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Good morning, cabinet secretary. I go back to what has triggered all this—namely, how an additional sum of £145.5 million that was given for the purpose of increasing teacher and learning support assistant numbers was used, or not, by local authorities. A lot of muddying of the water has been attempted around that, and two points are being lost. One is that we should acknowledge that eight councils, and the grant-aided sector, used the money for the purpose for which it was given and have increased their numbers, but it is clear that the majority of councils have not done so.

I want to explore with you what the Government has ascertained with regard to how the moneys were used at local authority level. I have knowledge of one council—Angus Council—where the sums that were given were deployed to add 28 full-time equivalent teachers and 10 learning support assistants. However, Angus Council’s numbers have gone down by 27 overall, which gives the impression that it has clearly not replaced temporary and permanent posts that already existed. There has also been an admission that £1 million of that money was allocated—the council tells me that a strategic proposal was made—to meet the costs of a saving that the council was making, so the money was obviously not used for the purpose for which it was given. I apologise for the long-winded intro, but has the Government found that to be typical—is that what most councils utilised the moneys for?

Yes, I appreciate that, cabinet secretary, but the situation appears to be pretty clear when you look through the list of numbers for each council. The vast majority of councils saw their teacher numbers go down, so, in the majority of cases, the money clearly was not used for the purpose for which it was given.

Thank you, convener. I appreciate it.

We have talked about the bill and how it could be improved. However, imagine that the bill was not there. Shortly, we will have two Government ministers in front of us. If you were sitting with them, what would you say was needed to improve the experience of those young people in transition, and how should they go about it? Be as brief as possible.

However important and necessary it might be to have new strategies and strategy refreshes, a lot of people roll their eyes when they hear about them, because what they are actually looking for is real, practical change that will improve their experiences and the experiences of their loved ones. Through our evidence, we have heard that there are a lot of little things that could be done that, cumulatively, would make a huge difference to the experiences of people going through the transition to adulthood.

One issue that has been mentioned multiple times is that there is a lack of documentation that follows a young person and explains their needs, their requirements, what they react badly to and so on. We have heard that, at every stage of their transition, they have to keep telling their story over and over again.

I want to explore the issue of documentation further. I am aware of what is called a communication passport, which has been developed by My Communication Passport, details of which can be found at mycommpass.com. The communication passport is in operation in one school in my area, and I know that the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, has championed the document. Are you aware of the initiative? I have a copy here of a communication passport that belongs to a young constituent of mine. Do you feel that it might be worth exploring having a nationwide roll-out of the scheme? It is all very well and good that it is available in some localities for some individuals, but, given that it works, do you think that it is an example of one of the many little things that we could do to improve the situation?

Sorry—what is the embargo?

Thank you. That is useful.

Good morning, panel. I go back to something that Fiona Whelan touched on. Universities Scotland, in its written evidence, highlighted a specific issue for students in the pre-arrival period, particularly when they have a conditional offer and it is therefore relatively late in the day before they know, and the university knows, that they are coming. It suggested that there are issues around timing. A returning student’s needs may already be known, so they are almost ahead of the queue in trying to get the resource that they need, but that may be frustrating for new students. How significant a problem is that for universities?

We are all deeply grateful for your evidence this morning, which has been very thought provoking. If you will indulge me, I want to take the conversation off on a slight tangent. Today, understandably, we have been talking about the bill and what it sets out to do. Let us imagine that we invited you in not to talk about a bill; let us imagine that the bill did not exist and that we were simply asking you what one, two or three things we could do to change the existing practice and approach that would make a substantial difference to the experience of young people in the context of what you do or in the wider context. If we were not looking at a bill, what could we do to fundamentally change and improve a situation that clearly needs to be improved?

I have three questions, but the good news is that they are mostly focused on universities and colleges, so you will not all have to answer. The first one concerns the independent living fund and the disabled students allowance. Fiona Whelan touched on the latter earlier. I am interested in exploring the extent to which those interact with the experience of the students and the support that is provided, and how effective they are in delivering what the students need to support them as they go through college and university.

We get what you mean.