Chamber and committees

That topic has come up at committee previously. An extensive effort has been made to tackle that thorny issue, which has dogged the college sector for the best part of a decade.

As a positive, I think that everybody who is involved recognises that continuing as they have is not, in any way, to be welcomed, to put it mildly. There is a commitment to try to move things on. We have made considerable progress on what that might look like, and we have progressed things to the point at which trade unions have been working in conjunction with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, and there has been a session on behaviours across the national bargaining process. That work is on-going.

Work has also been undertaken with College Employers Scotland to review the national recognition and procedure agreement and to consider how that could be strengthened to support improvements in national bargaining. However, two trade unions have served notice that they intend to resign from the current NRPA, as they no longer feel that it is fit for purpose, which leaves two unions that are aligned with it and two that are moving away from it. Unfortunately, we have an internal issue with the trade unions’ commitment to the processes. I would be deeply disappointed if we could not get into a better space. I still see that as an imperative, and the recognition is there from all parties.

Touch wood, things have quietened down in the sector. We have a long-term agreement with the lecturers and the employers, and I know that negotiations between support staff and employers have been on-going for some time. I am afraid that that is not much of an update, Mr Kidd, but that is where we are at.

So am I. On Monday, I met Baroness Smith from the UK Government, whose engagement with me I appreciated. I said two things to her about the issue: that I understood that difficult decisions had to be made in government in challenging financial circumstances, but that the decision was deeply disappointing and concerning. As Mr Adam has alluded to, the Turing scheme has been welcome. It has not been a replacement for Erasmus+, and it was never going to be, but it has been incredibly important and it has also been oversubscribed. I expected that the reduction in funding would be announced today, but I was not sure that it would be this early in the day. It will be the cause of significant concern, particularly for our universities and colleges.

Scotland’s share of the Turing funding has reduced over the three years that the scheme has been in operation, while the demand from Scottish institutions and organisations has increased. You will forgive me—I need to digest the announcement in its totality and have conversations with those who will be impacted by it, which I am sure will happen over the next few days—but there is no doubt that it is a significant setback.

I will reiterate what I said earlier about ministers and their distance from this matter, in terms of legislation and issues such as ONS classification. My understanding is that there have been, and continue to be, conversations between the institution and commercial lenders.

On the topic of recovery—which is the word that is used rather than “clawback”, Mr Briggs—the SFC has done a lot of work on that with the college sector, particularly through the tripartite alignment group. That work has been extremely successful.

However, there is a point at which leaving public money that recirculates in the education system in institutions that have underperformed—I will come back to that point—cannot be justified without evidence that they are seeking not to underperform. There have been some instances in which that has been the case and some flexibility has been provided.

I am sure that the topic will be explored in greater detail in the tripartite group. There are limitations to what can be done, given the financial pressures that we are all aware of. Nevertheless, where universities are doing innovative things in the areas that you have referred to, and in others, there is an argument for a bit of understanding. I am sure that that will be explored further through the tripartite group.

We do not want to see job losses on any scale, but one issue that we have in our universities—and which I alluded to when I was last before the committee—is that a number of them have adopted the approach of taking on several hundred staff on the back of an emerging market, and then shedding several hundred staff if circumstances change. Frankly, the universities need to get out of that situation, because it is not healthy at all.

The difference between Edinburgh and Dundee is that substantial job losses were required at the University of Dundee, but the situation was so serious that there was a question mark over the institution’s future. We were talking about saving a critical university in Scotland, so the two examples are not comparable, but I take your point about the scale of the job losses that are being talked about at Edinburgh.

As I have said, I am not going to be dragged into a disagreement between two trade unions—that is not the role of ministers. My job is to try to facilitate that overarching piece of work to get the industrial relations within the sector—not between trade unions, but within the sector—to a better place.

There is no doubt that there has been a long-standing mistrust and distrust between the trade unions and senior management, which has not been helped by the events that we are discussing. The nature of some of the engagement with the trade unions has been quite concerning and it has not necessarily matched what we would have hoped for or expected. More recently, there have been some hopeful signs that it is improving.

With regard to the timescale, I should say, by the way, that I was not hinting that the meeting this afternoon would be to decide on that ask. All I will say is that we have been well aware of the urgency of the matter and the need to provide a bit of confidence and certainty. The Government will move as quickly as it can to deal with the ask. As I have said, there are two elements to it, and one might take a bit longer to deal with than the other.

On and off, it has been there. It certainly predated my time as minister, too. However, we are increasing our focus on potentially using such a number, not least because our university colleagues believe that there would be some merit in it. That said, that work is not without its challenges—it is not straightforward.

The reliance on international students that might be baked into the financial recovery plan is a matter for the SFC to look at—and it has been doing so, because it is a valid point. However, you are right to point to the factors that are outwith what we might have reasonably expected to be factored into the FRP, such as fresh pronouncements on the direction of travel in relation to inward migration. As universities will tell you, it is a fact that even conversations instigated by Government around international students have a detrimental effect. Universities pick that up in their numbers; people say, “We’re not wanted there, so we’ll go elsewhere.” There is no doubt that the pronouncements in the white paper fall into that space and, if enacted, certainly have the potential to deliver further detriment to the sector.

So, you are absolutely right. Making that sort of assessment might take a bit longer as we look at the projections underpinning some of this and interrogate whether they will hold up under the stressors that are potentially coming down the track in the next six months to a year. That level of interrogation is going on.