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Minister, I think that you have previously mentioned—James Withers certainly has—the potential for a greater role for the private sector in funding courses to meet the skills demand in various areas. You outlined to Michelle Thomson the extent of your engagement in recent months and the broad appetite for greater engagement. How much have those conversations gone into the realm of direct private sector funding for courses that will address skills shortages in sectors?

How will businesses that need workers with particular skill sets go about doing that? Do you envisage a direct relationship between them and their local college, or would it involve the Scottish Funding Council? Some businesses will not know where to start or who to speak to. Should they speak to their local college, or should they write to you?

Has there been much response from employers, trade associations, trade unions and so on since publication? I know that the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association and the University and College Union and so on were all engaged in the process.

That point about data and where the gaps in the evidence are is interesting. Knowing where there are key gaps in the data that we need in order to measure success has been a running theme not just for the committee but across the board in Parliament. We are gathering huge amounts of data, but not necessarily what we need.

I realise that this is a little bit meta, but how are you reporting on that? The Parliament would be interested to know where you have identified gaps in the evidence that you need before we get to the stage of publishing a report on what the outcomes have been. We would be interested in knowing where you have identified those gaps and how they can be addressed.

Minister, I am interested in going back to the level of engagement that you have had since coming into post. What has been the response to the publication of “Purpose and Principles for Post-School Education, Research and Skills” and the framework surrounding that? Do you have an initial sense that colleges and universities were expecting that level of direction? As a former member of the committee, you will be familiar with the evidence that we took from colleges; they were crying out for a sense of direction from Government. They wanted to know what they were supposed to be doing. “Purpose and Principles” was supposed to be the first step towards that. What has the response been since its publication?

How do we measure the outcomes from that? As you set out, it is the golden thread that runs through a lot of other stuff, most obviously the outcome agreements for the colleges and plenty of other strategic documents, including the SFC organisational strategy. What we eventually measure against is relatively clear for the long-term outcomes, but how are we to measure success a year or two from now, at the end of this parliamentary session, when the committee is drafting its legacy report? How are you measuring outcomes on an on-going short and medium-term basis? Is that resulting in a clearer sense of direction and greater clarity around strategic objectives? Will we have to come back to this in 10 years to see whether it worked?

I would like to go back to the convener’s original line of questioning. Collectively, what we have heard so far this morning are arguments that the budget does not prioritise economic growth enough, it does not prioritise tackling poverty enough and it does not prioritise reaching our net zero targets enough. There is specific criticism of the lack of funding for skills and training, university places, affordable housing, the Scottish child payment, enterprise agencies, the Scottish National Investment Bank and so on. There is also scepticism about tax rises to raise additional revenue.

However, is that not the problem? It is easy to identify what the budget does not do, but there is little in the way of solutions to that. To be fair, Chris Birt identified almost straight away that the money for the council tax freeze could instead have been spent on increasing the Scottish child payment. My criticism of the council tax freeze is on the record, and I would agree with him on that.

However, cumulatively, the Government went into this with a £1.5 billion gap, and what I have not yet heard this morning is a clear identification of where the Government is spending money on the wrong things and what could be reprioritised to fill all the gaps that you have all quite fairly identified. I think that there is a consensus that we should spend more money on all those areas, but the point is that there is not more money. What I have not yet heard this morning is an identification of where that money could come from, especially if it is not going to come from pretty swingeing tax rises.

To make the numbers add up.

I have taken up quite a lot of time, convener. Do I have time for one more question?

Yes.