Chamber and committees

No, but you will abandon the university sector.

Sticking with the SQA, what does the cabinet secretary define as the improved outcomes from having a new qualifications agency?

Indeed, and noting that, does the SQA as currently constituted have a role in developing the future operating model of a new qualifications agency?

Yes—does the SQA take a role in what the future will look like?

The new one that will replace it.

It does. I know that one of my colleagues wants to explore that further.

The subject of funding was brought up earlier and I have a specific question about college funding. The Auditor General for Scotland recently told the Public Audit Committee

“The viability of the college sector is challenged ... in order to address that challenge, the Government and the Funding Council need to have a clear plan for what the future model of provision looks like.”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 26 October 2023; c 4.]

Will there be such a plan? If so, when?

I will carry on. You talked about colleges becoming sustainable and perhaps becoming more specialised—I am paraphrasing entirely. James Withers told the committee that the college sector is a

“burning platform in relation to finance and sustainability.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 15 November 2023; c 49.]

He was worried that there might be a more chaotic reorganisation of the sector based on the law of natural selection. You have obviously painted a very different picture, which is much more drawn out and more managed, but is James Withers right to be concerned? How can you reassure us that such a chaotic reorganisation is not in the offing?

Finally, you talked about an opportunity to move quickly, and it sounds like there is that need. Strathesk Re:solution’s lessons learned report, which was commissioned by the Scottish Government, on national collective bargaining in colleges was released on 25 March 2022. When do you expect to publish a plan to take forward the recommendations that were in that report?

That is right.