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As I have said, I am not going to be dragged into a disagreement between two trade unions—that is not the role of ministers. My job is to try to facilitate that overarching piece of work to get the industrial relations within the sector—not between trade unions, but within the sector—to a better place.

On the topic of recovery—which is the word that is used rather than “clawback”, Mr Briggs—the SFC has done a lot of work on that with the college sector, particularly through the tripartite alignment group. That work has been extremely successful.

However, there is a point at which leaving public money that recirculates in the education system in institutions that have underperformed—I will come back to that point—cannot be justified without evidence that they are seeking not to underperform. There have been some instances in which that has been the case and some flexibility has been provided.

I am sure that the topic will be explored in greater detail in the tripartite group. There are limitations to what can be done, given the financial pressures that we are all aware of. Nevertheless, where universities are doing innovative things in the areas that you have referred to, and in others, there is an argument for a bit of understanding. I am sure that that will be explored further through the tripartite group.

I will reiterate what I said earlier about ministers and their distance from this matter, in terms of legislation and issues such as ONS classification. My understanding is that there have been, and continue to be, conversations between the institution and commercial lenders.

We do not want to see job losses on any scale, but one issue that we have in our universities—and which I alluded to when I was last before the committee—is that a number of them have adopted the approach of taking on several hundred staff on the back of an emerging market, and then shedding several hundred staff if circumstances change. Frankly, the universities need to get out of that situation, because it is not healthy at all.

The difference between Edinburgh and Dundee is that substantial job losses were required at the University of Dundee, but the situation was so serious that there was a question mark over the institution’s future. We were talking about saving a critical university in Scotland, so the two examples are not comparable, but I take your point about the scale of the job losses that are being talked about at Edinburgh.

There is no doubt that there has been a long-standing mistrust and distrust between the trade unions and senior management, which has not been helped by the events that we are discussing. The nature of some of the engagement with the trade unions has been quite concerning and it has not necessarily matched what we would have hoped for or expected. More recently, there have been some hopeful signs that it is improving.

With regard to the timescale, I should say, by the way, that I was not hinting that the meeting this afternoon would be to decide on that ask. All I will say is that we have been well aware of the urgency of the matter and the need to provide a bit of confidence and certainty. The Government will move as quickly as it can to deal with the ask. As I have said, there are two elements to it, and one might take a bit longer to deal with than the other.

No, I have not. I had some correspondence from one trade union, and I made it very clear that this was a matter for the trade unions themselves. Essentially, what we are talking about is an internal mechanism that lies behind the national bargaining and, frankly, I think that they need to sort this out between themselves.

One of the wider challenges that Glasgow Kelvin College faces is the increase in employer national insurance contributions that was brought in by your Government at Westminster. We received insufficient consequentials to allow us to negate the effects of that. A lot of the pressures that the college faces are outwith our control.

On the nature of the families that colleges were put in as part of the process, that was something that the SFC implemented, and I am happy to ask the SFC to provide a rationale for why Kelvin sits where it does. The colleges in and around Glasgow had a legitimate concern about the way in which they were funded, compared with other colleges, and the exercise in question has begun to address that.

We are talking purely about the college sector now. It is an interesting question, because the work that is being done between the SFC and the sector has three phases and the third phase will look at credit allocation.

That is a thorny subject, Mr Briggs. While you are advocating for NESCol, I am sure that Ms Dunbar and other members would advocate for the colleges in their areas getting more credits, but I am not sure that some of your fellow ���˿��� would be altogether happy if they were taken off another institution. We need to be alive to that.

We have done a bit of work in the context of universities and the allocation of places. It has not been without its controversy. For example, Glasgow Caledonian University has attracted additional credits because it requires them due to the level that it is performing to.

It is a thorny subject, because there is a parallel with something that we discussed earlier in the meeting about the rebaselining of college funding. It was sought and delivered with the warning that there would be winners and losers, and those who have lost out have been far from happy. In fact, some of those who have benefited have been far from happy.

We need to be alive to the pitfalls of doing that, but I absolutely understand the argument that you make.

There is a difference between a gap in the workforce and a skills shortage. If we can train people, there will still be issues with recruiting numbers, not least because of Brexit. We have to be careful about our language around that.

I am acutely aware of the willingness of employers to make a contribution in some of those areas, and I am very much open to that. We are encouraging our institutions to develop their thinking in that regard. There are opportunities here. Governments of all colours have perhaps been guilty of coming up with initiatives such as free ports and city deals, without necessarily allocating funds to build extra capacity for training in the system. We cannot just magic up places, as you explained to me when you spoke about NESCol. Governments of all colours need to get better at recognising that.

On your point about businesses, yes, there is an appetite to support such an opportunity, and we are keen to see what we can do to tap into that.

On and off, it has been there. It certainly predated my time as minister, too. However, we are increasing our focus on potentially using such a number, not least because our university colleagues believe that there would be some merit in it. That said, that work is not without its challenges—it is not straightforward.