Richard Leonard and I sit on the Public Audit Committee: we carried out an inquiry into the college sector on the back of a very worrying report from the Auditor General for Scotland. All the issues that we considered are, in fact, linked to the current pay dispute. It all comes down to money, which the sector has been starved of. I say respectfully to Fulton MacGregor that it is not a communications issue: it comes down to lack of resources.

The Herald ran a week-long series about colleges last week. It concluded that, over three years, there has been a funding gap of £464 million. That is the figure with which we are left if we compare what funding would be, if it had kept pace with inflation, to what the sector is given. Graeme Dey might dispute that figure, but he admits that there is a gap and he must admit that there is a problem.

Prior to the Public Audit Committee’s inquiry, I heard that the Scottish Funding Council keeps a list of the colleges that are in the bleakest financial state and was told that there is a colour-coding system in which those colleges are coded black. When Karen Watt, the boss of the Funding Council, appeared before the committee in January, she revealed that four colleges face what she called “significant cash-flow issues”. They were, and are, in dire financial straits. I do not know which colleges they were because she would not tell us, but the fact that they exist should be a badge of shame for the minister and his many predecessors. I hope that he is taking a note of that, as he writes.

The committee repeatedly heard that colleges are having to consider cutting courses, cutting staff and skimping on maintenance. In November, Derek Smeall, the principal of Glasgow Kelvin College, who was representing the college principals group, told us:

“Colleges and the college sector, as they are just now, are certainly not sustainable.”

For his college, he predicted a deficit of £1.3 million for the year 2022-23. He said:

“In 2022-23, I have already released 6.5 per cent of my workforce, and over each of the next two years, I will release a similar amount.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 30 November 2023; c 2-3.]

His story is typical of the sector.

The Herald shone a light on the value of our college sector. Universities get more of the limelight and more of the funding, but we could argue that colleges and their courses have more value. We need to invest in them better.

The minister will close with warm words. He needs to close with action.

Okay. I do not really have anything else to ask, convener.

I will stick with you. You said that seven prisons are at red status. What does red status mean?

They are on the brink.

That is really serious. If a prison governor raises a red status, is action taken to alleviate things?

I do not want to hog the meeting, but I will just finally read a letter from Steve Farrell, the regional secretary of the Community trade union. I do not know whether you have seen the letter—have you seen it, by the way?

This is Mr Farrell’s view. He says that

“the Scottish Escort Contract is a commercial contract that if all parties involved apply honesty and integrity, then it is a contract that was designed to fail”.

Was it a contract designed to fail?

I will follow up on some of that. The convener did not ask whether you are currently facing legal action; he asked whether you have taken legal advice about the possibility that action on the basis of human rights might come. That was his question.

Are you planning for the possibility—or not—of such action being taken?