Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials.

We need to put on record that we are working to the Government’s timetable and that it has been the Government’s decision to leave the bill until the end of this parliamentary session. The committee does not have a choice in that regard. However, I would have liked to have seen the bill being considered much earlier in the session, and I think that every other member would probably agree with me on that.

I return to the convener’s point. I expect various amendments on the board to be lodged. The bill will establish a board, which other people will potentially join as a result of those amendments. Will you not need to come back to the committee after stage 3 with that anyway? Does that not present an opportunity for the Government to lay orders on what will be a reformed board? Given everything that you have outlined, would delaying the order until stage 2 not be more sensible, because by then we will have a clearer view of the political consensus on what the board structure would look like? As the convener has outlined, we are talking about a matter of weeks.

I am not sure whether the cabinet secretary will be able to directly answer this question, given her wife’s involvement, but how has the attainment Scotland fund been supporting outcomes for care-experienced young people? Specifically, how have outcomes been evaluated?

It is about positive destinations, and whether the Government would look at reviewing both voluntary work and activity agreements in that context. The Government says that those are positive destinations—they can come to an end, but the Government thinks that those young people are in a positive destination.

I have concerns about the possibility that, in Lothian, the Government’s target on waiting lists is being met only because people are being re-evaluated in order to remove them from those lists and send them to third sector services.

I want to move on, although I do not know whether the cabinet secretary can answer this point.

If the proposals go forwards, they will result in 20 per cent of the university staff losing their jobs. These concerns became apparent last November. Does the Government intend to be directly involved in the development of a recovery plan? Specifically, in relation to the £15 million that the Government has made available, are ministers looking to offer bridging loans for other organisations? We are seeing university after university come forward with financial difficulties. The Government will need to respond to that.

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the potential impact on state schools of the United Kingdom Government’s decision to make independent schools liable for VAT, how it plans to use any Barnett consequential funding resulting from this decision to support state schools. (S6O-04395)

This issue is becoming a growing concern in Edinburgh in particular. In a response to me, the cabinet secretary has said that, already, 79 pupils from the independent sector have enrolled in the state sector. Moreover, in response to the Education, Children and Young People Committee, she gave the detail that around 40 per cent of all pupils who attend independent schools in Scotland are in Edinburgh. If we finally get clarification from the UK Government on Barnett consequentials, will she commit to allocating 40 per cent of that funding to the City of Edinburgh Council, which is the council that will be most impacted?

On Monday evening, we met some young people who have navigated the system. We got some really good feedback on some of the reforms, which we will capture and put on the record.

Given the conversation that we have just had, I will go back to the UCAS application process. On Monday, a suggestion was put to us on self-identification. Does the UCAS application form provide an opportunity to improve and broaden out the ability to self-identify early on? A number of people said that they did not think that it was fair to use SIMD20 as the measurement. They thought that taking a case-by-case approach, broadening it out and using school feedback on individuals would be far better. What are your thoughts on using the application process to do that?

Going back to John Mason’s point, some of the young people whom we spoke to on Monday evening referred to the UCAS application form. Although they do not tick boxes on that form, could there be boxes to enable them to do so, to perhaps passport them to a system in which they need not constantly repeat their stories? They felt that stigmatisation was almost built into the system. Do you have any thoughts on that? How could the issue be addressed at the very starting point, when people are applying for a course?

It was about the UCAS application form. There is a “care experienced” box for people to tick, but there are other characteristics that could be identified at the very starting point—