Chamber and committees

I do not have the email chain in front of me—I think that Mr Rennie’s point was informed by that chain, as well as perhaps the report in The Courier. Without seeing that, I am not sure that there was a suggestion in it to cut the figure per se. I think that there was a negotiation between the SFC and the Government—this is just my memory, so I will have to check back, convener—to assess what was required at that moment to assist the university.

I appreciate that some of those emails have been released and that some of them are redacted, which does not help to shed light on the issue—I accept that. However, I can say that there was a communication between the SFC and the Government at that time, during the budget process, to move at pace to provide that extra funding. That was provided, and then there was the £22 million liquidity request. I do not necessarily accept that there was a decision to reduce the amount. From memory, this would have been advice that was given to ministers by the SFC at that time.

I am more than happy to do that. I accept the committee’s on-going interest in this issue and I very much share it. I am happy to share as much as I am able to with the committee. We will meet the SFC later today, and if I can shed further light on our engagement with the SFC and the next steps, I will do so. Timescales are important here and we need to move at pace. I am happy to provide that information in writing to the committee.

You did.

The modelling that I have is two years old and puts the estimated cost at £256 million. I am more than happy to engage with political parties on how we deliver universality, but members well know, as we have discussed and debated at length, that that will not be during this session of Parliament because of the costs associated with the roll-out. However, the Government has taken the decision to work on a cross-party basis on the deliverability of the roll-out for children in receipt of the Scottish child payment. Today’s SSI will allow us to move forward at pace on that and will allow more families to obtain access to free school meals provision, which I think is a good thing for families and children in Scotland.

The committee knows that there are challenges across the higher education sector. We can go on to talk about what some of those challenges are, if the committee would like, but I am conscious that you are taking evidence from someone else following my session.

There are challenges at the University of Edinburgh. We have been engaging with that university under the auspices of the SFC. Remember that the funding that we provided to the SFC was for institutions—plural—in relation to some of the challenges. We very much recognise that the University of Dundee at the current time has a unique challenge that in no small part relates to its own finances and decisions that it took. The University of Edinburgh is in a separate space, but it still has its own challenges, and its principal has set out some of those. We have been engaged with that institution via the SFC, which we will continue to engage with on how we can support the institution more broadly.

I am not aware of a financial ask from the University of Edinburgh. However, as I have said, I am meeting the SFC this afternoon, so I can interrogate that matter further with the SFC on Mr Briggs’s behalf.

In the update that I provide to the committee in relation to Mr Rennie’s line of questioning, I will be more than happy to include details about the University of Edinburgh as well.

If the budget settlement from the UK Government was so generous, I am at a bit of a loss to understand why Ms Duncan-Glancy and her party abstained on the Scottish budget, which commits the Scottish Government—as does the SSI—to moving forward and doing more. I gave the example of the City of Edinburgh Council. In that local authority area alone, we expect thousands of families to benefit from the SSI. The instrument commits the Government to moving on the budget that was negotiated with and voted for by the Parliament—in other words, it commits us to progress.

I could sit back and allow local authorities to use the data-sharing measures that they currently use, but we know that those do not capture most families who receive the Scottish child payment. The SSI will ensure that local authorities have the data that they need to deliver on the funding that we have provided through the budget in relation to the Scottish child payment.

I agree with Ms Duncan-Glancy’s overall point about universality. She well knows the inflationary pressures that the Government was forced to contend with in 2021, which have made everything much more expensive. Building kitchens, for example, is now much more expensive than it was three years ago. There have been other costs that we have had to meet, not least in relation to pay deals, which has affected the budget that I have had to manage and what we have been able to pay for.

From a personal perspective as cabinet secretary, I deeply regret the fact that we have not been able to deliver universality. It remains an aspiration and a commitment of the Government. I am pleased that we are making progress in relation to the roll-out of the Scottish child payment. The SSI is the next step in our commitment to universal roll-out, and the Government stands by that.

We are considering such options. Ms Duncan-Glancy is absolutely correct to say that, if we have 32 different councils doing 32 different things, the process will take a lot longer. The SSI will allow our councils to move at pace.

Deliverability is key. It is our expectation that the measure will be delivered. I have spoken about the funding that has been made available in last year’s budget and this year’s budget, but the SSI enables the data to be shared and allows councils to get on with it. If we allowed local authorities to do their own thing, it would be much more challenging for them to obtain that data and to work with families. As I understand it, Social Security Scotland will provide the information directly to education authorities as soon as the SSI comes into force on 19 May. That will allow them to move at pace and to contact the families in question directly.

I think that there is learning that could be taken from what we are doing here, and I accept the point about a unique learner number.

I think that Mr Rennie’s puzzlement may be informed by the release of emails in response to a freedom of information request. It is quite difficult to understand the full story but, as I understand it, two weeks ago, Richard Maconachie came to the committee and said that the Scottish Funding Council was working with the Scottish Government to identify how the £22 million could be put together. As I understand it from having been on the copy list, there were negotiations at that time between the SFC and the Government to identify how the £22 million could be made available, and that was done through £15 million in the budget and the extra £10 million that I made available, giving a total of £25 million, so the full funding ask was met.

No—nothing.