Chamber and committees

Thank you.

Convener, I defer to you. I have an overall interest in the topic and a number of lines of questioning. Do you want to continue?

Thank you, convener, and thanks to Fulton MacGregor for the opening statement. I dropped my request to speak in the chat box before you had completed your presentation, so you partially answered my question towards the end of your opening statement. I was looking at the range of organisations that have signed up for the proposed cross-party group. They are pretty varied, which made me think that there are lots of different voices in the social work system. That can make it difficult for social work to speak with one voice in relation to policy development; some voices might inadvertently be squeezed out.

You mentioned the drug deaths crisis, the national care service and other active on-going policy areas. Do you think that the cross-party group would contribute to ensuring that the social work community has a strong voice at the heart of those policy developments? I was on the committee that brought self-directed support to Scotland. There is probably a need for some post-legislative scrutiny of it and how it is operating in practice. The group will not be a subject committee of the Parliament, but do you think that there is a role for the cross-party group in teasing out some of the strengths and the areas that need to be improved in relation to self-directed support?

I am sorry for the length of my question. I hope that you see it as a positive question, because I am genuinely interested in the role that the cross-party group could play and I want to give you the chance to put some of that on the record.

I am content, convener. I have appreciated Professor Stobart’s evidence, but thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, convener. I will be brief.

Good morning, Professor Stobart. There is a suggestion that we should remove national 5 exams in S4. Do you still anticipate there being nat 5 exams in S5, or would they go altogether? That could narrow choice for those who decide to leave formal education after S4. Could there be issues for discrete subject provision in S3 and S4 if we removed nat 5s? Does it have to be a binary choice in relation to removing nat 5s? For example, could we not see nat 5 exams more as an end-of-course external assessment that would give people the course award if they passed, while those who had been continually assessed appropriately through the year could still get the same course award? Could we not expand choice rather than restrict it?

I have a few brief questions about college regionalisation and some of the underpinning budgets of colleges more generally.

I remember, many years ago, being at what was then Springburn College, where the then minister, Alasdair Allan, was talking with students ahead of the regionalisation process. One of the ambitions was that curriculum planning would be a lot clearer, so that students could move seamlessly between colleges in the one region, where courses would not duplicate each other but would complement and align, and where course credit requirements would articulate with each other. That would empower students. I do not know what progress has been made on that, but is it something that you have considered? Has that ambition been realised? I will turn to finances and future reforms in a moment.

That would be helpful. Given that we are talking about essential further reforms, I was wondering whether that initial ambition had been realised.

I turn to another aspect of college regionalisation. We have Glasgow Kelvin College, Glasgow Clyde College and the City of Glasgow College, and my constituents go to and benefit from all three of those colleges, although the offers are slightly different at each college. We also have a regional board in Glasgow, which has a staffing budget of around £300,000 to £320,000 a year to run the board.

I had always thought that the colleges in Glasgow could have direct relationships with each other and that they could have the capacity to develop their own workstreams in relation to a strategic approach to courses within the city. Does Audit Scotland have any thoughts as to whether the structures in place after regionalisation are—I would not use the expression “fit for purpose”—appropriate in the current environment?

That is helpful. I will follow on from some of Willie Rennie’s comments on regionalisation. I shared some—not all—of his concerns, including that there could be centralisation. Glasgow Clyde College and, in my constituency, Glasgow Kelvin College, are anchor organisations and community-based colleges. I have praised City of Glasgow College but, such is its scale, it is more of a large, west of Scotland regional college. Many members of the Scottish Parliament would have concerns if we were to lose the community-based college aspects that Glasgow Clyde College and Glasgow Kelvin College offer. Has Audit Scotland looked at the strength of community-based colleges under the regionalisation model? I will turn to the finances in relation to that in a moment. First, has Audit Scotland looked at how the structures suit that community-based approach to college education? That is vital in my constituency.

I hope that you do not mind my raising that, but, as a Glasgow MSP who represents Maryhill and Springburn, I would be concerned if Glasgow lost three independent colleges. Although two of them are smaller in scale, they are absolutely grounded in the communities in which they are based and we would lose something if they went—that would not be efficiency, because we would be throwing something out.

The funding position of colleges is interesting. In 2019-20, there was a 2 per cent real-terms increase in the revenue funding of colleges and, in 2020-21, there was an additional £70 million, mainly in response to the impact of the Covid pandemic and to tackle the problems faced by students. I also got a bit confused over the undoubted financial challenge that still exists for colleges. A £54 million deficit is mentioned, which is predominantly due to pensions and other liabilities that sit there, but once that is stripped away, although colleges had been looking at a £9 million deficit for the past financial year, they are now saying that that has turned into a £3 million surplus.

I am sorry for throwing the numbers that you have reported on back at you, but I am looking at a 2 per cent real-terms increase, an additional £70 million for the year 2021-22 and your report of a financial position that is better than colleges thought that it would be, yet on the one hand there is a £54 million deficit, while on the other there is a £9 million surplus. When the Scottish budget is published, this committee has to consider whether the settlement for Scotland’s colleges is adequate, but those numbers do not really give us clarity on the financial position for Scotland’s colleges.

That is incredibly helpful. Thank you for taking the time—

Convener, I will try to keep it brief. I know that I have had a lot of air time. Rebecca Seidel’s explanation about stripping out some liabilities to get a more accurate, real-time assessment of colleges’ finances was helpful. As we scrutinise the budget, it is helpful to understand that there is an estimated £9 million surplus rather than a £54 million deficit.

Finally, I turn to attainment, which I have not yet mentioned. We know that attainment gaps exist in colleges as well. I am conscious that the fantastic Glasgow Kelvin College, in my constituency, has an attainment rate of 60 per cent and has strong positive destination outcomes. There are other colleges with higher attainment rates, but Glasgow Kelvin is top-heavy in terms of students who come from Scottish index of multiple deprivation 10 and SIMD 20 areas.

I see that the Scottish Government wants attainment levels to reach a target of 75 per cent over the next few years; attainment is currently at 66 per cent across Scotland. When Audit Scotland and others look at the outcomes for colleges and the attainment gaps, do they take into account the poverty-related attainment gap in Scotland’s communities as it presents in colleges? There might be a case for additional funding—perhaps a system of pupil equity funding—for colleges, in order to address that. Any comments on that would be helpful.

I will not come back in after this question, convener.