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Of course, there has been dialogue between officials on progressing the matter, but we are meeting next week to try to make significant progress.

I think that we can all see the scope that there would be for improvement.

I will bring in my officials to answer that in detail, because they have been involved.

Not just in Brussels. The strengths of our universities include their international contacts and the respect in which they are held. That is one of the reasons that I want to utilise what they can bring to the table to develop the programme in the best possible way.

Going back to Willie Rennie’s point about my predecessor, I should say that, when there is a change of minister, the incoming minister wants to look closely at what is on their desk, as I have done. That might have held up this process a little as well. I want to be absolutely clear on the best approach to take, and we are not quite there yet. I want to take a little more time to be convinced about the best way to go, which includes having those conversations with universities, colleges and the youth sector so that we get things right.

They would not have been able to use it for a voluntary severance scheme. I said that previously. The flat cash settlement is the colleges’ core funding. The £26 million was for transition projects, the nature of which were still under discussion with the Scottish Funding Council. The colleges would not have been able to use that money for voluntary severance schemes.

As a minister, I would not engage directly in operational matters, but from the conversations that I have had when visiting colleges and in other meetings with college principals, as I understand it, principals have sought to protect the courses that are absolutely required to be protected. Those include the type of courses that you have highlighted. I specifically asked principals about that point, and they have been very clear with me about that. You might have examples, which I would be interested in, of where that is not the case, but for the most part, as far as I am aware, colleges and their principals have sought to protect those courses. However, as I said, if you have evidence to the contrary, I am happy to hear that.

In what sense?

I do not want to get into the specifics of one particular example, but you raised good points about the robust nature of oversight by college boards in any locality and about the role of the Scottish Funding Council.

I realise that there will come a point when I have to stop making this comment, but I have been in post for 12 weeks, so I am still getting my head around the nature of some of the processes that are followed. However, as I understand it, the SFC has given assurance that due process was followed in that example. I am alive to the very fractious nature of industrial relations that sees claims and counter-claims made. As politicians and as the Government, we have to deal in facts.

More generally, I am taking a keen interest in the form that college governance takes.

It is not necessary, at the moment, so I can understand why it is not happening. I have to look at what we might do in the future. I saw your reaction to my pointing out that anomaly, and I think that you get where I am coming from. We need to look at it.

There would be nothing to prevent their doing so.

It has not changed. It has always been that way. You said that the cabinet secretary at that point believed that there was no place for compulsory redundancies. My understanding is that the colleges were not bound by the policy.