Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary and team. You have already spoken to us about the necessity of moving money from one budget area to another because of the tightness of the budget at certain levels. However, we are told that the budget has set a cut of £23.5 million for the overall lifelong learning and skills budget, £13.7 million of which is coming from the skills budget line, including through cuts to grant funding for supporting young people into employment, education and training. The Scottish Government has been very happy to push developing the skills and abilities of people who are not in universities but who might be using colleges to boost their skills training and so on. What impact do you believe that those cuts will have on achieving the ambitions of the skills system reform?

I understand. Thank you.

The cabinet secretary and her officials have already covered a great deal of the issues to do with dealings with local authorities after the budget. However, what specific discussions have you had with local authority representatives on how the budget settlement will support the delivery and improvement of education and children’s services? The question is not about the difficulties that you have had; it is about how the budget will make improvements in children’s learning.

Well, it is.

Thank you very much indeed for that.

That would certainly help us. It is good to hear about good blending together and working together. I take it that university and college principal representation on the ministerial group on education and skills reform has also been beneficial.

It has been an interesting discussion. A couple of things that I was thinking of asking have pretty much been covered already, but it does not do any harm to go over things a wee bit again.

Minister, on 5 December last year, you said that a tripartite group between the Government, the Scottish Funding Council and college principals had been established to improve engagement among them. How has the impact of that benefited those in education?

That makes a lot of sense. College and university principals would want to be involved in that. Is further and higher education union representation being considered?

Yes.

That is great. Thank you.