Hansard

As a member of the Education and Culture Committee, I, along with my colleagues, sat through many hours of evidence on the bill, and my view on it has been shaped by what we heard from the students, staff and relevant interested parties—those who know most about further and higher education—who appeared before the committee.

As parliamentarians, we have a duty—particularly in our committee work—to interrogate and question what is brought before our Parliament. The Education and Culture Committee has done that to good effect, as is apparent to anyone who reads the committee’s report or who listened carefully to the convener’s speech.

I say at the outset—so that there is no room for misrepresentation, pretence or false indignation—that I and probably all the committee’s members support the broad aims of the bill. I certainly support the aim of improving the governance, transparency and accountability of universities, for which students and trade unionists have called. I support the reform of tuition fees for rest of UK students, for which student leaders have called. I support improvements to and the democratisation of college governance. I recognise the need to improve collaboration between colleges and universities, and I support improved data sharing to support people into employment.

I bow to no one in my support for widening access to higher education. A college education changed my life by providing me with the opportunity to enter higher education, and for many students like me it is the route to university. However, the evidence that we have heard has raised some serious concerns that strongly suggest that the bill as it stands is deeply flawed.

For example, the committee’s ability to fully comprehend the provisions on higher education governance was severely hampered. The Scottish funding council was supposed to commission a working group to develop a new and improved code of governance for universities, but instead the chairs of court took it upon themselves to undertake that work and appointed a steering group. The code has been neither published nor scrutinised by the Education and Culture Committee, and that is wholly unsatisfactory.

Indeed, the group’s development of the code was heavily criticised in evidence from the University and College Union Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland and NUS Scotland, which complained bitterly about the lack of student and staff representation on the group. Despite the unrepresentative composition of university boards, the university chairs told the committee that

“there is no particular problem with governance in Scotland to be solved.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 19 February 2013; c 2011.]

Given that their assertion was contradicted by students and unions, I have some concerns about the steering group’s findings—whatever they may be. I am also concerned that the findings will be accepted entirely by the Government, with the result that the code

“would effectively become the ‘principles of governance’”.

Professor von Prondzynski himself said that governance was overwhelmingly excellent. Those views were rightly challenged by the UCU and NUS Scotland, and if Professor von Prondzynski thinks that governance is currently excellent, that raises the question of why a new code is needed.

There is also an apparent difference of opinion between the cabinet secretary and the chair of the funding council on whether the new code would be voluntary or compulsory, which is a pretty fundamental issue. We do not know whether the new code will deal with issues such as gender equality or staff and student representation on university boards of governance.

Section 3 of the bill relates to widening access, which is a subject that is close to my heart, but many questions that were asked about that subject remain unanswered. How is the objective to be achieved? What actions are to be taken by institutions to improve access? What is the target? Which groups are to be targeted? Who will be counted in the widening access total? What rate of improvement will be deemed a success? Which initiatives have been successful, and which have failed? How are admissions staff to be protected if they apply contextualised admissions? Will there be displacement? How will access be widened with no extra funding? What is to happen if universities do not play ball?

Government officials said in evidence that financial sanctions were unlikely in the event of a failure to widen access, but only today the cabinet secretary said in his letter to the committee that financial penalties may indeed be imposed.

What about retention, which is so vital to widening access? How can we talk about widening access when the very students who—like me when I went through the system—are most likely to access higher education through college are at present being denied a college place as part-time places and adult learning provisions are slashed? What relevance does widening access have for them?

I think that we all want access to continue to be widened and for the pace to increase significantly, not least because—as we heard in evidence—some institutions are failing miserably.

However, although the bill may reinforce widening access efforts, the questions that I have raised need to be answered first, particularly those that relate to funding and displacement. In the interim, through the conditions attached to the university grant process, the Scottish funding council could tackle the issue now, which is indeed what it should be doing.

College regionalisation is another element in the bill about which there are many concerns. The committee’s report states clearly that, in the policy memorandum,

“there is very little information provided about why changes require to be made.”

There are major concerns about the complexity and bureaucracy of the proposed college landscape, which will include regional strategic bodies, regional boards with assigned colleges, regional colleges and a completely different set-up for the University of the Highlands and Islands. David Belsey, of the EIS, summed up the situation very well:

“If it’s the Government’s wish to create a nationally incoherent FE structure with a myriad of different types of colleges, governing bodies and funding mechanisms with separate regulations for each, then this Bill is the way to go about it.”

Some witnesses expressed the view that the changes to the structures and bureaucracy of colleges are simply a cover for cuts—we know that another £25 million is to be taken from college budgets. The submission from Angus Council community planning partnership stated:

“However, in practice, recent changes to college funding for school-college partnerships have already restricted the range and volume of provision available to young people. It would be unwelcome if college regionalisation compounded this by diverting time, energy and money from core functions.”

Unison argued that

“the whole thrust of regionalisation is not really about taking a regional approach. Rather, it is about delivering budget cuts”.

The Unison representative went on to say that colleges are being forced into merger because

“they are afraid that if they do not, they will be cut out after the regional boards start to distribute the funding.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 5 February 2013; c 1953, 1957.]

There are many more issues on which clarity is needed. How will relationships between the regional bodies and assigned colleges work? Will that result in a bidding war? Will some colleges be preferred over others? Will the charitable status of colleges remain, given the increased ministerial powers and less autonomy? How will academic freedom be maintained? Will there be centralisation of courses? What will happen to local access? We have already witnessed the impact of regionalisation on local access with the closure of Edinburgh College’s construction campus at Dalkeith.