The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 768 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 24 May 2023
Willie Rennie
You have obviously overcome them, because 5,000 people have benefited from the programme over the past year. Is that correct? You have obviously had some success.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Willie Rennie
You will have heard me talk about this before, but, with regard to research performance, our UK Research Council funding has dropped from 15 to 12.5 per cent. We were brilliant at this before—brilliant—and we are still good, but we are going down. Surely that indicates managed decline. If that position is then reinforced with a massive cut to the budget and a flat-cash situation, it is not really an indication that you are fully committed to universities—which are a major generator of economic performance, are they not?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Willie Rennie
That is all fine, but do you not think that it might just be a little too late? The colleges are already in a flat-cash situation, and the £46 million that they thought was coming is not. They are going to be making decisions right now about what to do, which positions to keep and which to remove, which departments to focus on and so on. Those decisions will be made without your having a single say, so is there not a danger that all of this is too late? Sally Mapstone at the University of St Andrews has been talking about a “managed decline”. Are you not concerned that you might just be too late to the party, that all the decisions will have been taken and that you will have had no say over any of them?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Willie Rennie
I have one more question. Are you going to do an Erasmus replacement?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 17 May 2023
Willie Rennie
Welcome to your position, minister. It is good to see you on that side of the fence.
I feel sorry for you, because you have taken on a portfolio that is mired in confusion and delay, and it has been for some years. A characteristic of your contribution, which has been impressive so far, is that you have talked about taking quick actions. That will be a dramatic change from recent years. There is no international strategy for the higher education sector. There is no final purpose and principles statement—it was promised in the spring and is still not here. There is no skills alignment—it was promised six years ago and we still do not have it. Although you talked about flexibilities for the college sector, we do not have substantial change on that, other than what you mentioned.
My concern is that, on top of that, you have a £46 million cut. How will that help all of that? How will it help the college and university sectors to plan for the longer term, which you have acknowledged that you would like to happen?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Willie Rennie
No, I can conclude on this point. It is connected with the question about what additional resource will be required to provide the extra places in the secure units. Minister, you have indicated the scale of the issue, but have you done calculations of what will be required in the secure units?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Willie Rennie
Oh, were they?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Willie Rennie
Right.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Willie Rennie
Okay—that is fine.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 3 May 2023
Willie Rennie
I welcome the minister to her new position. Do you have an estimate of how many additional places in secure units we will require as a result of the change?