Meeting of the Parliament 19 November 2025
I say to Mr Macpherson that he should go back and review the evidence to which I referred, because it gives a somewhat different picture.
Part of my concern is that the Government’s focus is on structural reform and shifting apprenticeship funding into the Scottish Funding Council. We can see today the funding crisis that our colleges and universities are facing, and there is real concern that funding that currently goes into apprenticeships will be diverted into filling the black hole in funding for universities and colleges.
As Daniel Johnson said, we know that far more apprenticeship places are sought than are funded. According to Skills Development Scotland, there is currently demand for 34,000 modern apprenticeship places annually, but, in the most recent year, funding was provided for just 25,000 places. That gap means that we are not meeting the needs of our economy.
According to the Open University’s business barometer survey, 56 per cent of Scottish businesses are currently experiencing a skills shortage. The shortage is greatest in acute sectors such as construction and engineering, where there is substantial demand for a future workforce but not enough people are being trained.
Investment in apprenticeships is money well spent. The evidence shows that, for every £1 of public money that is spent on training and apprenticeships, £10 is invested by employers, and that, for every £1 that is invested, between £4 and £5 is returned in tax.
Just a few weeks ago, I led a debate in the chamber on funding for the college sector. According to Audit Scotland, there has been a 20 per cent real-terms reduction in funding for colleges over the past five years, which is causing significant issues in that sector, including redundancies, the cutting of courses and reductions in campuses. Unless that trend can be reversed, we will continue to see an issue whereby our skills offer does not meet the needs of the population.
Daniel Johnson rightly mentioned the apprenticeship levy. I am consistently told by employers in Scotland that they are being disadvantaged in comparison with employers south of the border.