Seòmar agus comataidhean

It will not surprise you to know that my follow-up question—which I also direct to you, Karen—is that in January, you told the Public Audit Committee that four colleges were facing “fairly significant cash-flow issues”. Can you give the committee an update, first on those four and where they are now, and secondly on the rest of the estate more generally?

I understand.

The SFC had to make some very difficult choices, following the last budget, to save £28.5 million from the university resource budget. One of those choices was to remove the contribution of several million pounds to the employers’ contribution to the Scottish teachers superannuation scheme.

Thank you very much.

Shona Struthers, the SFC statistics show a significant fall in full-time students at colleges, but there has been a significant increase in enrolments of part-time students. Can you help the committee to understand what might be driving that trend towards more part-time enrolments at colleges? Does that have any implications for the costs of provision of part-time courses for the colleges?

I understand. For the avoidance of doubt, I presume that the measures that you have outlined are available to all colleges, not just the four that you are working closely with.

Good morning. Mark MacPherson, you have just heard David Belsey talking about sustainability. The Audit Scotland 2023 briefing paper on Scotland’s colleges said that the Scottish Government and the SFC urgently need to help colleges to “become sustainable now”. The following month, the Auditor General said:

“The viability of the college sector is challenged”—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 26 October 2023; c 4.]

and that a clear plan was needed.

We are now nine months on from that. Has Audit Scotland’s assessment of the situation changed? Is there any evidence of a plan from the Scottish Government or the SFC that will make colleges viable?

I will reflect on that further, because I want to be clear. I appreciate what you said, and I will not press you for a figure. However, if the figure was £1 billion a decade ago, as per your submission, it might meaningfully be adjusted for inflation, at the very least, which might help the committee to arrive at an indicative figure from the Government.

I find that a very interesting point, which you have made several times.

You say that there is a consistent disparity between public funding and income. For completeness, when you talk about that being consistent, do you mean over a number of years?

I will ask a brief question on that exact point. Perhaps Ellie Gomersall and Mary Senior may wish to answer. There was a cut of, let us say, 1,200 places, and I recall that the expectation at the time, around January, was that that would save about £5 million, but a £28.5 million shortfall for the sector was being projected. The suggestion at the time seemed to be that there could be further cuts to places coming down the track. Does either of you recognise that as a risk, and are you concerned about that?

I will follow up with a similar question and you might again be unable to answer the second part, for obvious reasons. In your submission, you set out some data that you have alluded to throughout the meeting. You say that the Scottish system costs the public purse either five times as much or 500 per cent more than it does in England, but that Scottish institutions receive less income than those in England. In your submission, you say that they receive 23 per cent less income; earlier today, you said 27 per cent less income.

If we assume that the Scottish Government is cognisant of those figures, what steps would you expect it to take to address that, and are you seeing any evidence that those steps are being taken?