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—and where that should come from.

It is, indeed, your opinion, which you are entitled to—

Are you asking how long the Hayward review will take?

Without attempting to pass on that and not give you an answer, I point out that Professor Hayward is independent of Government, so what we will get from Professor Hayward’s review is up to Professor Hayward. She is clearly going through significant consultations. We moved the timeline for the review slightly so that her final report will come out in May, but that was to ensure that we completed the national discussion and allowed her to have the information in relation to that. That was the reason why the publication date has been put back—I think, from memory—by three months.

Clearly, the speed of implementation very much depends on what Professor Hayward comes up with. If she recommends minor changes, they can be made reasonably quickly; if she recommends really substantive changes to the system, those will, quite rightly, take longer. For example, her recommendations might have implications for teacher workload or for the number of teachers who are required to carry out things in the senior phase. I am genuinely not trying to be obtuse in my answer but, until I know what she is going to recommend, I am unable to say how long it will take for that to come into force.

I am keen to see progress, because the experience over Covid and some of the initial work that is coming out of the Hayward review demonstrate that there are different ways in which we can measure success and attainment within schools, compared with what we currently have. Genuinely, until I see what she comes back with, I am unable to say how long implementation might take, because it could be a substantial and significant piece of work. Clearly, we would have to work—not just, but particularly—with teachers on the implementation. Those things can go wrong when the implications for different parts of the system are not taken into account, and the most obvious implication is around teacher workload.

There is no freeze on apprenticeships—

You have asked me whether they are carrying out the reform work. Although they have an important role to play in it, they are not leading the reform work. Government officials are doing that, and I am leading the reform process.

I am genuinely surprised—I think that we went through this yesterday—that there seems to be a suggestion from some Opposition members that we should have increased the budgets for the SQA and Education Scotland, to allow them to have more staff to carry out some of this work. Again, I think that—

There have been no suggestions about how money could be moved within a portfolio or across portfolios. However, as the committee is aware, we are still going through the budget process, and I would be more than willing to receive and discuss some suggestions by correspondence.

I will broaden it out and say that we need to look at the assistance and advice that come from Government and the Scottish Funding Council on ensuring that universities, which are independent of Government, have policies in place to ensure that they are not at risk of one situation—Mr Rennie has referred to one situation—adversely affecting them in a way that would cause difficulties. All institutions are required to consider risks, and all universities are aware of situations such as the one that Mr Rennie suggested and the implications of them.

It varies widely across the system—a number of universities would not be that impacted by the situation that Mr Rennie suggested, but they would be impacted by other changes in international markets. It is for individual institutions to look at how reliant they are on a particular segment of international students.

I hope that we can all agree that encouraging international students to Scotland is a good thing. In Mr Rennie’s constituency, we see fantastic diversity around international students and what they bring to student and community life. However, quite rightly, institutions should consider whether they are overly reliant on one particular part of the international student market and whether they should make changes if there is a concern that they would be adversely affected by some of those situations.

I do not recognise that figure, but we have an important piece of work going on—yes, within the SQA and Education Scotland—and there is also further funding for the reform package in Government to allow us to carry out that reform. When it comes to the money for the SQA and Education Scotland, clearly, they must still carry out the tasks and functions that they have as we go through that process.

No decisions have been taken on how the money will be allocated. We are keen to assist the college sector with flexibility, as I mentioned, and with any need for colleges to transition their offer so that they provide the right curriculum and so forth. The Scottish Funding Council will work with the sector to provide draft allocations. There has not been a decision on that, and we will work closely with the Funding Council on ministerial direction and priorities of travel but the allocations are for it to make.

We have seen an increase from the RSR. I hope that we can ensure that college funding is maintained into the future, but we need to come to that year by year, as we do for everything. The RSR is the long-term forecast that we have at the moment and we are cognisant of the fact that a number of changes that colleges need to consider, whether on the design of curriculum or workforce requirements, require them to have that long-term view. The RSR is still our long-term forecast for budgets, and we will work with the college sector on that.