Chamber and committees

I want to clarify that. The report came out in August, it will be November tomorrow, and the group has not met to discuss the report that you are giving evidence on this morning.

Let us not deal with generalities, then; let us deal with specifics. In paragraphs 35 and 36 of the report—I remind you that it was published just in August of this year, so it is quite recent—it says:

“The joint digital strategy lacks a clear plan and accountability and is now to be refreshed amidst difficult public finances”.

It continues:

“The Scottish Government and COSLA joint strategy lacks a delivery plan that sets out the detailed actions that are needed, who is responsible for them, and timescales or monitoring arrangements.”

How do you respond to that?

Thank you very much indeed.

I will begin by asking a question for information. I want to get an understanding of why the annual audit reports of a number of colleges—University of the Highlands and Islands colleges and Forth Valley College, I think—are not included in the report. Are there reasons for that?

No—thank you for correcting the record.

It might not be your role, but perhaps you could help by pointing the committee to whose role it is to look at the equality impact of some of these cuts to courses and the types of courses that are made available. As you say, for many people, colleges are a bridge to employment, a bridge to retraining and, frankly, a bridge away from social isolation. Do you have any plans to look at that? Is it appropriate that another part of the public sector infrastructure looks at that, so that we can have a better understanding of the contraction in funding that you highlight in the briefing? It does not have an equal impact, does it?

On the point about catching up, do we know that the terms of the job evaluation, which, as you say, has been going on for nearly a decade, includes back pay?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of the Auditor General for Scotland’s briefing on “Scotland’s colleges 2024”. We are joined this morning by our witnesses: Stephen Boyle is the Auditor General for Scotland and, from Audit Scotland, we have Mark MacPherson, audit director; Tricia Meldrum, senior manager; and Shelagh Stewart, audit manager. You are all very welcome.

We have a number of questions to put to you, but first of all, I invite the Auditor General to make an opening statement.

At this point, I remind members of my voluntary register of trade union interests.

I have some questions that move us on from people who have left and who have been made redundant, to those who remain and their treatment. In your briefing, you highlight the outstanding pay dispute with support staff and the pay dispute with the lecturing staff, which has even greater longevity. I will not rehearse the politics of this point, but it has been raised many times with the Government that it stepped in with national health service staff and with teachers but seems very reluctant to step in to resolve this dispute. However, the point that you make in your briefing is about the impact that that has had on learners. Can you give us more information about your assessment of that?

Do you know how far back that would go?

Maybe we need to ask that question of other people.