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If anything, we want to enhance business involvement across the gamut. You talked about careers. We need greater business input into the careers offering—that is a challenge to them. Skills planning has been enhanced—

I do not accept that at all. In this instance, the work that has been done on skills planning would see the existing functions still sitting within those two organisations, with the Government taking an overarching lead. I do not think that anything would be pulled out. The careers service is about much more than SDS.

All the component parts of the careers services collaborative need to do their bit. At the moment, there is a bit of a conflation that suggests that this is all about careers advisers in schools—far from it. All the work will come together with an overarching vision for the post-16 landscape. I do not accept that placing the responsibility for apprenticeships elsewhere would create the difficulty that you are suggesting.

The SFC already engages considerably and in a variety of ways with business. I fully accept the member’s point, but, since day 1 of the process, the team and I have been engaging directly with business. An employer group has been set up, which met a couple of weeks ago. In the first instance, it will look at apprenticeships, but its remit has been broadened beyond that. An apprenticeship committee will be provided for within the SFC, which will have a broader remit than the existing SDS committee, the SAAB.

Extensive work is being done. This is about making the offering better than it is currently. In the context of employer engagement and the SFC’s committee, some of the evidence that the committee has taken from various stakeholders on how we could expand that has been quite useful.

I suspect that SDS has looked—

I am not aware that we have asked, but we absolutely do not recognise that number.

I will explain for the benefit of the committee and wider stakeholders what we did. We outlined the range of possible costs, from extremely optimistic to extremely pessimistic, and we are currently working through what the actual cost will be. We anticipate being able to furnish the committee with that detail in due course, and certainly before stage 2.

It is a complex issue that requires a lot of detail that we cannot currently access. However, we are working on that. I did not want to come to the committee—

Some of that sits outwith the apprenticeship delivery. As I said, getting the careers offering right will be critical to that. It is about all the things that I have identified, including how apprenticeships are delivered and the issues that arise from that. In moving all that into a different organisation, with that awareness and all the work that has been done around that and all the work that will be done to build on that, the opportunity arises to do this differently and better. That is what it provides. I was simply giving you a flavour of the type of things that we could do in that space.

I am sorry, convener, but, with respect, I think that I have told you that.

Here is the other thing. As we move forward, we charge the people who will deliver this with exploring the practicalities and pros and cons of making those changes, and other things that they will bring forward in their dialogue with wider stakeholders. Although we have done a lot of work up until now, we need a lot more conversation with the various sectors about what better would look like.

The chief executive of SDS was clear that he did not share the concerns that others have expressed, and that I have expressed today. For example, I understand from having read its written response to the committee that SDS is not of the view that the managing agent model as it currently operates is problematic. I am not sure that I would concur with that.

I will correct you, if I may: the mixed economy does exist. I am committing to continuing the mixed economy approach. Yes, it can be refined and, yes, we need to drive up standards, in both the private and public sectors. There is no doubt about that. There are issues. In some instances—I stress, some—I hear from employers about the experience that they have of the training that is provided in some of our colleges not being up to what they are looking for. There are issues around the nature and the inflexibility of some of the qualifications, as well as the lack of agility in the system to deliver the change that employers and the economy require. That is another workstream that is under way.

You were driving at having more graduate apprenticeships, but this is also about quality and the nature of those apprenticeships. Sometimes, young people will quit an apprenticeship because it is not for them, or it is not of a calibre that they were hoping for. We are looking closely at how apprenticeships align with the needs of the economy. That is not simply to meet the asks of employers; it is to try and better guarantee continuing, well-paid employment for those individuals at the conclusion of their apprenticeships. I do not know whether that has answered your question.

On the graduate apprenticeships point, which Pam Duncan-Glancy also raised, I have asked the experts in that space to consider what better would look like. How do we broaden those apprenticeships out? This perhaps strays into the widening access area, convener, but there are examples of young people who have been identified as qualifying under the widening access agenda to go to university. They tell the university, “We would love to, but we can’t afford to.” Because of the challenges of their family circumstances, they need to go out and get a job. The graduate apprenticeship model can help in that space. That is not the only driver for what we are doing, but there is enormous potential for graduate apprenticeships.

By bringing all that together and considering apprenticeships in the round, we can take an opportunity that we do not currently have. For example, foundation apprenticeships are currently funded by two different organisations, but they will be funded by one, whatever form that takes. There is an opportunity here to consider what we offer currently and, as I keep saying, how we make it better. We make apprenticeships better by listening to the people who have engaged with them and to the experts in the field. I am not going to sit here and tell the committee that I know exactly what we need to do to improve graduate apprenticeships—I do not work at that coalface every day—but I am entrusting the people who do to support us to deliver better.