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Subsequent to our visit to the University of Dundee last week, there was an announcement about the major grant of £30 million from the UK Government for the protein phosphorylation and ubiquitylation unit—I will not say that again—at the university. We were made very welcome at the university.

Liz Smith has touched on issues around international talent, and we have heard your comments about recruitment. I was particularly concerned to ask about the management at the university and about where opportunities might arise for longer-term Dundonians—not new Dundonians, necessarily—to be involved in work and growth opportunities. The whole witness panel is concerned about the opportunities that arise from that kind of funding.

The university management pointed out a few issues with the withdrawal of upskilling funding and the mainstreaming of graduate apprenticeship funding into the core grant—essentially, the cut of that grant. Do you feel that opportunities for the development of talent in Scotland and for Scots to get employment through those major grants have been maintained? What can we do to improve those opportunities?

In a conversation that I had with a vice-chancellor recently, they said to me that they believe that 14 of the 19 institutions that you represent are in significant financial strife. Do you recognise that figure?

What will the repercussions of that be?

All the committee’s evidence sessions in this inquiry are about taking a strategic approach to the use of public finances in Scotland. Overall, given the short-term and medium-term consequences that you describe—and, to be frank, the long-term trajectory—do you think that a strategic approach is being taken to the financing of our tertiary education in Scotland?

I will stick with the same issue. Last week’s announcements were a source of significant dismay for many people who were here to talk about a strategic approach to the budget, but what Richard Robinson has just said, on behalf of Audit Scotland, is that taking a set amount of money and using it to pay for recurring spending is a pretty short-term approach.

In October 2023, Audit Scotland said that

“The Scottish Government’s projections suggest that it cannot afford to pay for public services in their current form”

and that the Scottish Government’s approach to planning for future workforce and pay costs

“will not address current and future capacity challenges and is unlikely to balance public finances.”

Do you think that the Scottish Government has heeded those warnings?

A year previously, in November 2022, Audit Scotland said that

“Rising costs and increasing demands mean that the Scottish Government has to closely and carefully manage its position”

and that

“The pace and scale of reform required across the public sector needs to increase.”

However, there does not seem to be any evidence that those warnings have been heeded. I have a list of various reports from Audit Scotland over the years, and it does not seem that the Scottish Government is responding to those in any way by looking at finances even in the medium term.

What in-year adjustments in the budget externally required the most recent revisions last week?

Those impacts are magnified by the fact that we have a larger public sector in Scotland and wages that are already higher than they are south of the border, so paying 5 per cent of a higher number and to more people is more significant.

We took some very good evidence in Dundee recently from young people about their priorities for the Scottish budget. Their top priority was employment opportunities and careers. I was struck by the fact that that echoed evidence that we had taken from you on 19 September last year, Professor Heald, when you said that

“Having an economy that makes the people whom we have educated at great expense want to stay in Scotland”—[Official Report, Finance and Public Administration Committee, 19 September 2023; c 15.]

would be your strategic priority. Is the Scottish Government succeeding in that regard on the basis of the evidence? That seemed to be one of the principal concerns of the young people whom the committee met in Dundee.

Colleagues have commented on the significant reserves that are held by a small proportion of those universities. Some universities have significant reserves and others have next to nothing. There is a risk to employment and to the economic benefit to the whole country. You have a responsibility to represent the whole sector and to tell the good story about it. However, if there are significant job losses in some areas, the breadth of the sector in that regard will be a significant public policy challenge, will it not? It is also a challenge for you to represent coherently to us the risks that are at play.