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On that note—[Laughter.]

However, some colleges are providing those training opportunities direct to employers. Your point about the credits is fair. That flexibility was before my time; my predecessor introduced it. It was just that—a flexibility that allows the college to decide how best to use its funding. On reflection, I do not think that it was as well utilised as it might have been. That is why we are using the tripartite group—it is to engage with the colleges on the basis of asking, “What do you need in order to do the things that you want to do and that we require you to do?”, and that is an open conversation. I do not entirely agree that that reduces opportunities for students, because, in some cases, credits are not being used.

Colleges are deploying those in a way that they think is most beneficial to them. They already do that in the school-college partnership space. I absolutely accept that college funding is not what I would want it to be, but we are working closely with colleges to make best use of the available funding, and I reiterate that a number of colleges are getting on with this. I accept that the situation is not ideal, but we are working closely with colleges to make the best of this.

I will answer briefly. We have no assurance. We are waiting for the UK Government budget. There are concerning noises around that are making the university and college sectors nervous. We await the outcome of the budget process with some concern.

You make a good point. Everything is interconnected—I make that point in the Government. The interconnection manifests itself in areas such as health workforce planning, on which our universities and colleges are actively involved in working with the Government on how to address some of the challenges. It is about more than just money.

It is a good point. The counterargument is that all areas of Government are financially challenged; it is not an issue for the education portfolio alone. I will always advocate for education and for my element of the portfolio.

We have such conversations across Government. In fact, there is a live conversation across Government about skills planning. All portfolios are engaged in that conversation to identify the existing skills need and to find the solutions to it, through working directly with the colleges and universities. I am trying to foster that a bit more across Government and, if that leads to some financial benefit, that will be all to the good.

Colleges would not have to come to the Scottish Government or the SFC if they were going to share services; they would just look to progress that. However, if they thought that we could assist them with addressing impediments, I would expect them to raise that through the tripartite group or the many other forums that we have. That has not happened, but we would be open to listening to any issues and to requests for assistance.

Those national priorities include a recognition that some colleges are not in the fortunate position of having assets that they can dispose of, and we have to take account of that. We need to strike a balance that gives them a bit of support, as well as the individual colleges that are disposing of assets.

That is not the intention, and I do not think that the colleges would agree to that, if it was.

In the medium to long term, it absolutely will. Let us take the universities first. They are extremely well placed to respond to—and are responding to—the changes that we are bringing forward. For example, we have a group that is led by the university sector that is producing a reformed and enhanced graduate apprenticeship programme. That is an area of real growth for universities, and they are engaging directly with the Government, across portfolios, to look at the role that they will play in economic growth. There is a short-term benefit in that, for the universities.

There are considerable opportunities for the colleges in that space—particularly in areas such as apprenticeship training, upskilling and reskilling—and there is an opportunity to develop short, sharp courses. The challenges for colleges are more immediate, and it might take a little longer for the benefits to be seen. Some colleges are clearly better placed than others to take advantage of that.

I am sure that Stuart Greig is laughing internally, because I have regular conversations with my officials about my frustration that we cannot move more quickly.

There are reasons why processes exist. For example, we rightly have a consultation running on our proposals on consolidating apprenticeship funding and student support. That is enabling our agenda, and it is right and proper that people are given the chance to do that. If we were to introduce legislation, this committee would require a period of consultation as part of the legislative process and would want the various stages to be gone through. There are good reasons for doing that.

Where we can, we are looking to hasten the pace. In some instances, we will be looking at interim measures that allow us to transition into the space that we want to transition into. However, there are changes that can be made—cultural changes or changes to approach—without the process of consultation.

To pick up on your point about reviews and responding, we have taken time to respond to the Withers review. We have gone through a process of looking in detail at everything that he has recommended. As we have gone into that, we have discovered some unintended consequences, we have sought resolution of those and we have done a lot of consultation. I have been around the country listening to people. That has been important because the reform agenda is hugely significant—it is massive in scale—and we must get this right.

I think that I have said to the committee before that I would rather take a little bit more time at this stage, in belief that that will allow us to move at greater pace further down the line. I do share your view, Mr Mason; I want us to move at a faster pace than we appear to be moving. However, I would add that, away from the public eye, a phenomenal amount of work is going on to develop the three key areas of apprenticeships, careers and skills planning. I have undertaken to keep the committee apprised, and we will look to continue to do that regularly so that you are sighted on the progress that is being made.

I will write to you once I have got into the nitty-gritty.