I will move on. I looked at the financial sustainability project papers that were submitted, which date from April 2024, and at the courses that were cut over that period—including in the schools-college programme and FE and HE courses—and I could not get my head around why those courses were cut. Is it because you could not afford the courses due to their technicality? Was it the cost of the staff, and if you lose a member of staff who teaches that course, you obviously lose the course? Was it simply that you were struggling to recruit adequate student numbers to make the courses financially viable? That would surprise me because horticulture, skills for work, construction, accounting, software, web technologies and environmental sciences are all growth areas in the Scottish economy, but those are the areas where you are making cuts. It makes no sense to me.

That is extremely helpful—thank you. From a constituent’s point of view, they are still sitting on a waiting list and wondering why their health board is making savings. That is the crux of my question. We know that five boards are sitting at level 3 intervention and one is at level 4. Is there any evidence that that situation will improve any time soon?

In your professional view, is there any evidence that those boards will be able to repay the loans in future? I point to exhibit 6 in the report, which indicates an on-going remaining deficit for the next three financial years within each of those boards. There does not therefore seem to be any evidence that any of those boards will either break even or make a surplus, or have any ability to repay that money without finding it from further savings down the line.

In your view, and without revisiting any of the ground that we have covered a lot of today already, what is the primary reason for the college’s inability to break even?

I am struggling with the terminology. In what way is cutting staff a benefit?

I am not criticising you for taking the actions that you have had to take. I appreciate that these were extraordinarily difficult financial circumstances, so please do not assume that any of my questions are in any way loaded. I am, however, trying to understand what drove the Auditor General to produce the report that he had to produce, given the wider financial circumstances that the college was in.

The last time that the college made a small surplus or broke even was in 2022. In order to make ends meet year on year—which is clearly where things have gone awry over the past few years—how many staff, whether academic, professional or at management level, have been cut from the college since 2022?

You have stated on the record in this committee and publicly elsewhere that you believe that there might be areas of healthcare provision that the NHS provides at the moment but which might not be offered in future. We can perhaps pick your brains on that some other day.

Going back to the finances, I was intrigued to see that you report nearly £700 million of savings in a single year across the NHS. That is a marked increase on previous years. Do we have any understanding of how boards have made those savings? Savings can sometimes be a dangerous word. What kind of things have been cut? We know that staff costs have gone up and that some salary settlement agreements have been reached, so there will have been no savings in that regard. Equally, we know that some waiting lists have come down, which will have required investment. Where are the savings being made? What do they look and feel like in the NHS on a daily basis?

Thank you. I might come back in later, convener.

Thank you very much for that. I echo those comments because it has clearly been a tremendous turnaround in difficult circumstances, which has been evident in today’s session and the written submissions that you have given us.

This is the Public Audit Committee, so I want to briefly see where we are at with budget-setting processes. The Auditor General focused entirely on 2023-24, but when reading the papers I got a sense that there were some recurring issues around setting a budget in 2024-25, which are evident in the minutes from October. One board member said that they would

“not be comfortable in passing a Budget”

because there was not a three-year cash-flow plan.

There were lots of discussions about how difficult it would be to produce a cash-flow plan, because the previous year’s issues were still issues in that financial year, which was not long ago. In fact, even at that board meeting, the board did not approve a budget. At the end of October—midway through the year—a budget had still not been set, which I am sure that the auditors will look at.

Where are we at the moment? Is there a better atmosphere in the board discussions? Do you feel more comfortable understanding your cash flow, so that you can make those projections properly and come to an agreement that budgets—using the best knowledge available to you—will be set more promptly, and another section 22 report can be avoided in the future?

That is very helpful.

This is my final question, convener. What does the future of UHI Perth look like? Many colleges have been explicit with the Parliament, other stakeholders and the Government that they may hit a financial wall and cease to be going concerns in the future. That is not a situation that anybody in any of our local areas wants to see for our local colleges, and I am sure that the same is true in Perth.

Given what we have heard today about some of the issues that are outside your control, you surely must be left in quite a perilous financial position now. I am thinking of your relationship with UHI; the top-slicing model, which has been criticised by many board members over the years; the cap on your FE credits, the flat-cash settlement from Government; your indirect relationship with the Funding Council; and the fact that you have pretty much maximised cost savings to the bare bones. What does the future look like?