The eighth meeting of the economy energy and fair work committee for 2019 may ask everyone to turn off any electrical devices that may interfere with proceedings. We have apologies today from Jackie Bailey and Gordon McDonald. Item 1 on the agenda is a decision for the committee to take item 6 and 7 in private, Mae Gwneud Ysbyty, rydw i yn gyffredinol i'r lleoedd Cymru ar gyfer gyflawn, beth mae'n好r yn gallu gyd, yr eraillau a defnyddiat datblygu nhw i d Againmaker, ac mae nid oeddiadl iawn ychydig gyda kinig oeddiad... Mae'neraib, os yn y gallu cael mewn gweld Cymru, maent yn yma, gyda gweld y chyw i ysbyty, gyda'r lleoedd Cymru i gail i gael y chyw i'r lleoedd Cymru i gael i'r lleoedd Cymru, Fel byddi o'n oedd yr尔od yr edrych. Mae'r ganun i Gweithloedd Daniel McHale. Hi, I'm Daniel McHale. I'm a trainee cost manager at Turner & Tenzead, ac I go ahead of what in the construction and build environment. My name's David Watson. I'm currently an adult apprentice in joint area at New Cololutor Lanarkshire. I'm a local accountant. My name's John Mason. I'm the MSP for Glasgow Shetleston, which is the east end of Glasgow. I'm an apprentice building standard surveer for Edinburgh City Council and I'm studying construction in the building environment at Heriot-Watt University. I'm Asher Humphrey-Martin. I study architectural technology at Edinburgh College. I'm Jamie Hanford-Johnson. I'm a Highlands and Islands MSP. Hi, I'm Elliot Rutherford and I'm studying plastering at Edinburgh College. I should have said that you don't need to press any buttons and that helps people with the... I'm Angela Constance. I'm the MSP for Amman Valley, which is the Livingston side of West Lothian. I'm Ryan Paterson. I'm studying plastering at Edinburgh College. I'm Charlie Colm and I'm a painter and decorator at Edinburgh College. Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselborough. I'm Jonathan Scott. I'm a joiner at Midlothian College. Andy Wightman, MSP for Midlothian. We have the clocking and official report team as well here. Welcome to everyone. I'd just like to start with a question to the apprentices, whichever of you would like to come in. If you simply indicate by raising your hand and then the sound desk will operate the mic system, which, as I said, I should have said right at the outset, what attracted you to a construction-related apprenticeship? We'll let David Watson go first. Obviously, the opportunity, the money that you can make in the type industry, and coming from my personal experience, my father's a joiner and my brother's a joiner, it's kind of like a natural line of progression to get into a sort of trade, you know what I mean, but I definitely think that it's a job opportunity where you can be having a good living for yourself. There's definitely a lot more opportunities within that industry, leading to other things, whether you go into management or the education side of things, but I think that that's my main interest personally from a personal point of view. Jessica Morris, would you like to comment? I think that it's also the wide array of projects that you can get to see. In Edinburgh especially, there's always so much going on and you never really see the same thing twice, so I think that it's definitely interesting because it's just how much is going on. Good. Do you have friends as well who are in apprenticeships or is it more a sort of family thing that might have encouraged some of you into it? Are there other reasons that some of those here have decided to take the route that they have? Friends, but then different trades, like my friends are like an electrician, alarm engineer, but obviously I'm a joiner, but just in terms of looking at me at school and stuff like that, it was like an attractive thing to get in there, it was an apprenticeship. What about others? Ryan? My grandad and my dad, they did trades and stuff and I just kind of surrounded with it for my life, so just kind of caught on. Is it something that you'd recommend to friends or family members? I have done, yeah. I have done. One of my friends, he's taken an electrician course, so yeah, I have done. Yeah, and Elliot? Yeah, I've got friends coming back from travelling that are wondering what to do, so I recommended something in construction, something hands-on, you can see yourself with the job satisfaction, you can see yourself built something with your own hands or whatever it is. Good, and I think that Andy Wightman wanted to come in. Yeah, I'm just interested in how you found out about apprenticeships and what kind of support was available in school to give you advice about where to go and how to pursue your interests. I don't get any comments about how much support they were offered or whether it could be improved. Personally, I found out about my apprenticeship through Apprenticeship Scotland. I'd say that the school support was varied, it was kind of more pushed along the university route instead of the apprenticeship route. There was support there if you went and asked for it, but if you didn't really know what you wanted to do, it was very hard to find it. But afterwards, Apprenticeship Scotland was quite a good tool to find out about them. I think Jessica and then Elliot. I left school six years ago, so I don't know how much has changed since then, but careers advice was very, very poor at my school. I received my first and only careers meeting three weeks before I went on to exam leave in six years, and if you weren't interested in university, it was almost as though you were ignored. There just wasn't the information available for any other route, so I think that's something that needs addressed. Elliot, how did you end up where you are then? From my own research and my job in Scotland. I couldn't agree more. I left school five, six years ago as well. Everything was pushed down the university line, and if you weren't going to the university, you were sort of left to find out what you wanted to do, because the careers advice was, if you weren't going to uni, sorry, you were given these are the grades that you need, and that was sort of it. Whereas, if you wanted to do an apprenticeship rate, you were just sort of left to find out what you wanted to do. Jamie Palcro Johnston, committee member, wanted to come in. Yeah, I was really interested in this point, and just very quickly, I'm just wondering if the other apprentices can tell us, is that lack of careers advice, lack of engagement with careers advice liaisons, is that fairly common that you maybe have very sporadic, very occasional advice, rather than proper, consistent advice through your early time at school? Yeah, we just kind of got put on a website. We had to explore ourselves. There was someone that came in and talked to us about it, and we just had to learn from there. Really, that was it. When I was in school, I only have about a year's experience of school in Scotland, but when I moved here, it was quite limited. They asked what I wanted to do and what I didn't know, and I said that I'd consider taking a year out, and then I was just kind of left, and there was no further advice. It was just kind of, you'll figure it out when you do decide to go into education, so that's kind of where I was. My school wasn't actually that bad with careers. They'd always give you meetings, and they'd take you out to classes, and push on to what you wanted to do. You'd tell them what you wanted to do, and they'd try to find a route for you, but for me, I wanted to leave school, so they put me on this working right, which is a charity thing, and that's how I got into my apprenticeship, but that was me basically doing it myself, but also with their help, because they were the one that told me about it, so I don't think all schools are bad with that. Personally, I've gone on, like Jessica, I don't know his name. I'm out of school six years as well, and I'm an adult apprentice, so I actually started my apprenticeship quite late, and that was from the fact that I wasn't really guided in school with the great advice of what route to take, and I'd done my full six years at school and left when I was 18, but I didn't really know what route to go down, and eventually managed to get a trade apprentice when I was in my 20s, late 20s, but I think if I was given that advice, say, because I knew myself personally, I wasn't going to go to university, et cetera, that sort of route, and if I was given a trade route, that's an option you could take and make a good living out of it, et cetera. I probably would have took that route, but no, Davies, it sort of gave me a real indication, like that was an option, so I personally got my apprenticeship through phoning different companies, et cetera, and eventually got a start, and he says he would take me on, so that's the sort of route I went down. So do you think things are improving if you're speaking to folk around early on in college, maybe just coming out of school in the last couple of years, are things getting any better, or in terms of being supported and advised, or do you not have much experience of that? Liam Clark I feel like it's getting a lot better, because I left school two years ago, I left in fifth year, and the matter of help that the Gays quite a lot, like they had different sessions and stuff, you could go away, but you had to go away, they just put them on, they weren't specific people, but they could chose for it, you just had to make your own effort. But it was there, it was stuff there to do. Now I'm hearing about, sort of, flair people who are on in school, they're getting to try trades, they're getting to go to, I've seen them at Edinburgh College, they're getting, while they're still in school, they're getting to practice, what it would be like to, if they were at college doing some certain work that you would do there, whether it's for me like running corners or whatever it would be, they're getting to try that, whereas back when I was at school I never got the option to go to a college to try a hands-on trade or whatever it was. Mm-hmm. I'm not so sure about going to college to try that sort of thing out, but I know that since I've been working with the company that I'm with, we've had several students from the school that I went to high school come from work experience and get a view of what the industry is about, so I think they've definitely improved in facilitating that sort of thing. John Mason. Thank you, convener. Okay, so I just wanted to ask about, you know, how your present experience is and maybe especially the mix between how much course studying you get and how much the work is and do the two relate to each other? Do you think it's working or would you rather more time in college or more time in actually working or anything around that area? Liam Clark. I feel like there's hundreds of different types of joinery, like hundreds of people that do different stuff, especially in college. There's like, you learn everything, but they're trying to push. No, I don't even know what to say. I just like, people do certain types, but they're trying to teach everyone, but if you get taught in the one type that you're doing, I feel like you get a bit more experience with the stuff in college and make more sense in work. So tell us about your work and then what you're actually doing in your work. Well, I'm just, you know, I'm just, like, shooting and roughing, it's called, the first fix. In college, we learn about, like, how to build stairs and stuff, and I don't really, I don't know, I don't know if I can do that or not, if I'm doing, like, one, like, first fix. Yeah, so it's quite wide. The point that they're doing in the college is pretty wide then, yeah. You learn everything. Uh-huh. Is that everybody else's experience that, yeah? I'm a blood and standard surveyor, and the university course I'm on is quite vague. Originally, when we started out, we didn't actually see the relevance of a lot of the modules because they're quite vague, but from speaking to my manager in the workplace, he's actually, he's all for it because having a well-rounded knowledge of industry as a whole, it actually brings a lot more benefits because you have a bit more understanding of why we're doing certain things. So, um, it may seem vague and unrelevant at the time, but I think in the long run, um, it makes your sort of career more versatile. Yeah, I mean, that was my experience. All these many years ago when I was at university, I, we did a lot of the stuff I did at university. It was no use for me whatsoever. But anyway, that's another story. I think David Watson wanted. Um, I was just going to go back on what Liam was saying about the joinery and to tell him that he does like a specific thing in joinery and he learns about different things that we might not do on site, et cetera, which I agree with. But in our sort of personal course, we are asked to provide evidence with a folio and you build it up for a certain course. But there's certain aspects of joinery because of the type of company you're with that the guys can't get evidence of, which becomes an issue for us because if you can't give evidence of that stuff you're doing, how you're supposed to complete the folio, if you understand what I mean. So because it's that variety, I don't know whether the route to go down for joinery would be to do specific, like specific courses, see what you're doing or because it's that vast, it's very difficult to make it a generic subject, if you get what I mean. So do you feel the work experience you're getting is maybe too specialised? It's not kind of wide enough or is that just, do you think, inevitable? It's hard to say because different companies do different things. So I cut, for instance, I do new-built houses, so I get quite a variety of stuff. For instance, Jonathan, who goes to our college, he does office fit-out and I never do an office fit-out. So if I'm asked to get evidence of doing office fit-out, it's impossible for me because it's not the type of sector I'm in, if you understand what I mean. So it's just a kind of on-going issue that we've... Jonathan, yeah? That's the same, like, face versa for me because whereas David can stand there and do a roof and stuff like that, I'm not going to be doing a roof because I'm in an office, if that makes sense. So it's just difficult for me to get the evidence, as David says, for, like, this folio type thing on terms of the roofs is one of the specifics. I'm not going to get ethics, I'm not going to do a roof fit-out offices type of thing. Do you think, I mean, could they do anything to change that or is that just the way life is, do you think? I'm not sure but I doubt during my time in my apprenticeship I'll be doing a roof at all just in terms of what I'm doing. Yeah, but presumably he couldn't do everything anyway, I mean, no. It's too broad. It's very hard for a college to cater for an individual apprenticeship. Like, all companies do different things, don't they? So it's very hard for a college to look at a specific person and say, right, you're going to be doing this for the next two, four years, whatever it is. Positive about it on the whole? Personally, I'm okay because I actually work for a very small firm that covers pretty much everything we do in the course. So I'm quite lucky in that fact, but then there's people in my course that would do maybe two things in all that we study. Like, as David, you'd maybe struggle to get some certain photographs and things that he's got to collect. In my respect, I'm actually okay because we cover everything that we study. Right. So do you think it's quite an advantage being there with a smaller business? For me in my course personally, yes. Yes, uh-huh. I mean, is there any way to make that apply across the board? Because I suppose larger companies may specialise in doing one thing, like roofs, for example. So it may be that it's, is it difficult to get a fit for everyone where you can cover everything, whether it's a small or large firm, because some small firms equally may just do a certain type of… That's it. They're a business at the end of the day. They're going to take whatever work they get. So they're not going to stop taking work and trying to take on all the work just so that an apprentice can finish an SVQ. It's hard to cater for an individual person. Do you think there's another way of dealing with that or working that out? Personally. David Watson and then Jessica. I think personally it's something that you could speak about to the employer and see what they actually cover as a business as a whole and then look at the course, but the course is offering to see if it can be covered. Do you understand what I mean? I forgot these things for a bit. What he was saying about, like, a college can't cater for every single individual apprentice is just impossible because there's that in every trade. It's a vast variety. Personally I think the course I'm on is, regardless of everything struggling, the college lecturers have been brilliant with us to help us to try and get the evidence. But I don't know maybe for the guys like for myself that can't get a specific thing in the joining. Maybe like a week you go and trial with another company that does that specific sort of thing. Like a roof, for instance, if Jonathan came to my company for a week, just to get the evidence for a roof, maybe that would be sort of an option to go down that route, do you know what I mean? I mean, I'll come back to Jessica in a minute. Can I just ask you, David? I mean, have most of your lecturers had experience or recent experience of actually working, you know, in the sector or whatever? Honestly, I can't speak for how long they've been out there. They can give you examples. They can give you examples, yeah, because obviously the tradesmen at the end of the day, you know what I mean? So they have been in real life situations that they can give us sort of experience, definitely, 100 per cent. But whether that helps us in the earth situation is a bit sort of a difference, you know what I mean?  I think that the issue of sort of meeting a vague course is an issue for most of these apprenticeships. When I speak of our university class, I don't think a single one of us can meet every single module. And I think it does come down to your employer. Personally, I have a very good employer and they've allowed us to go out to university to do the work-based, instead of the work-based learning. We, there's an exception and we learn it in university, but also they've arranged for sort of outsourcing so the stuff that they can't cover in our work, they've looked at other employers and seen, like arranged a sort of work experience again to get that experience to fill in those gaps. So I think it really does come down to the employer and how I'm going to support it. Is that the council you said you're with the council, right? I mean, can I ask, is that anyone else's experience that your employer, I mean, that sounds very supportive that they're actually willing to put you out somewhere else to get work experience? Is anyone else of that, or is that a bit unique, maybe? Sorry, Daniel. Well, I work with the Turner and Townsend and I think they've been very supportive towards the university course. I'm in the same course as Jess. They cover quite a variety of things and if we can't meet a certain course module, then they'll invest the day to put us into university. So take an extra day of our working day to put us there for between six and 10 weeks or whatever it is, and make sure that we get the module covered. My mark's been pretty good with the whole picture. David, again? Personally, from my point of view, Daniel and Jess, on our university course, is a bit different for us because we're on an apprenticeship course. My company's not given me any support whether they're going to send me somewhere to get the evidence that we need for our specific course, do you know what I mean? I don't know if that's because we are a low-level course, do you know what I mean? So I don't know if that's a sort of... Well, it sounds to me like whatever the level is that there's a similar problem. It's like double standards, a few, do you know what I mean? Getting the experience, yes. Ryan Paterson. I'm with a very small company, so we cover quite a lot of different things. So I've not really had that issue of not getting what I need for my portfolio. Mine is you're in plastering, is that right? Plastering, yes. Right. Can you just tell us a little about that and how that works? I don't know much about plastering. Like it's just basically the interior of a house, like just making the walls flat, trying to just make it square really, just trying to make it flat. Did I take it? Yeah, there's... I mean, you get different kind of plaster in a house than in an office, do you? You get outside work, but just like dashing, just kind of like dashing, do you know what I mean? Like little stones on the house and you get wet dashing, and they like protect the house from weather and just to make the look of the house nice. And you've got all that kind of experience then with your firm, yeah? Definitely. So I've not got much of an issue of not getting what I need for this portfolio. But you know other people who have a... Because they're only doing the whole thing? Yeah, there's some people in my college course that are only doing outside work, and they don't do much inside work, so they kind of struggle to find what they need for doing inside stuff. So they have that issue of trying to somehow get that kind of information for the portfolio, which they do struggle on getting. Yeah, yeah, sure, thanks. I think Dean Lockhart want to come in with a supplementary. It was just to follow up on this question of sharing information and getting evidence. Are any of you members of trade associations or trade organisations, do they help in any way, or is it more your employers are the members of the trade associations and you don't really get involved? Liam Clark, I think, want to come in? No, okay. David Watson? Persley, for the question you asked. I've not been informed about a trade organisation or a trade association. I've never heard that. This is the first I've heard it. No one's ever told me what it does or what it... I don't know if it would be a help for us personally, for the cause. So it's never been something that I've ever expected. I don't know what you're speaking about, because Jonathan and Liam are both in my cause, but we've never been told anything like that in our cause just now. Does any of you have been told about that or know about that sort of thing in what you're doing? Jessica Morris? We have several unions within our workplace and we're made aware of them within the first month of working there. So I'm a student member. I've not had much involvement with them yet, but I think if I ever did need them, it would be a sort of unbiased party to sort of go to. Right, let's see. Colin Beattie? Good evening. I'd like maybe to ask something, which will probably be a bit controversial. Do you think you get paid enough for that? Fairly enough, I thought that might be the answer, but genuinely, I mean, are wage levels at this point adequate? Is it a reasonable remuneration for where you are at this time? Personally, because we're still learning as an apprentice, I think that it is all right, because you've got that ambition at the end of your apprenticeship, you're going to earn a lot more since when you started. So, personally right now, obviously, we're still learning, yes, definitely. Jessica Morris? I consider myself very fortunate to be able to study full-time whilst being in a full-time job that's relevant. And I think the pay reflects that. I mean, I pay a mortgage, I pay my travel expenses quite comfortably, and I still have money left over, so it may not seem much to some people, but I think that given the circumstances, it's a fair wage. I mean, I think earlier to then, Daniel. I do agree that you are specialised. We were away from work for two weeks in learning and still getting paid for that. But as an adult apprentice, I'm probably the opposite. My wage, I've got to pay rent, council tax, bills, whatever it is, car, all of those bills, and then still pay for your normal amenities, is quite, it does stretch your low, like if you're not getting a little bonus or whatever it is at the end of the week or two weeks, it is a stretch to cover all those bills when you're on basically minimum wage. I personally think that the wage we're getting for a first year apprenticeship is very good. You get the chance to go to university as well, you know, study full-time, you know, work towards your degree whilst getting the work experience, so I think overall it's really good. In terms of, I think it's fair. We are on less money than I feel on tradesmen, but they do more of a job than us as apprentices, so I think it's fair enough. It is tight, but it's fair enough. Do you find that you've got any work-related expenses that you need to meet yourself out of your wages? Well, personally, I work in a hay market, so I get the train for Livingston. Obviously, ScotRail aren't the best for prices, so I pay you that, and then obviously my car as well, and rent, but mostly the trains are the hard-hitter. Does anyone else have that sort of experience?  What sort of expenses would they be? Whether it's, well, I stay, I live in the borders, but my apprenticeship's up here, so they put digs cover places to stay when you're up here, so that's covered. If you don't have a car and you need to find travel up to your digs, that's covered by CITB and your employer, so most of the things, you'd have to go out your way to pay are covered by these people, to help you when you're on such a low, well, when you're on not as much as everyone else. Is that the experience of everybody? Going on the terms of travel, I'm from Cope Ridge, and I'm working in Edinburgh at the moment, and obviously, what Daniel was saying about ScotRail, that is a biggie for me as well, because of the travel to inform work, but going on what the CITB thingies experience, I don't think CITB has been that supportive for me personally. I do get travel expenses from my work, but it was myself that had to fight for their travel expenses, whereas I thought, as an apprentice, I should be getting more support from the CITB constructing body, but it was me on my own back that fought and fought and fought, and it took weeks before I actually got the right amount of expenses for me to come in to inform work. So I'm not obviously complaining about it just now, but at the time it was, I felt as if it was pressure, because I was worried about how I'm going to get to work, and things like that was going through my head, but obviously now it's all sorted, but I felt as if I could get a bit more support leading up to that, if you understand what I mean. So you're saying that really, what you got, you had to fight for? I'm going to say anything that I thought was a bit unfair, obviously, under the circumstances, because going back to the sort of minimum wage as an adult, we don't, as an adult, you have got a bit more to pay for, et cetera, and worrying about a train ticket is the last thing in your mind, do you know what I mean, to get to work? Because if you can't get to work, obviously, you can't get paid to full stop, so there's all those worries, and I did raise this with some of my CITB officers, seeing what they could do for me, and I just never get any feedback, because as you would see, you would speak to their sort of people higher than them, and they never get back to me. It wasn't until I actually fought myself to get the right expense for me to go in to inform work, so I just don't feel as if I want to go through that each time I'm going from job to job, if you understand what I mean, because nobody wants to, really, so that means the pressure that you don't need, so that's just my personal experience, so... You want to come in? Sorry, Colin, I was just thinking earlier, I want to come in and do something. We sort of devils, I'd forget on that fact, that are quite a supportive apprenticeship officer who actually laid out saying, this is what we cannot cover for it, or the employer should cover for it, so when we first started apprenticeship, we noticed that these are things we don't have to pay for, so say you couldn't pay, you had to travel up and you needed someone to pay for it, you'd say that to your apprenticeship officer and you'd fell out of form, and then that was it. So it was just to be Devils advocate on that fact that it can sometimes just be how supportive your apprenticeship officer is. If they're always saying, oh, we'll see, we'll see, or has that had one that was just like, right, here's what you do. Is it partly about getting the information in advance when you start to know how to approach them? Definitely, if you can get all that in advance to know what you should be getting is in apprentice. Can I ask that employment can sometimes be a wee bit of a bumpy road? If you had problems in your apprenticeship, who would you talk to? Who would you speak to about it? My site manager, I've spoken to throughout everything and I've been quite lucky that he has been very helpful because it's not his decision at the end of the day about the expense and things that I said earlier, he needs to go through his hierarchy to obviously try and fund me to get to work extra. But my site manager's been very helpful, so it would be my site manager to be my first contact that I would deal with personally.  Are you confident you've got someone to go to that would help you resolve that? There was an incident at my work where this person was getting a bit too weird, and I don't know if it's because I'm female, obviously, in a male trade. But basically, I told one of my workmates and my workmate told the office, so the office then had a word with me and was making sure that I was okay. So I'd go to my boss or the office or any of my tradesmen because they're really nice and they help anyway. So if something's wrong, I can always go to them. Having experienced an issue in the workplace, are you happy that it was properly dealt with? Yeah, definitely, definitely. Is it Gash or you wanted to come in on some of these points? Yeah, I was just going to say following on from what Elliott was saying about the apprenticeship officers from CITB. I mean, I have a very supportive workplace as well, but we kind of have a regular meeting, our check-in with our apprenticeship officer in Alaska.  Are you being treated fairly? Are there any issues? And so I think it's quite good that they're happy to address that for us as well. Jessica Morris? In my workplace, we have workplace mentors and I think of the university programme. Everyone who's on the course does have a workplace mentor assigned to them, so any issues I would bring to them and they sort of sort out any issues between the work and the university. They sort of act to my behalf, so the mentors are good. Does anyone else have a mentor, someone who's allocated to them too? Yeah, just the exact same as Gash. We have a university mentor and a workplace mentor, so they communicate quite a lot as well between the three of us. So if we have any problems with whether it's university or the workplace, then we can go to either of them. As well as they're kind of my line manager, especially he's pretty invested in the university programme as well, so he's always checking and making sure everything's going okay with it and things like that. Does anyone else have a mentor? From the apprenticeship route, it's really a tradesman that's kind of your mentor, the one that's teaching you, or your line manager. We've not really got anyone, apart from a CITB officer, but there's not really anyone that you can sort of go to. And going on the facts, what Asha said, in terms of your CITB officer coming out to site, they do do that with us, but there's points that you do raise with them that's still just personally, from my experience, that you still don't get to deal with. So you're kind of left, twiddling your thumbs, thinking, well what do I do now, do you know what I mean? So there is only so many sort of avenues you can go down with the options you've got, do you know what I mean? Elliot, you wanted to come on. Because we've got quite a small course compared to everyone else. We're a lecturer, because we're a smaller course, we can get some more specific time with a lecturer. They might have been through experiences, I've been in the trade, whether it was bullying in college, whatever it is. I think you've got quite a close relationship with them as well, you're with them half the month as well as your tradesman, so I find that, and they can sort of advise, even if you tell them first, they can even advise who you should tell, if it's in the workplace. You could tell your CITB officer or whoever it is. Because you're with them just as much as you're with your people at work. Do you think it depends partly on the people involved, because obviously people have different pressures on them at different times, not just you as apprentices, but also the people you're working with. And people don't always get things right, none of us do. But from the point of view of having a system in place, or knowing that you've got someone that you can go to, if things are working as they ought to, is that, do you feel that you've got that there? If you say that this problem was in the workplace, but they're under high demand, that's the problem, why they're causing the problem, and you go to your boss with that problem, but they're already stressed out or in some sort of situation, because of the work under pressure, that they're under to get the job finished or whatever it is, they've already got problems, they don't exactly want your problem as well as that. But I suppose people have to make time to deal with what needs to be done with. Do you feel that there is the time made available to deal with things that need to be dealt with from your experience? From my experience, because I'm with a small firm, yes. And we know our jobs day to day, week to week, whereas if you're sometimes with a big firm that's under high demand to get this job finished within a certain time period, that they're just right, okay, we'll deal with that problem, and then the premise is just left to get on with their work. Do others feel that way, or do you think that's a fair assessment of things? David? Firstly, going from that, because I do work with quite a large firm, I would completely agree, because they are under a tight schedule, and we are just left sometimes to refer on devices, but I would completely agree with that comment, 100%. Any others in that case, Angela Constance? Thank you, convener. I wondered if our guest this morning had any views about whether they think young people have a positive or negative impression of the construction industry, and what more could be done to encourage more young people into construction, and I'm particularly interested in how we could encourage more young women to pursue a construction-related career, Jessica. Thinking back to high school, I wouldn't say that it was negative or positive, but when you got to fourth year, there were obvious people who didn't want to continue in school, the naughty kids who tended to go on construction-type apprenticeships, and it was often perceived that apprenticeships were the easy route out, which isn't right at all. Up until about two years ago, my impression of the construction industry was that I didn't have a knowledge of it at all, I didn't know what sort of job opportunities there were. So, when I thought of the construction industry, I thought of men out on the work site covered in mud. There wasn't a good enough image of how many different roles there are involved in the industry. I'm still learning of more now, so I think it has to be communicated early on. There's so much more going on in the industry than the first meets the eye. Jessica, do you think that employers in schools could do more to give a better impression of the construction industry? Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely. Have you any ideas about what would help? I just think that education about careers as a whole is important. All the industries, there's very little knowledge in school about how many different roles there are involved in every industry, so I think that people should be made more aware of all the different people that influence the design of a building. So, I think... Keir Lear about careers advice and information and about how that was just a few weeks before you sat some exams. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but do you think that careers information needs to start much earlier in school? 100 per cent, yeah. 100 per cent, I think. I mean, in fourth year, that's when you start making your decisions on what courses you're going to take. That's, in my opinion, where it should really be in place, bringing into the school. These are the different options available to you, if you consider this and that, and getting the workplace in... I mean, I had one week of work experience when I left school, and that was it. So, more work experience earlier on in your school career? Yeah, I think, and that's what I like about the apprenticeship as well. I mean, I've got friends that went to university and dropped out because they didn't actually know why they were learning something, whereas, I mean, the workplace, I'm actually gaining experience and actually working it if I actually enjoy the job until, I mean, a lot of people go to university, and then after a year of actually being on a job, they realise they don't like it. So, I think, having that work experience in early, they actually get a better idea of what they're getting in for if they actually want to go down that route. So, I think, work experience early on is beneficial. Thank you, and I wondered if our other guests have any opinions on this. In the school that I came from, there was one week every year where, from third year onwards, you'd get the chance to go and work like work experience, so everyone, like, they'd stay in school or study or they'll get out and learn something from a job for a week like work experience, which is what I did, and I went in the summer and did the work experience again and just to get some money over the summer. So, the work experience that, like in the school that I came from, was really good and it gave people the opportunity to learn about different things while still on school and give them a kind of an idea of what they want to do. So, if I've understood you correctly, Ryan, the opportunity for work experience at school actually helped you find work experience with the school holidays? Yeah, I went to... It wasn't with the same... I met him while I was doing that different, like, work experience that week and I asked him, like, a year, put a post on Facebook, social media saying that, looking for apprentice and at this point I was waiting for my exam results and I was just working with him over the summer holidays and I decided to just stay on and I worked a year with him and I got my apprenticeship with him the next again, yeah. Okay, thank you. And, Charlie, do you have views about how we could make the construction industry more attractive? I think... Well, first of all, advertising, right? Because, like, you know, there's no, like, photos of, like, female painters or, like, any trade. It's, like, it's always men. So, I feel like if, you know, there was more information about females and it's, like, well, for paintings, for instance, it's, like, you could go into, like, interior as well, like, within that, so, like, you could literally decorate, like, a whole house, like, or something, I don't know. Yeah, I don't... I don't really know.  But in terms of meeting women who are already pursuing careers in the construction sector, would that help? Probably, yeah. Like, I feel like it just needs to be, like, put out especially in, like, school. I mean, I'm the same as Jessica. I only got one week of work experience when I was doing hair dressing and it was nothing like I thought it was going to be. So, I feel like maybe they should, like, put a trade in as well.  But I just feel like, you know, it should be, like, more open about females doing it and more, because it's not all, like, hard labour. You know, there is, like, some good bits of it. So, I'm really interested. How did you make that leap from hair dressing to construction? What was the spark? Well, I used to dye my hair a lot, so, obviously, hair dressing was, like, I don't know, I guess, something that I wanted to do when I was younger. But I think it was more the people than the actual work itself that put me off. So, you know, because one bad experience can make you, like, not want to do something, especially at such a young age because I think I did it in, like, third year. So, I was always, like, into art and stuff, but I didn't want to keep studying, I wanted to, like, make money and do something, and I don't like sitting down in the same place constantly, so I was, like, painting, because you're moving about, you're still doing art, it's just a different kind of form. So, that's kind of how I got there. Okay. Thank you, convener. Yes, Daniel. I was just going to say about the work experience kind of aspect. Personally, where I was at school, it was down to the individual about where you were going, so if you wanted to experience a trade, you'd have to really know someone who was already in a trade. You had to get, like, consent forms and stuff signed, so it was a bit hard to kind of just go up to a random trade and go, can I come to your workplace for a week? So, it was quite kind of difficult for there. And then, obviously, the kind of high schools would struggle to cater to hundreds of students to get them all workplace placements, but, you know, I'd kind of say maybe if we could change that kind of aspect to it a little bit, it might help get the experience that people want for it, or even kind of workshops as well. When we had workshops in school, it was all universities that came and talked to us about their courses and stuff, but we didn't really get pictures from different apprenticeship programmes or anything like that. All right. Jamie Harcaw and Johnson. Thank you very much, convener. Andy Wightman and I were at Edinburgh College yesterday. One of the very interesting things that came up was talking about the future of the construction sector and how there will be changes in terms of automation, manufacturing and the like. So, I just wanted to ask the apprentices how you may feel changes in the future may impact on your jobs in terms of artificial intelligence, robots, machines doing more and more, taking more and more work or roles? How that might impact on not only the jobs and the skills that you've picked up, but how you might have to continue to adapt and re-skill in the like? From a personal point of view in plaster, I'm not really worried in that fact. The product that you use, the materials, might all develop and improve, but to see a robot plaster a wall will be the first to say fair enough, but it's a very hard thing to get a computer programme or whatever it is to do, so personally, I'm not really worried in that respect. It's not changed in the past 30 years, 40 years, so if it changes in the next, fair enough. You're ready to take it on? I'm ready to take on a robot plaster a wall any day. Charlie, will that be any different in painting, do you think? I mean, I don't know, at the end of the day, you still need someone to operate the machine, you still need someone to turn it on and off, but I don't really see it happening any time soon, because I can't see a robot hanging wallpaper or, I don't know, maybe cleaning up and stuff, but I don't see it doing anything quite that specific. So no plastering and no wallpapering robots so far. David? Just based on the fact that personally, for the jointed aspect, I also can't see a jointing like that, a jointed robot, but maybe in the lifted aspect, the heavier things etc, but in terms of the actual fit out of stuff and the attention to detail, I think personally, as human beings, like with attention to detail, can't see a robot having the same sort of eye as us, with certain sort of things, so I'm saying that point. Yeah, I'd have to agree, there's two elements of my job, we have the sort of work base side where we assess an application against regulations and stuff, but the other half we're actually out on site assessing the building itself, and you can't really take the human element out of that, you can't send a robot out to sort of, I can't imagine it anyway, but I think there's a line between getting a programme to do it and actually making sure it's... If I could be Divill's advocate just for a minute, I mean, we went out and visited CCG, which is their building in the factories, and their argument is that the robot will always put the nail in exactly the same place in the piece of wood, so there's no human error, there's no nothing, it's all exactly the same, which I would have thought might impact on David's job, and if Jessica knew that that was happening, it might impact on her job. But what piece of technology is 100 per cent perfect? It doesn't always go right, that's my question. Well, we've even had, I think, discussions in Parliament about voting robots, and I'm sure whether John Mason thinks we might even have robots as MSPs someday or not, but... Well, I'll hand it back to Jamie at you. Did you want to follow up on some points? Elliot, I want to come in here. Yeah, it's just to go back on that. It's very hard to substitute someone with a trained eye. It's easy for, even if it's, for example, a new ball the robot says, fair enough it went in to do that, but it was to do a repair, it comes across problems. How is it going to problem solve a certain situation that only someone trained in it for years can do? It's fine if it's nailing in something that's the same all the way down, but what if you come across a bit, you can't nail it in? There's pipe work, or whatever it is, you can't. It's very hard to programme something to do that when it can come across many different problems in the construction industry. Charlie wants to come back in, and then Ryan. But if you're on an outside job and the robot's working for you, what if it rains? Then it just like malfunctions and just kind of like doesn't work. Ryan? Like if we get rained on, we still work, it's fine. So, I don't know. I was just saying, we're thinking like new builds and old builds, you've got all these old houses that are all misshaped and there's things that just like new builds have. So, like new builds, fair enough, robots can maybe do that in the future, but like there's always these old houses that will have to have someone like trained eye to sort out. There's good confidence there certainly, I think, and that's really encouraging. I do take the points on this. Obviously, that eye that you develop has somebody with a skill over years and the experience. It's very hard to replicate that. Another aspect that did come up yesterday was about the digital skills, the kind of increasing role of digital skills in a lot of apprenticeships, not so much on the kind of robots side or anything like that, but more so how new technology can kind of help skilled workers in the future. I was just wondering if you felt that that was an aspect of your training that you feel has been included enough or whether it's still very traditional, I suppose, how you're being taught. In my workplace, we've had a few different companies come in and kind of like pitch different ideas to us on what we're doing. Obviously, I'm involved in the cost in the aspect, so we've had a company that comes through with VR technology and how they can basically make a building that's not there yet and show the contractor where the pipes are going to go and where everything's going to be and how it's going to look, which gives it a better kind of, it can bring your timeline down, it can help you as well for cost and because you know exactly what is there, it just kind of makes everything a lot easier than kind of just looking at drawings and with no imagination. I'd say there's definitely technology out there that's coming in and it's going to make it a lot easier. And you're being exposed to that? Yeah, yeah, slowly we're getting there. So we're probably the opposite to that, we're still very traditional, we're still in on skills that our lecturers were taught 20, 30 years ago. There's not many digital things to help improve the way we learn, it's still very traditional, which actually still banks quite good, like you're still learning a traditional way of doing things. It's still very hands-on, I personally quite like that. Do you use digital equipment at all in your work in terms of levels or things like that? It's still like spirit levels, water levels still, I mean there is obviously laser levels that sort of thing but it's still very traditional in the things that we use. Do you think it'd be helpful to have modern laser digital type equipment or? I mean if it's helpful yes but I personally don't see where it would come in, it's still very hard, classroom wise to bring in something modern when it's been this way for 20, 30 years. Andy? So forgive me, I've never done any plastering but it occurs to me that one of your challenges, I think what Ryan was saying is you want to get things flat a lot at the time. Could laser scanning not help with that? I mean there is sort of that in it already but you're still needing the skill you use to get it flat is still the same. You might have something laser to check if it is but the skill you use to get it flat is what they would use 20 years ago. Is technology helping you in that regard then to develop your skills because you know better when you're doing a good job or not? Yeah, yeah and in that respect it probably is and there's things on internet now, the things that you can use to even check to make sure that this is the way you're supposed to be doing it even if it was done 20, 30 years ago but in that respect it probably is. But as I say the way you're still getting to that end product is by doing it the way they did years ago. I mean other trades might have probably different, technology's probably different for them but I would say in our trade it's still the same. But that was another reason I chose the apprenticeship and what I did, it was very traditional, still very hands on. Asher, you wanted to comment. So a lot of what I do in my work is office based just design work on computers and I think even since I started my apprenticeship I've found that we've brought in new programs and there's been kind of new developments that we've been able to use for 3D visualization of designs and things like that because it's all well and good for me to draw something up and it looks like it's fine on paper and then these guys will know that something will come to sight and it'll be absolutely disastrous. So that really helps a lot I think in being able to to kind of see it a bit better rather than just drawing out a floor plan and expecting something to work that to be able to see the building come together and all of its components. I mean I suppose that's an interesting point because there has to be the connection between the actual work being carried out and whatever you do in a computer program. So I remember someone I studied with who was a descendant or relative of the composer Schubert who would write his own symphonies on a computer program but he said to me actually no human being could actually play these symphonies so not much use in that. Would you feel that the connection is close enough in terms of the modern programs that are coming in that it's actually of use on the construction site? Absolutely. I think for some of the subcontractors that my company works with a lot of times before they'll go to work on a project they'll come to our office and speak to us and kind of talk through a job and I think being able to have that conversation with a 3D model and being able to talk through and even walk through the building with the guys who are going to be then constructing it really really helps and makes sure we're all on the same page and they can even point something out and say look I don't think that's that's going to work I think it'd be better if we were to do something like this and it really helps kind of for us to communicate with them. Jessica? It's relevant to what Ashley was saying because we work very closely with architects and the technology does help us a lot. We still get one or two hand-drawn applications and the time it takes to assess them is a lot longer and CAD software, BOOM software, it's a lot easier to identify pinpoint areas you want to look at and it's a lot easier to spot problems straight away and so I think it's definitely helping the industry. Good, Jamie. Sorry, I just have one kind of last question. It was basically where you saw yourselves in 10 years time within your careers and also I suppose to add a little bit how many of you whether in 10 years time or in the future would see you taking your skills and perhaps setting up on your own starting your own companies or whether going working self-employed. We had people from the Scottish Youth Parliament in and I think out of about 12 people that were all had all chosen to go to university I think only one or two considered actually starting their own company up whereas in when you've got a skill there seems to be a good proportion of people that do you so I just wondered how that might how might that that might factor in your futures whether being able to take your skills and start your own company up or work self-employed might be part of that. Ryan, we were there was a few of us talking before for this and we were explaining who were describing that and there's a lot of us that don't really know how we've not really been taught how to like set anything up for like jobs like we'll become self-employed and I think that's one of the main issues of people not starting and they're just two like they don't know how or so they just stay with their main like their boss but I think that's the main issue on why people wouldn't start their own business because they're not really sure how and how to cope with it. So do you think your training could include some advice in terms of setting up or you know your current employer may not have that priority obviously but to know this information? Yeah like just even like a little bit in like the training at college or we didn't we got some like business and stuff in school but it's not when like I didn't take anything from it but yeah there's definitely some like we need more information about the becoming self-employed. But it's something of interest to you so yeah yeah anyone else want to yeah it was just to to agree with that like I'd probably personally I probably have later on in life maybe they'll probably the opportunity to go self-employed because I work for someone that just works for themselves so I'd have the opportunity to take that over but as Ryan said at the minute I wouldn't know where to start apart from asking from them their experiences I wouldn't know where to where to start what the risks are obviously you know some of the benefits but what other benefits might be the obviously you might get some price in what that sort of aspect is at your college but there's so many other risks etc for going self-employed that you probably don't know about you think you just probably just think about fine I get to choose my own hours and I get to choose the work I do but when in fact there's so many other things you've got to take in the paperwork the the difficulties of maybe sometimes finding work how you get through that that sort of thing so do you work sorry you just work for one other person at the moment yeah so actually in the future they may want you to take more of a role in running yeah so their business anyway so I might personally from that fact I might get training in that but I'm talking about some people in other people's case who what are they going to do how are they going to know what it takes to run a business because it's not obviously it's not an easy task David and Daniel from a personal point of view I kind of want to go down the route of full education which the colleges provide and support me for and I want to eventually do like my higher national certificate in construction management and maybe go down the management route and go down that because you got a lot of benefits the higher you work your way up the ladder so I think being self-employed there's a lot of risks involved in terms of finding the work and you don't get like your holiday pay your sick pay so you need to be earning money to cover that these those sort of things so I think that puts a lot of young people off becoming self-employed so but just personally for me I would like to go down or even the education route just sort of further further education to try and sort of work my way up the ladder from a personal standpoint I believe that maybe quite a lot of people will be put off going self-employed because there's quite a lot of bits in the construction industry that are really already dominated it'd be very hard for you to kind of start your own company and get good clients and kind of get good jobs going with there's already so many different companies that are you know taking all the work for it so it wouldn't be a really kind of good idea to do it I'd say just kind of work your way up in your your job would be the best and that kind of you know it kind of way all right um anyone who hasn't commented on this question would like to come in just before we come to a close here we're just about the end of our our time well well I think Elliott wanted to come back in so perhaps give you a last comment on that basically a combination on both and David and Daniel's points there that that's probably my personal view at the minute the amount of work I have to see someone self-employed do to cover themselves for if they want to take a holiday if they are sick is unbelievable the amount of work they have to go just to cover that whereas if you stick in the the role you're in and go through that management route you just at the minute I sort of see more benefits that way because the it seems to be a lot of work for what they have to cover and for something is accidentally being sick and you're not getting paid for something you can't help it's all right well thank you very much to all of you for coming in and being with us for this round table at the committee today so thank you very much and I'll close this part of the meeting and suspend for change of our witnesses so thank you very much and welcome back to our economy committee meeting this morning we now move on to item three in the agenda in our construction scotland's economy inquiry and welcome our three witnesses today we have Douglas Morrison associate director of innovation and stem at the city of glasgo college lorna hamilton who's a member of the scotland board association of women and property and also scott warden who's the head of faculty for engineering and built environment at edinburgh college so I'd welcome all three of you today just to say that the buttons the sound desk will operate the mic so there's no need to press any buttons if you want to come in during the discussion just simply indicate by raising your hand if you don't get brought in naturally so to speak so I'll turn now to John Mason for the first questions thanks very much convener and thanks to the panel for coming along we've had various submissions for this study that we're doing in construction and we'll not say who said it but somebody said that the construction industry quote has remained in the stone age unquote when it comes to adopting new technologies and I don't know if you were in when you had the princes in just just now I mean I was a little bit surprised that they were not more either optimistic or expectant of new technology coming in so could I have your views on that I mean where are we with new technologies that being driven by the colleges and universities or are they just reflecting what's going on in the industry mr warden yeah to be honest I thought perhaps the princes undersold themselves a little bit actually because I think the skills that they already come into the college sector with they've already got it skills digital skills which they are using in college but I think they just see that as the normal the standard so I think the kind of undersold themselves a little bit on that side there's still a fair bit of work to to go there but certainly on perhaps advanced manufacturing and off-site manufacturing that's maybe the direction to go for kind of that the it skills and the additional skills required that the skills will still be there but there's a lot of work still to be done on whether we're going to introduce kind of robotics or automation into mainstream education but I think that's more in a controlled environment like the off-site or new bills to a certain extent so there's maybe a bit of work to do there but I think they kind of undersold themselves a little bit on the knowledge already have the touchstone portfolios as well they're already having the digital skills where they're using their phones or ipads to collect that information and then bring that back into the college so they're doing quite a bit on it it's just I think they see it as a norm I mean would could I just question that would it's Edinburgh College isn't it you are I mean do you see yourselves as kind of leading on the innovation front I mean are you pushing that ahead or is that not really a role for the college I think for certainly the ME programmes at the moment I would say there's a new programme in place it came into place about year and a half ago and there's not a lot of new technologies within the new programme so if we are going to add it into it it's actually the college sector that need to put the new technologies into it and the new learning into it on top of the current qualification I tend to see the future of this being incorporated in the work we do with schools full-time programmes and leading into modern apprenticeships and looking at how we tie in robotics and automation with kind of coding and programming at an early age so it becomes kind of standard practice and by the time they get into the college sector they're already aware of it we start building on it when they're in the ME programme and it's transferable skills that if these skills are required in off-site manufacturing or whether robotics come into a certain part of the industry then they're kind of trained enough to start okay thank you much miss Hamilton I tend to agree Scott I think they under sold themselves and I think that's a generation that just takes certain things as a given now I was slightly surprised though that they didn't seem to have a better understanding of of BIM and CAD and just bringing these sort of things or even mentioning that when they're out in a site they use a tablet to pull up the drawings but again maybe it's just because they take that as a given that's nothing exceptional for them I think one of the difficulties that we have within the construction industry is the large organisations I have and are continuing to develop and broaden digital digital engineering or BIM CAD all these sort of things in the off-site manufacturing and require their supply chain to buy into that and so the supply chain are maybe sometimes one step behind in certain things but they're getting brought along which I think is good the problem with that is that it can preclude some of the much smaller the self-employed we touched on with the apprentices earlier it can preclude some of these people from dealing with certain contractors and certain procurement methods so I think that's something that we've got to watch for Mr Morrison yeah again I agree with both witnesses and everything they've said I think the key the key thing from my perspective is that we are absolutely right as a sector to be focusing on some of these high value technologically advanced methodologies that have already been mentioned and of course these in time will be adopted by the supply chain because ultimately they will seek to secure long-term work from the from the main contractors I do think that where where colleges play a specific role as in supporting early career development and again with the evidence that we we heard this morning it's clear that there there is more that we can do there but I think we also we work very closely with micro businesses and small businesses and sole traders and you know as as companies who make up a fairly sizeable portion of the industry there are questions to be asked about how we support those types of companies in the very basic level of digital adoption and digital literacies even down to to things like invoice and ordering managing resources and so on and I think that as as the rate of digital adoption continues to increase then we will see colleges and universities planning an increasingly important role in supporting that type of company in digitally transforming their business so if we've got the colleges here and we've got the small businesses over here where does the construction scotland innovation centre fit into that picture okay so I mean I guess before before I respond to that I should declare that I have a board position with the innovation centre and so yes I do know about it I believe that the innovation centre has now been in existence for almost five years and I believe that it has has acted as a beacon for innovation and a beacon for possibility and within the industry when considering what the innovation centre has done within the college sector I think there are a number of very good examples where they have been able to to engage the sector and the education sector and the construction industry themselves in developing and adopting a wide range of technologies that are aimed at addressing key issues within the industry and those issues may include sector attractiveness and they may include productivity and they may extend to the adoption and integration of digital technologies and just a couple examples I would like to pick out when we consider the sector attractiveness issues which we heard earlier and I'm sure we'll get to one of the image and things for the whole sector later yeah so one one of the projects that the innovation centre supported is the development of a computer game aimed at 14 to 16 year old children which raises awareness of careers and construction and has a very strong focus on environmental sustainability, equality, diversity and inclusion and responsible investment and inclusive growth so perhaps of the opportunity to speak more to that later but they are also leading on national developments around off-site and advanced manufacture around building information modelling around college lecturers cpd opportunities which is vitally important in keeping our lecturer expertise up to date and they are also investing in a project which is specifically close to my heart which is around supporting SME businesses to assess the extent to which they have inclusive workplace practices so really getting to the bottom of this key issue around the lack of diversity in the industry understanding where the underlying issues exist, setting baselines where the industry can start to measure progress in a meaningful way and for me the innovation centre are connecting the colleges, they're connecting the industry and they're having meaningful impact. Thanks so much. I mean obviously Mr Morrison's quite involved in the innovation centre, I'm not sure how involved the others are, that we have the feeling from some witnesses that the innovation centre is not as well known across the country and among SMEs as maybe it could be or should be. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yes, certainly. I would say that the last five years that's been in existence, as a college sector, I've dealt more with the innovation centre in the last year, year and a half than I have the three and a half years prior to that. The discussions that we've had with them, it's really to find out what they're doing, how the innovation centre and the college sector can get involved with them and most of the work that I've seen to have come across so far is university sort of level, research level and there's not really been that space for the further education sector as yet, but I think they're keen to do that sort of work and get more involved. I've met with members of staff at the centre recently to see how we in the college sector and the college sector in general can work closer with them and kind of get access to the funding that's available to obviously universities as well. I think it's really important that, I think the message is getting out there now to the college sector that we're there to also guide our local companies and small to small or large companies to sign posts on to the innovation centre so the support is there with the help of colleges. So a lot of it is a sign post initiative for us I think. Okay, that's fair, thanks. Did you want to say anything, Mr Hamilton? I think that's, I'm not on the education side, I'm from a main contracting background, so a different perspective perhaps. I think it is the sign posting so that people know large companies if they want to explore some bit of research or understanding, start to know where to go to the likes of the innovation centre and it's to make sure that that's seen throughout the supply chain so that they can take advantage of it. If they're in the know, they know, but if they're not in the know, it's very hard to get that message across. We've heard evidence that the future of construction isn't necessarily on site and that's been touched on some extent. The big improvements, developments are in factory construction and design. What specifically are the colleges and so on doing to prepare current and future apprentices for that challenge? Because it's going to be a very different situation in the future, we can see the developments coming. I think that, listen to some of the presses this morning, they didn't really have a feeling that robotics and automation was going to come into the industry to the level that was going to affect them. I tend to agree with them to a certain extent as well that a large majority of the work that they undertake will be based around working in existing houses. I think that the automation, whether it's off-site or on-site in a controlled environment, the percentage of work is quite low and the environment, certainly if you're doing some of the robotics on-site, it's not really an environment that works. The off-site side of it, I know of through working with the energy skills partnership who have matched up, I think, its three colleges and three off-site manufacturers to work together in the sector at the moment. They're working quite closely, but the numbers coming through for these training programmes at the moment are quite small, so it's quite a small part of the market. The way I see us in the college and the sector developing learners of the future is through that progression through school, school cause partnerships, into fielding programmes and modern oppressions, but what we need to be incorporating into those programmes are how they interact with robots or collaborative robots, but it's once again a lot of it comes down to the coding and programming side of it and it's how we build in those basic skills into standard core programmes. Do you have an understanding as to what those technological changes that are coming are? We've had site visits across looking at the production of pre-fabricated units and so on for houses. Where does it go beyond that? What is it that we're actually anticipating is coming down the line and how do we prepare apprentices and people entering the trade for that? When we're looking at off-site manufacturing, because the numbers are so low at the moment, it's the current MEA students that we have, we can upskill them to a certain level, that when they go into the environment that is off-site, the technologies that they're using, the ones that I've seen earlier, they look like almost iPad sort of based and they are pretty basic programming coding technologies, so it doesn't seem to be a huge leap from a skilled tradesman or an apprentice to go into that environment in my opinion. We were at the construction innovation centre last week and one of the presenters there was talking more so around off-site manufacturing might not be the way forward for the industry. He was part of a cluster of large-scaled house builders but he almost felt it was a bit of a mixture between off-site and almost IKEA-style flat pack, so instead of just a full house coming out of the factory and getting good to go, it's part of the timber frame direction that we already do in this country very well, but mixing that with a pod that will be the kitchen or the bathroom and you start bringing the flat packs to site, so there's a bit of a mixture between off-site and that development. Are we saying that technological advances that we're anticipating in the industry may be getting overhyped? Perhaps, I haven't really seen it come through as yet. I think this would be on the agenda for the past four or five years about off-site manufacturing and it doesn't seem to have taken off to the extent that the college sector is expected and the partnerships and the training that's required for those partnerships. I think there's a range of things at play here and it's fair to say that off-site manufacturing, modern methods of construction are not the only answer to the need for low-cost affordable housing and indeed more housing but there is a place for it and I think that within Scotland what we have started to see is the development of a network, employer-led network and also some of the excellent work that's being delivered through Edinburgh Napier University, which is looking at the business case for off-site construction and modular construction. This is not necessarily a new technology, it's being done right across the world and it's being done very well. The question that we have is how does this technology, how do these methodologies fit within the Scottish context and that extends absolutely beyond the technology itself. It looks at culture, it looks at procurement, it looks at availability of materials and the list goes on. I think that it's too early at this stage to have any evidence-based view on the long-term viability of this approach, although I would say that all the indicators are the absolute direction of travel. In relation to your question about how we identify the technologies that are coming on stream or that are likely to come in the mid to long-term future, that's a difficult one to answer, but what I can say is that the industry is focused on adopting technologies that make workplace practices cleaner, safer and more productive. Any technologies whether they exist within the construction industry now, whether they exist in peripheral industries or adjacent industries, if there's a clear business case that demonstrates a positive impact on any of those measures, then I'm confident that the industry as a whole will consider their viability. Off-site construction aside, it seems a bit vague what you're saying, as if there's no clarity in the areas in which we can anticipate these technological advances. Are there areas that we can? In specific areas where we've already seen technological advances off-site to one side, the adoption of building information modelling and the adoption of 3D visualisation, which again was mentioned by some of the contributors earlier today, they do, but again their use is fairly embryonic and we will continue to mature in our use of these technologies. I think that the key challenge is taking it beyond the design stage, beyond the large contractor stage and embedding those practices and technologies through the supply chain and down into the smaller and medium companies. That's the key challenge, that's a cultural challenge, the adoption of those technologies. Just a slightly different thing. How do colleges and universities engage with the thousands of small businesses and micro businesses across Scotland? It's incredibly difficult, of course, and it's easy to deal with big companies. How do you engage with those people? They are the backbone, after all, of the sector. Certainly, for engaging with employers, I think that some of the sector does very well. We've also got thousands of apprentices in the college, in the college itself, but within the sector there's the best part of 20,000 involved in construction alone. I think that it's something that we do very well at the moment. I think that we can support them a bit better along the lines of how we get our students or their workforce into the workplace sooner and at a less risk to those organisations. I think that this industry is perhaps a miss of a trick along the lines of foundation apprenticeships. There is a foundation apprenticeship where we attach to the construction industry bar civil engineering, but not one for the trades. I think that it's really important that, if we take anything away from today, a foundation apprenticeship in this area would mean ideal and perfect for the construction industry. I think that it's a very good way of supporting micro businesses to reduce their risk on them taking on apprentices because it's a four-year commitment that they do worry about and it's a financial commitment that they worry about. I think that it's engaging with employers in that way as they are coming through school. Once again, it's getting that pipeline through school, through first year, second year, third year, the foundation apprenticeship kicking in round about fifth and sixth year so that colleges can deliver a programme in partnership with the school, incorporating a work placement to enhance that working relationship with a vast number of micro businesses that we perhaps don't engage with at the moment. I think that that would be a really helpful addition if there was something along those lines. I think that that's one of the most critical things is the transparency of the pipeline of work will allow people to take on more apprentices or give them more confidence to do so. Whether that is through the larger contractors, through the supply chain or through the smaller and micro organisations, it's very difficult for them to make that commitment. The more that we can give them surety of work and confidence, the more that they'll be able to take on certain people. We've seen a drop in the number of people, students enrolling in construction college courses between 2008-09 to 2017-18, from 24,851 to 17,927. Is this a cause for concern or is this due to, if you like, just the state of the industry over the last five, ten years? I think that there are two key issues to consider here. The first was the recession that we experienced round about that time. We know that the construction industry is disproportionately impacted by any economic downturns. Of course, the confidence, particularly that young people and their parents will have—their advisers—on entering into a career in the industry that has been subject to large-scale lay-offs in the past. However, we also have to consider what has been termed as the war on talent, which is cutting across our sectors just now. I think that the emergence of an ever-growing, particularly digital sector, which offers very attractive career prospects and a wide range of flexible working and potentially high earning potential, has become increasingly difficult for the industry to present a robust and compelling case for young people to come in and commit to a career within the industry. That has reflected in the decrease in enrolments that we have seen. I completely agree with what Douglas said. I think that what we need to consider on this point is that the migrant force in Scotland sits at about £14,000, so there has been a large increase in foreign workers in the industry that might have taken up some of those roles that, traditionally, our apprentices would have taken up those roles. There is a fair bit about that. In the south-east, we are probably going through one of the largest set of numbers that we have had for a number of years. We are sitting at this moment in time with around 1,000 of presses within the construction area, which is up about 600 places in this time four years ago. There is an increase year-on-year in this region, perhaps not all around Scotland, but certain parts of Scotland where there is a lot of house building going on and construction work going on, you do see those increases. However, it does tie in with the foreign workforce as well over the past 10 years that might be affecting that number. We are very aware that, during recession, the number of people that dropped out of the industry was high and they have not returned to the industry. They are also now of a generation, they are another few years older, where their children are coming up through the ranks and they are not, therefore, recommending because they had a fallout in their career absolutely, particularly in the trades. We are very conscious of that. We are also aware that, during any recession—the last one was obviously hurting us a lot—women dropped out of the industry quicker or do not enter it in the first place again because there are probably not the role models, there is not the support mechanism and they do not see the future. There are other things that can give them a more stable career environment. I think that it takes the construction industry historically a long time to recover that way from any recession. This one has been particularly hurting. We have been through it for quite a wee while, and we are still struggling to improve on things. I think that it is the competing aspects of other industries. The negative press—you very rarely hear a good news story on the public press. It is different if you go to the construction press, but you are probably the only people that look at the construction press. For the man on the street, the women on the street, they do not see good news stories. I think that it is important for all of us to get that message out there about how vibrant construction can actually be. You said that they do not see good stories. Are you implying that they see bad stories? They see some bad stories, but they largely see very little about construction in the general press. It would be good to get some of the exciting parts. To get folk to understand that it is about creating communities, it is not just about laying one brick on top of the other, pouring concrete and doing electrical work. It is actually creating the whole of the environment that we live in and working and operating in, in schools and in education—everything that we are involved in. To try and get that message across within the public press about creating communities would go a long way. You mentioned women in construction. Obviously, there are very low numbers of women in the construction industry, but we heard from the apprentices earlier today that they are aware that there are many opportunities in construction. Is there a problem in the way that the industry is promoted at schools, for example? Again, we heard from apprentices that they felt that there was not a lot of promotion of that as an option when they were at school. I think that that is an issue, and I think that that has been an issue all my working life in the 80s. I will go back to that. I was heavily involved in the CITB going out to schools to promote the environmental barriers for women going into construction. That is my opinion. As an industry, we thought that we had sussed that. We had got that message across and that fell away in the 90s. We thought that we would take that box and schools understood. The reality is that careers advisers identified architecture engineering, civil engineering and perhaps mechanical engineering, and they knew about Bricklayer, a joiner and the electrician. They did not know about the options and pathways. Everything that I hear now is very similar, which is concerning. The likes of women's property, along with a whole lot of other organisations, are going into schools. I am involved with primary engineering to a certain extent. That goes in at seven or eight or nine-year-olds to try and get the message across, but also to get the message across to parents. You heard most of the students' year, the apprentices, friends and family who got them into construction. A lot of what we are doing is talking to parents and careers advisers. It is not just about the different roles, but the pathways into the gone are the days when you went to university full-time to do your surveying or your engineering and you went to college to do your trades. There is such a mixture of routes in and we are all working hard at getting that message across, but it is a hard battle. On that point, it was interesting what the apprentices were saying. There still seems to be a stigma attached to it. I see a lot stalled to this day from teachers or advisers that some of the students who go into construction are not very academic, but they make a good trainsman. I do not think that I have ever heard an employer in the construction industry say that we do not want anyone who is academic. It is how we change that mentality. The lady who was about to go to university touched on that she was making her career choice at S4. We need to be influencing school pupils at S7, S1. There is a project that we do at Edinburgh College, which is the STEM inspiration programme. There are about 3,500 school pupils at that level—boys, girls from all walks of life, from all schools—and we are trying to encourage them that engineering, construction and science are all excellent career choices. We are trying to influence at that age, but it does not stop there. There really needs to be that progress in that pipeline that we are influencing at S7 and S1. The next stage of that is college is delivering construction programmes in schools or coming to the college in S2 and S3. It is something similar. You are building on the qualifications year on year and the experience that those young people are building throughout a period from about the age of 10 or 11 all the way through, leading up to, as I touched on earlier, the foundation apprenticeships, where I see that as instrumental that within that fifth and sixth year period it is that work placement, it is work with schools and the work with colleges, and hopefully the work that we have done prior to that to influence those young people will tackle that gender imbalance and perhaps influence some of the more academic candidates to take the construction route. I would like to support what our other two witnesses have said. The industry for a number of years has worked predominantly on a model of informal recruitment. It was the child, the nephew, the niece and the family friend and so on. The industry has never had to work too hard to convince young people coming through the school system to come into the industry. I feel for careers advisers because it has to be an incredibly challenging role to try and keep abreast of the wide range of sector-based developments across multiple sectors and multiple job roles. With that in mind, I believe that the industry has a key role to play, a leading role to play in demonstrating and convincing why the construction industry represents a career of choice to young people. I am seeing that happening with CITB, with programmes that have been run through colleges and universities, with outreach work that has been done by organisations such as Women and Property. I am starting to see the coalescence of a structure and almost a strategic approach to the engagement of young people. Time will tell whether that approach is successful, but at the very least, it is beginning to emerge. Jamie Halcro Johnston and I visited Edinburgh College yesterday as part of this inquiry, but I also visited Edinburgh College last week to meet the principal. She was saying that there is still an issue. You talked about many pathways in the industry and education. We heard encouraging news about how the universities and colleges are also working more closely together, but we still heard that there was a problem about parity of esteem between the college sector and universities, despite the fact that colleges are delivering about 30 per cent of higher education courses. I wonder how that relationship could be improved between universities, colleges, workplaces and schools to maximise the opportunities for young people to identify exactly what they want to do and have a flexible career path, where they may change their mind about precisely what they might want to do. There is a fair work being done at the moment, setting up the graduate apprenticeship programmes with universities and colleges and how that leads on from foundation apprenticeships. At the moment, I know that there are a number of programmes around the country where I will use civil engineering as an example where they will come into the college sector and they will resolve at school and do their work placement. When they are finished that foundation apprenticeship, the obvious sort of route is either into that employment or on to higher education with universities. I think that there is still a bit of an issue around consistency with universities, whether some see the foundation apprenticeship as worth one higher or two higher or three, so there is that inconsistency there. However, there is a crossover as well where there is almost a comparative process at the moment that our HNCs, certainly HND numbers, are dropping within the college sector and it may have something to do with the universities trying to increase their numbers at that level, so that any requirements perhaps are dropping for universities are attracting students that would have traditionally came into the college sector, which is obviously having an effect on the college sector funding. It is how we work together in the future so that there is not that duplication between qualifications. There are a number of good examples around the sector. We have associate degrees with Napier and Herriot-Watt University, where we carry out the first and second year, so that HNC, HND, part of the qualification, then third and fourth year, they go into the university sector to finish it. I think that that kind of partnership, more formalised going forward, would help and maybe cut out a bit of duplication where some students will drop off at HNC or HND and then go into the first year of a degree programme, so it is kind of that. There is a double cost there to the system. I want to support Scott's comments. We now have an apprenticeship family that stretches from the foundation apprenticeship school-focused work-based learning programme through the well-known modern apprenticeship and into the graduate apprenticeship. The development of the FAs and GAs is embryonic, so there is still lots of learning going on and there are still changes being made to try and improve the connection between those apprenticeships but also the transition between those apprenticeships. I think that Scott earlier raised a key point which is around the lack of foundation apprenticeships within the operative levels in the construction industry, so the trade levels. As it stands, we do have a foundation apprenticeship. It is set at an SQF level 6, which is equivalent of a higher. It is fair to say that that can be positioned as an academic qualification but many of the young people who we target to go into operative level roles will do so because they have not connected with academic study, with scholarly activity. We need that apprenticeship or that connection that can be delivered at a school level, which gets young people on to a work-based learning programme, which gives them a meaningful connection to future employment opportunities and bridges the gap between school and college, which for many young people can be a difficult gap to bridge. My ask would be that some consideration is afforded to how we integrate vocational training more meaningfully into the foundation apprenticeship. As an employer, rather than from the education side, we all acknowledge that people come into the industry at all different levels and the folk that have gone into do apprentices have generally, in history, not necessarily had the academic wish or the academic skill set at school, and that can change throughout their life. There always needs to be a pathway, and there always has been a pathway. Sometimes it has been quite laborious and perhaps juggling about different academic institutions, but to be able to take somebody who has gone through their apprenticeship and decide that they want to further their career in a different way, to be able to use that qualification, to be able to get into the third year of certain courses, that kind of thing. Most employers will support people through that. I think that is even more important now because we have probably more mature entrants. There was a couple of guys or three of them here who have been out doing something else for a while, gone and done their apprenticeship, but probably bring a maturity that they probably want to move on earlier in their education path now on to management of some sort of supervisory. I think that we have got to make sure that the universities and the colleges can reflect that. I think that that is around the foundation of apprenticeship model once again. I do not think that we need to start from scratch on this one. Because there is not a foundation apprenticeship programme in place at the moment, I think that there is a simple solution to it. That is the first year programme of any of the trades could be used as the foundation apprenticeship. It is already there in place, so you are shorting that learner journey. Instead of a four-year apprenticeship, you do a year in school, you are reducing the cost to the employer, and then it is three years at the other side of that. It is quite a straightforward fix, but there just needs to be a desire from, I suppose, the sector to do that. Thanks very much, convener. We just have a very brief one to pick up on a point that Douglas Morrison made. You talked about having sympathy, I think, with careers advisers in terms of having a very broad knowledge. Does that suggest that perhaps the model of careers advice has its limitations? Could we actually have a model where each adviser had a more specific focus, and therefore they might work across a number of different schools but have a better knowledge of each sector, whether it is construction or whatever? Would that be a model that might work? It could potentially. I think that every model has its deficiencies. I am sure that the careers advice service can be improved in many respects. I genuinely believe that the investment has to come from industry, and that careers advisers will be better supported by an engaged industry who are invested in connecting and developing the young workforce, as opposed to having sector-specific careers advisers, which is just a personal opinion. I think that there is probably scope for both, but ultimately the solution will come from meaningful partnership and collaboration between the education sector and industrial representatives. The question for us is how do we make sure that both of those key partners are supported to have the conversations and to understand each other's challenges and the opportunities that exist for connecting with that young workforce? Do you see that happening? What improvements would you see now? I think that we are already starting to see the structure emerging. I think that the CITB's construction ambassador scheme is an excellent example whereby we are no longer just asking industrial representatives to go out and visit a school. They are being trained, supported with literature, with advice, the risk of conflicting information from different representatives have been reduced. We see construction Scotland now taking a leading role in its engagement and outreach activity, which has become more co-ordinated and more specific, and it has been shared throughout the community. Those programmes are fairly early in the development. Rather than looking for the next solution, I believe that there is value in continuing to invest in those solutions, which are emerging and supporting them to measure their longer-term impact. SDS skills advisers providing the advice themselves would be facilitating or co-ordinating access to advice for young people? Again, I think that partnership element is key. One of the pilots that we are running with is a school in Midlothian, Newbal, which is a new school on a proactive headteacher. We have lecturers based in the school two days a week delivering a formal qualification. They have been very flexible with their timetables and are looking at doing things completely differently. That model will expand into that programme, which is the entry to construction two days a week, and then move into them progressing into a national progression ward at level 5. At that stage, we will have a member of staff at that school full-time delivering to those young people. In addition to that, that member of staff will also be looking at first and second year school pupils to influence them and to provide taster sessions. It is college staff that can really influence and give real, high-quality advice on how to progress through the education system for construction. That model was a pilot last year. We have six schools in the region signed up for next year. We see that model for us in this region because we are dealing with three local authorities. That works for us because it is difficult to tie up three local authorities with different sort of agendas. This Tuesday, Thursday afternoon, the school programme where you are shipping young people all over the region is not in an efficient way of doing it. I see it certainly for us and other parts of the college sector where we have seen it work very well, that college staff working in schools is probably a very good way to go to bring in the right candidates and provide a really excellent training experience for those students. You have the joined-up approach where you have that influence on stage at P7S1 and then in school from 2, 3, 4, 5, tie in that foundation apprenticeship part of it and then into employment. You have that seamless progression all the way through the system. Is, in my opinion, a model that I think— That needs the schools to be on board on that, but you have found them to be so— Most of the schools—we have put this message out in the schools that have come back to us—are the ones that seem to be more proactive and want to do things differently. We are more unhappy to work with those schools and set that model up. It was very successful in a previous area that I used to work. That model was probably set up about four or five years ago in a different region and a slightly different model because they were only dealing with really one local authority, perhaps two, but they worked very closely together. It was a slightly different model, but along the same lines. I want to ask about the apprenticeship levy, because it was introduced just over two years ago. We would like to get the views of the panel of the impact of the apprenticeship levy, positive or negative, and what impact it has had on the construction sector.  We, like many of our colleges across the sector, are actively engaged in administrating the flexible workforce development fund. We are currently in year two of engaging with construction businesses, but businesses more generally. What has surprised us is firstly the volume of interest that has come from the various industries that has been pleasing. What has also surprised us is that the focus on requests for training have not necessarily been aligned to the activity in which we use construction companies, as an example. It has not necessarily been aligned to any specific trade occupation or discipline. It has been more targeted towards management, leadership and e-commerce and understanding how to improve their business. From a college perspective, that has enabled us to view the way in which we can engage with these companies in a slightly different way. It has facilitated the development of conversations around business growth, around diversifying their investment and skills beyond the flexible workforce development fund and also in looking this year with slight change in eligibility criteria, on how the larger companies in the industry can support their supply chain through offsetting their allocation of flexible workforce development fund, and on how they can support their supply chain to become more efficient, productive and ultimately to benefit their company. We are two years into the programme, and there are lots of learning taking place. However, the early signs are that we are now engaging with companies and sectors and organisations that we have not done in the past, and we are having conversations that have not taken place in the past. That is one of the key points. The larger contractors have an influence over a huge supply chain, both in the subcontracting and in the supply side. In my experience, I do a good amount of support to make sure that the supply chain appreciates where opportunities come from, where funding comes from, where help and assistance can come from and operates in a proactive way to try to get them to upskill their own experiences. My experience is similar to you. A lot of it is about how they upskill their business overall rather than trade specific. It is more about the managerial side or the safety side or how they make their business more attractive one way or another and more profitable. It is maybe taking a slightly different slant than was intended. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because that is perhaps what the industry was needing. I tend to agree with what the panel said. Most of the funding that is coming through that has not went to upskilling of traditional tradesmen whatsoever. That has been quite a small part of it. It has been about the management side of it and the CPD for perhaps new processes within businesses, which the panel said is very good as well and makes them more efficient. However, my original thoughts on it would be based around upskilling the workforce within the trades, which has not really happened. Further clarity is required about what training courses or college places are eligible to qualify for the funding available. Is that part of the issue within the sector? Is there a bit of uncertainty about what part of the supply chain might qualify for it? At the moment, if I remember correctly, the workforce development fund is not aimed at any formal qualifications, so it is almost bespoke training that you are putting it towards. If it did go to part of a formal qualification, it would help, and those undertaking those qualifications would have that formal qualification on the record rather than just a bespoke certificate. All I would like to add is that we do work to strict criteria that is set by the Scottish Funding Council, and the feedback from the companies that we are working with has been very positive. That is very helpful, thank you very much. I come finally to questions from Angela Constance. Thank you very much, convener. I have two questions. The first question is picking up on some of the earlier themes in particular that was mentioned by Scott Warden. Therefore, I wonder what more could Government and local authorities do to ensure that we have a seamless school and college education system? As I was looking at the Edinburgh College model, dealing with three local authorities can be problematic, because there are different agendas there. Although they do try and work together and have, as I said, for construction, I am going to look at the school-college partnership in that region on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, which is not a great system. You are trying to show that we have 120 school kids coming to the college at this moment and that will change, but they are being shipped all around the region. What I have found easiest when trying to set up these programmes is that you find a proactive school, you go into the school and they are flexible with how they want to deliver their curriculum and their timetable. It gives almost a stage where it is a bespoke programme for that school, but, lean on from that, at this moment, we have six or seven schools tied into the programme for next year. If they cannot fill the places that we are hoping, then it becomes a hub and spoke system where other schools will transfer students into that school. The issues and difficulties that you have described just now and earlier, I suppose that what I am keen to pinpoint is what more could local government at a national level and the Scottish Government do at a national level to ensure that the system across the country is more flexible and that addresses the issues such as the promotion and the expansion of foundation apprenticeships. I suppose that there it is a governor-consistent approach, so, the more I discussed earlier on, that influence on stage in the second, third, fourth in-work, in-school delivery from college staff or, in some cases, coming to the college and in that foundation apart, is a consistency knowing that schools do want to do it and they are engaged in it, but it is that flexibility around what happens with schools. It does not seem to be a noble want consistency, but it does not seem to be the one-size-fits-all. Some schools will be more proactive and happier to have a foundation apprenticeship in that school, or they are looking for a university route, whereas a number of other schools that we are dealing with at the moment want that construction route at the lower, because they have a very low percentage of learners going to university. There needs to be a consistent route through the education system nationally, but there is a bit of flexibility in the funding attached to that to support it, because even though we are looking at that model of in-house delivery, it is a costly model to the college sector and we are almost subsidising that with other parts, because those pilots are probably not sustainable going forward that we need to mainstream it. Okay, and continuing on the theme of having our education system properly blended and dovetailed, bearing in mind that universities and colleges are autonomous bodies, what then could government and other bodies do to ensure that provision is dovetailed and, as you said earlier, not duplicated? I certainly would not want to see, for example, the higher education that is available within the college sector. I would not want to see that shrink because the universities are doing it all themselves. On that, the college sector and what we are doing at the moment, we deal very well with the programmes that are in place to take us up to that 40-year education level, where the water is at money a little bit as well. We start to input the foundation of apprenticeship and associate degrees and the university is almost competing with us. The ideal situation for a college sector would be that those students who would typically go to university would come to the college sector and do their HNC or their HND and then go into third or fourth year in university. There is no duplication. It is just that seamless progression throughout. Even if it was just the HNC part of it, the college sector knew that we would be delivering all of the HNC and they went to university for second, third, fourth. We do not really seem to have much control over that. The drop-out of students on the HND programme certainly for the college sector and leaving to go back into the first year of a university programme just seems very difficult. It is how, if there is any help that we need from the Government to tidy up these number of different routes and almost going backwards at times, just to go into a university programme. Before we change the subject, I wondered if Douglas Morrison wanted to add anything to what Scott has said. I think that it is a complex landscape. If the education sector can do anything to support more young people coming into the industry, it would be to simplify that landscape. For me, there are some structural barriers that are in place. Again, Scott has spoken today about the foundation apprenticeship. One of the key challenges around introducing a foundation apprenticeship in construction is the need to have workplace experience. In construction, sites are inherently dangerous places. There is an expectation that competence around health and safety practices is demonstrated before going into the workplace. We need to ask questions about how we can support young people to demonstrate that competence and get them out into the workplace at an earlier stage. Again, our current system is predicated on linear progression through an academic pathway. I would like to see a more flexible progression through vocational work-based learning pathways. The work that is centre for work-based learning in particular is of real interest in that regard, as they assess and critique different models that may deliver such a status. My final question is short. Ms Hamilton, you mentioned earlier that throughout the course of the recession it was much harder to attract women to construction and that women were more likely to drop out of the sector. What now would be useful to encourage older learners, particularly women, to either return to the sector or to embark on career changes? A couple of aspects on that. The larger organisations generally have a returners programme. Probably created for getting women back into the workplace, but anyone who has taken a career break or a career break away from construction. I think that those programmes are really good, but they are not joined up at all. Even within the contracting side of the business, there could be a coherent approach, but if you take the whole of construction, I think there could be a much more coherent approach. Whether that is led by local authorities or government, I am not sure where the best source it is. If you look at the 5 per cent club, it started off with one or two contractors and is now slowly but surely crossing over different spheres. I think that that kind of thing could work quite well. I think that getting returners to work is a big thing to help with the diversity without a doubt, but getting probably at the school level that you are really talking about when you are in at the schools trying to get that message across that it is open doors for women coming into this industry. In Scotland we have got less than one per cent women in the trades. I find that quite frightening. I have been in this industry for 40 years. How would it have hoped that it would have changed by now? I think that it is really important that we push that very, very hard. Thank you very much to the panel for coming in today. I will now suspend the meeting to allow a few minutes for witnesses to chain door. We will now move to item 3 on the agenda, which relates to subordinate legislation. Two items. First of all, Public Procurement at Centre Scotland amendment EU exit regulations 2019, and secondly, the Public Procurement at Centre Scotland amendment EU exit amendment regulations 2019. As those are both inextricably linked, we intend to consider them together, and after that we will make formal decisions about each of them separately. First of all, I welcome Derek Mackay and the officials with him, Alistair Hamilton and Mark Richards. I invite the cabinet secretary to make a brief opening statement, and then I will come to committee members for any questions that they may have on either instrument. As you say, we currently have three SSIs in Scotland that transpose the three EU procurement directives, as well as a Scottish act and regulations made under that. Today, the committee is considering two of the draft SSIs that amend those pieces of legislation. The first draft SSI was withdrawn and relayed to address some minor drafting issues identified by the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee, and it became necessary to lay a further SSI when the UK Government changed its approach to how to deal with international agreements. Regulations that we are discussing today are designed to make sure that the legislation governing public procurement still functions in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The objective is to retain as far as possible the status quo on day one. Firstly, because the EU withdrawal act allows for the correction of deficiencies arising from exit, not wholesale changes of policy, that is a really important point to understand what we are being asked to approve today. Secondly, to give as much certainty to buyers and businesses as possible and otherwise chaotic times. Thirdly, because we anticipate the UK will be party to the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, GPA, from which the many requirements of the EU directives arise. The basics of procurement will therefore be the same as today. Although public bodies will advertise contracts on a new UKE notification system instead of the official journal of the EU—of course, I was known as OJU—having one site per signatory as a requirement of the WTO GPA in practice, however, Scottish public bodies will continue to use public contracts Scotland as required by the Procurement Reform Scotland Act 2014. That will, in the same way as it is currently, forward to the European official journal. Some powers to legislate are transferred from the European Commission to Scottish ministers, but those would all be subject to negative procedure as they are either simple updating powers or powers that set out the precise conditions under which they can indeed must be used and offer no scope for discretion, no policy change, so to speak. In relation to the rights of bidders from other countries, we followed the UK Government's requested approach in the first SSI. The UK then changed its ask of us and indeed its own approach, leading to the second SSI. The delays to the trade bill mean that it is not safe to assume that the powers in it can be relied upon to implement the UK's accession to the GPA or to the rollover of the EU's other agreements in time for exit. The effect of the two SSIs, therefore, is to extend the EU's obligations in this field for 18 months after exit, by which time it is assumed that the trade bill will be law or another piece of primary legislation dealing with it will be. We will have to do this to make sure that our laws are compatible with sticking and staying with the UK's international obligation. It is, I think that you will agree, a rather unsatisfactory sticking plaster approach, but it is born from the current position in terms of the negotiations with the UK Government and the EU and we are trying to provide as much stability as possible. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. I'll turn first of all to John Mason. Thanks, convener, and thanks for the opening statement. I just wonder if I can ask a few things for clarification. There's this suggestion that if there is a no deal exit from the EU, then accession to the WTO GPA would be, and the phrase that I've seen is shortly after exit day, I mean, can you expand on what that means and how late could it be, how soon could it be, just anything around that? It's a month, about 30 days, and the reason for that is the point of departure, the point of accession is about a month, so that's the time frame. We're looking at wider time frames if there is a deal, then there'll be the transition period, so you've got the two years, you've got that period to plan through, of course. If there's no deal, then essentially the new arrangements apply the day after, but the period of WTO GPA rules is about a month. That's again not ideal, but that is what we're living within. That's an understanding. Right, that's helpful to start with. Some of the evidence that we've had from different authorities, for example health boards, have raised the concern that they will then be dealing with two systems. I'll go into detail after that one for the case. Maybe a bit more detail, because they seem to think that if they entered under the old system a kind of lengthier three-year contract, they would still have to be operating under the previous system, but then within 30 days there could also be operating a new system, so could you maybe respond to that? No, there's a switch over if you like, and there is some detail. I think that's why this committee session is quite useful for people who may be raising their concerns and we can correct any misunderstandings as we understand it as well. The issue is at the point of transfer, when there are the new arrangements, it's those procurement rules that apply, so there won't be two systems. However, if there is one that has already begun, actually as we switch over to the new system, it's that that complies. There might be some exceptional circumstances and that would be set out in detail where there is an understanding at which point it was a crossover, but at no point we'll be operating two regimes. It will go from the existing regime to the replacement regime. I'll switch over if you like, so there will not be a requirement to have the two. It will switch in terms of moving from the current EU position to the World Trade Organization's EPA. Be a clear-cut switch as far as the tendering and the award of the contract was concerned, even though a contract then ran for some time, but that would be less important, presumably. Well, they're both important. Procurement rules are procurement rules at the point of how you advertise and set about procurement, but a contract that's signed, I am advised, at least by one lawyer and one policy official, but whether you've signed up to in the contract is what you'll be obliged to stay within. However, the rules for how you go about procurement are the rules at that point in time. Yes, I'll do. Right, I think I'll leave it at that. That's fine, thanks. Andy Wightman Yes, perhaps Cabinet Secretary, you can clear up a confusion here. You said that accession should take a maximum of a month. That's the off-time scale that we've been advised, yes. Yes, okay. So maybe I'm confusing two things, but the draft instrument sets the period of time at eight months, assuming that powers in the trade bill would be available. Once the powers under the trade bill are available, it'll take one month. We were talking about essentially accession from lodging, the terminology of lodging it. So this is what the lawyers and the policy officials will be. You are now asking two separate questions, so in terms of what the trade bill does, but what we're trying to do in terms of the UK leaving the European Union, of course, so that's the point which it's important, and then is complying with what's necessary in terms of the WTO-GPA, the Governmental Procurement Agreement. So there is that gap between what we're leaving and what we're trying to join in terms of the WTO. That's the estimate of the period of a month. So just to be clear, you've asked a slightly different question. Just to add to that, last week the WTO-government procurement agreement committee formally invited the UK to exceed, so the UK will now be going through its domestic ratification procedures. After that, it has to lodge its instrument of accession with the WTO secretariat, and 30 days after that, the UK will exceed to the GPA, assuming that there's no deal. Separately, we need to implement the requirements of that in domestic law. So, because we don't have the powers on the trade bill just now, we can't do that in our own right, so the effect of what we're doing now is to continue the obligations on the EU in domestic law. The obligations on the EU will be the same as the obligations on the UK, because we'll be exceeding on the same basis. If this is far from ideal and has only come about, the UK Government hasn't got the trade bill through in the fashion that they wanted at the time, and the negotiations haven't provided the necessary clarity as well, and that's why there's an unfortunate gap. Obviously, we're trying to make sure that we are competent within an unsatisfactory set of circumstances. I think that the UK Government might still be suffering from something of an optimism bias to get everything in place in time, but I'm sure that something will debate elsewhere. So, the amendment regulations extending the period to 18 months is purely to give greater flexibility and ensure that the powers are going to be available under the trade bill? It's not even as exciting as that, Mr Whiteman. What these regulations are trying to do, and I was quite worried that I would have raised your expectations about what we could do around policy. Those are statutory instruments that only allow us to address the deficiencies that come about from the bill itself. It won't give us much power in terms of policy, but it allows us to address the deficiencies. For example, fix administrative lists of things or to address any loopholes or deficiencies that there may be in the regulations. We're trying to do that from day one of enactment, essentially. Any further questions from members? If not, we'll move from the more exciting part of these proceedings to the formal part of matters. We'll turn, first of all, to the Public Procurement at Central Scotland amendment EU exit regulations 2019. That one will be moved first. I'll move to the formal debate on the motion to approve, and I'll invite the cabinet secretary to formally move the motion. Thank you. Does any member wish to speak in the debate on the motion? If not, I'll put the question. The question is that motion S5M-15751 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? In that event, that is agreed. I now move on to the second part. I'll turn, first of all, to the Public Procurement at Central Scotland amendment EU exit amendment regulations 2019. I'll move immediately to the formal debate on the motion to approve, and I'll invite the cabinet secretary again to move the motion. Does any member wish to speak in the debate on this motion? If not, in that event, I'll simply put the question, which is that motion S5M-15921 be agreed to. Are we all agreed? That is agreed, and in light of the timing, I'll invite the committee to agree that I, as convener, and the clerk, should produce a short factual report simply setting out committee's decisions on both instruments and arrangements, have that published. Are we agreed on that? Thank you. In that event, I'll thank the cabinet secretary and the two officials for coming in and suspend the meeting. The committee will now move to item five on the agenda, which is consideration of a proposal by the Scottish Government to consent the UK Government legislating using the powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018 in relation to a proposed UK statutory instrument being the UK statistics amendment at Central EU exit regulations 2019. The notification relates to amendments that would repeal retained EU laws, arise and relate to EU statistics and correct efficiencies arising from EU exit to ensure the continued functioning of the UK legal framework. That would enable the UK statistical system to produce official statistics in the event that the UK leaves the EU without an agreement to include the UK in the European statistical system. The notification suggests that this is a category A proposal, that is to say one that is technical with minimum policy choice, or only one obvious policy solution. Is the committee content for these matters to be dealt with by a statutory instrument laid at Westminster? The committee being content, I will write to the cabinet secretary to notify him of the committee's decision, and at this point we'll move into private session.