6. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to attract and retain staff in colleges. (S6O-02987)

Operational decisions, including those about attracting and retaining staff, are matters for individual colleges. The Scottish Government expects colleges’ staffing complements to be in line with the needs of their learners and of their local and regional economies.

The Scottish Government, through its fair work agenda and through its work to support the adoption of the teacher qualification in further education, continues to support the college sector in attracting and retaining support and lecturing staff.

It is rare for a week to pass without a minister saying in the chamber that we do not have industrial action in the national health service in Scotland at the moment because of the action and intervention of ministers. What does it say about the failure of the Government to intervene in our colleges when we note that this week, college staff in the Educational Institute of Scotland Further Education Lecturers Association have once again voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action? What will the minister do in the coming days to avert that action and to ensure that our college staff get a fair pay deal, given that Audit Scotland recently warned that we face a recruitment and retention crisis in our colleges and that more cuts and a lack of fair pay will simply make that worse?

I am literally just off a call with the Unite union on that very subject. I have engaged with all the trade unions and the employers.

Colin Smyth knows that ministers cannot enforce a pay settlement in the sector. He also knows that industrial relations in the sector have been toxic, to say the least, for eight of the past nine years. I am actively encouraging all sides to try to find a solution, which is the role for ministers in all that.

There is a long-term issue with industrial relations in the college sector. I am intrigued by the fact that, although all sides recognise that, we have not yet been able to find a solution. We need to find a solution to the current pay dispute, but we also need to find a solution to the longer-term systemic problem in the sector. I think that if all the actors are as genuine as they tell me they are, we can resolve both issues.

Something that will not attract and retain staff is a proposed cut of 8 per cent—which is £58.7 million—to the net college resource budget. Recruitment of staff and students for next year has to happen right now, so when, precisely, will colleges know exactly what their budgets for next year will be, and just how brutal will those cuts be?

Mr Kerr is knowledgeable about those things and knows that there is a process, following publication of the draft budget, in which the Scottish Funding Council works directly with colleges and universities to determine the specifics of their budgets.

That process is under way. I am not currently sighted on the exact details, although I will be in due course. I anticipate that more precise detail will emerge in the next few weeks.

The minister knows that redundancies have been proposed at the Shetland campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands. What confidence can be given to the community that, in the future, we will have a Shetland college that meets the needs of local learners and of local businesses that require different sets of skills?

I am grateful for the question. Beatrice Wishart and I have engaged directly on the matter quite recently. She is right—there is legitimate concern about the situation at UHI Shetland. I can assure her that both UHI as an entity and the Scottish Funding Council are engaged directly with the college in Shetland to try to ensure its future along the lines that she indicated, but it has to get itself into a sustainable position. There are currently some challenges there, but I think that everyone is participating positively in trying to find the right solution for the college and for Shetland.