Seòmar agus comataidhean

Certainly.

You are describing possible mergers.

Karen Watt, in response to Willie Rennie’s question, you talked about the consultative review. The college principals who have come in front of the committee have said that they do not have a clue what is happening with that. Who is the Government consulting?

Who is the Government consulting on the supposed statement of intent?

It is very useful, though, because this is an area that has not been particularly well explored or exposed. As far as I can tell, there is no appetite in the sector for mergers between universities and colleges, which I think would be extremely difficult. Is the Government keen on looking at such mergers?

We acknowledge the challenges and the great work that colleges did in that period. However, although the figures are worse for the pandemic period, they were pretty bad before it, as well. I would appreciate it if we could move on to that point.

There appears to be a significant gap between small colleges, which have better—although not fantastic, by any means—completion rates, and larger colleges, which have poorer completion rates. You have used the M-word. Are you concerned that, if there is a trend towards having bigger institutions, students might be lost in the process?

That is useful. Does Andrew Witty want to comment?

I think that the committee has had four college principals in front of it and I asked that question of them directly two weeks ago. They all said that they had had no involvement whatever in that process. It does not feel like proper consultation. Nothing has been written down.

I will move back to the issue of finances. I appreciate your most recent comments and answers on that, Karen Watt, because I feel that, at the start of the evidence session, to an extent, it was being indicated that the challenges seemed to be about national bargaining rather than the overall reduction. I would not like the message that comes out of the committee meeting to be that greedy staff are taking up resources. We must recognise that there has been a significant reduction in resource from Government to colleges over the past decade. That has come out more strongly in your recent answers.

You are being asked to do more. A couple of weeks ago, when the Scottish Qualifications Authority was before the committee, it said that colleges are very well placed to make up for lost learning—the significant lost learning in our schools. Shona Struthers, is that not another headwind for colleges, in the sense of the weight that is being added to colleges at a time when resource is being taken out?

Why are you averse to the M-word?