Education, Children and Young People Committee 03 December 2025 [Draft]
Absolutely. I agree that experts in the field are crucial. The fact is that I consider staff who work in the system and students who engage with and are educated in it to be experts, too.
I should also point out that amendment 174, in my name, seeks to bring in those with
“capacity in ... research and innovation”—
in other words, the expertise that John Mason talked about when he referred to research in the area. Financial due diligence is another skill that I know the member will be very keen to have on the council, given the council’s role in that respect and the member’s interest in that matter.
I do not think that the amendments in my name, which seek to ensure that those people have places—and rightfully so—on the council, preclude others, because, as the member has pointed out, there are other spaces on the council. I am just seeking to protect spaces for students, apprentices and trade unions on the council.
Amendment 175, in the name of my colleague Daniel Johnson, seeks to ensure that the chair of the skills board that he proposes be established also sits on the Scottish Funding Council, in order to retain the link between the organisation that will distribute the funds for skills and the sector that will deliver those skills, and employers that represent some of that sector. I hope that the amendment will receive support from across the committee.
I move amendment 172.