Chamber and committees

As is the case across the public sector, there is an urgent need to do maintenance and so on, but colleges have been coming up in that respect year after year. Why has the plan been so delayed?

Are the lowered thresholds likely to impact on the needs of students or local employers?

I want to look at the SFC funding model. Paragraph 29 on page 14 of your briefing sets out what action SFC has taken to help to take some of the pressure off colleges. There are four main items, one or two of which we spoke about earlier. However, the briefing says:

“It is too early to say whether these changes will help colleges to reach a more sustainable financial position.”

Do you have a view on the extent to which you consider that the changes will help colleges?

I suppose that tucking away the money in an ALF is not an option.

The point that was made was that jellyfish tend to form a cloud, for want of a better word. There will be a whole pack of them together. The power stations boast that, in the aggregate, they can track almost anything.

This question is maybe a wee bit off the wall. When you were talking earlier about the impact of jellyfish, it brought to mind a similar situation that has been resolved elsewhere. The cross-party group on space, of which I am convener, discussed this very same problem in relation to power stations. Power stations require the satellite tracking of jellyfish; they need to know days in advance that the jellyfish are coming down the line so that they can prepare and close up to prevent them from being taken into the intake ducts. Apparently, the technology is very simple and already in place. Would something like that not be useful for the salmon industry? It would give you knowledge days in advance of where the jellyfish are and where they are coming from; their migratory routes and everything else would be tracked; and you would have plenty of time to prepare.

Just to clarify, what evidence is there for the assertion that there has been a reduction in the amount of chemicals and waste as a result of the framework? Do we have any evidence, and if so, who is collecting it?

At the moment, does the information come from the companies?

Yet there has been criticism of SEPA’s capacity to do the analysis.

It is clear that that is an on-going issue. How will the situation be resolved? Is dialogue taking place between the interested parties? How will that play out?