Chamber and committees

Thanks for that opening statement, minister. Why are we way behind Wales on this? Why does Wales have its scheme up and running while we are still discussing ours?

That is my point. I have raised this before. The performance of Scottish research, in terms of attracting UK research council funding, has dipped. We have been excellent at it—we are just not as good as we used to be.

I think that the universities are anxious that the Government perhaps does not fully understand the connection between research, applied science and economic opportunity. Although the minister has referred repeatedly to the budget challenges, that decline in performance on research predates all of that and is relative to the performance of the UK, which has faced the same financial envelope.

I just want some reassurance that the minister fully understands the value of research, that you are prepared to invest in the long run, that you will ensure that the new funding arrangements will take that into account, and that, given that Government is keen to re-engage with business and promote economic opportunity, research will be at the heart of it.

You are new in post, but there has been a higher and further education minister before, and it has taken a long time just to get to this stage.

I have been given numerous excuses by various ministers over time, including one about the free movement of people. I have tried to establish whether that is a real problem, and I cannot find any evidence that there is an issue in relation to free movement of people. Have you managed to find anything?

Okay. You did not quite say that you will pay for it. This is a Scottish National Party manifesto commitment; I would have thought that it would be funded from central funds.

I have more questions, convener, just to follow up on that.

To be blunt, minister, I do not think that your predecessor did very much on the scheme. I welcome your putting new energy into it and making a commitment on the pilot. That is good news. However, the scale of the pilot will be important. Bob Doris and others have mentioned ensuring that youth work is included in it. If we are to learn enough from the pilot, we will need to include all the sectors. Can it be guaranteed that they will all be included?

I think that the system in Wales is run by Cardiff University. My second question therefore is: do you propose to commission some other organisation to run the Scottish pilot and the eventual scheme in the long run?

Okay. I had hoped that you would have an understanding as to why the approach has changed.

Yes, but, at that point, they were further away from Government. The Office for National Statistics reclassification brought them closer to Government, so there was an opportunity to include them, but a decision was taken to separate them from bodies such as the Cairngorms National Park Authority, the Crofting Commission, the Risk Management Authority and Scottish Canals, which are bound by the policy. They are public sector bodies. Colleges are also public sector bodies, but a decision was taken to allow compulsory redundancies to take place. Surely, we must have an understanding as to why that happened.

That is unsatisfactory. I hope that you will write to us later on and give an explanation.

Okay—that is fine, convener.