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Mr Doris, I cannot sit here today and say that there will be Barnett consequentials or more money available, let alone that, if such became available, it could be recurring over the next two, three, four or five years. It would be impossible to say that. What I can say to you is that, from our perspective—and contrary to how they might be feeling right now, given what has happened—colleges are very much at the heart of what we are planning for the coming years. Where it is at all possible, we will look to support them to that end through the budget.

Let us deal in facts. In 2021-22, there were 322,332 enrolments at Scottish colleges—an increase of 16 per cent since 2019-20. Colleges delivered 129,559 full-time-equivalent places, which is an increase of 0.5 per cent since 2020-21. A substantial amount of money is put into colleges for student support—£135 million is maintained—because of the very poverty challenges that you are talking about. We have directed a lot of that funding to students from the poorer areas, but my point with regard to funding—

I want to answer the central point. It is not a case of the Government or me passing the buck. Part of the fine work that this committee has done was its report on attainment funding. The additional moneys that were provided to tackle those issues were very much welcomed by the committee and the wider Parliament. That money has to come from somewhere.

Yes.

Should the board be abolished, I think that it would be reasonable to assume that there would be some residual spend on, say, tapering-off costs, but, if such a decision were to be taken, it would be with a view to maximising the moneys that are available to colleges.

To be clear—[Interruption.] Sorry, convener.

Mr Doris, the decision has not been taken. When it is, I will write to the committee in full, giving as much detail as I possibly can. You will appreciate that, at the moment, no such decision has been taken.

Other colleges will look to exploit their assets, and I suspect that some will now be looking at that even harder.

It is difficult to give you detail on this, given how much of it is still under discussion, but I think that everyone has ideas about how we could do things differently. Our approach to such ideas will be to say, “Well, why wouldn’t we do that?” instead of saying, “Why would we?” and to ensure that there is a positive response to any ideas that are brought forward.

As I have said, I have already seen some things that we could be doing differently—the colleges will have their ideas, too—and that conversation is under way. There is an opportunity to address the short-term financial pressures that we face, and then there is the longer-term question of how we get the colleges on a much more sustainable footing.

To be clear, we are considering the flexibilities that we can provide without getting out of classification. The restrictions will, rightfully, still be in place, but I believe that there are things that we can do. The colleges believe that there are things that we can do jointly that will assist them in their day-to-day operations. We ought to be doing those as a matter of urgency. If some things will take a little longer, we will work on those with the colleges.

I am alive to that and to the geographical challenges that some colleges face. Colleges in Mr Doris’s part of the world do not face the same issues as Borders College, which I visited a few weeks ago, or the University of the Highlands and Islands. We must be alive to the fact that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. We must recognise that certain areas will have a far more challenging environment and take that into account as far as possible.