Amendments are in on the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill

Yesterday was the deadline for Stage 2 amendments to Scotland’s Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) Bill, and proposals from various angles would tip the balance towards tougher regulation.

As Michael Salmon noted when the bill was introduced, the legislation aims to beef up the SFC’s powers, shifts responsibilities for apprenticeships and skills funding, and makes technical changes to fees and private provision. Now multiple parties – including the government itself – are using Stage 2 to expand the SFC’s regulatory reach beyond that which was originally proposed.

Ben Macpherson, the SNP Minister for Higher and Further Education, has tabled 23 amendments to his own bill, most of which are technical clarifications but some substantially expanding the SFC’s powers. Amendment 14, for example, gives the SFC power to “secure the carrying out of an independent examination into the financial sustainability of a post-16 education body” whenever it considers it necessary to do so:

The governing body of a post-16 education body must provide a person carrying out an examination by virtue of subsection (1A) with such information, and make available to the person for inspection such accounts and other documents, as the person may reasonably require for the purposes of the examination.”

Doubtless responding to the situation re Dundee, institutions would be legally required to open their books to SFC-appointed investigators, on demand, whenever the funding council decides there might be a problem. Meanwhile Amendment 15 expands what the SFC’s guidance can cover, adding specific provision that it may, in particular:

…relate to the needs and interests of current and prospective learners, the financial sustainability of post-16 education bodies insofar as it affects their provision of fundable further education and fundable higher education, the form and manner in which information required to be provided to the Council under or by virtue of this Act is to be provided, the identification of skills needs and skills planning in particular localities.

Amendment 13 would add a new power for the SFC to issue written recommendations to institutions, with the ability to publish them “where there is wider interest amongst institutions, or the public, in the recommendations and they are not sensitive”, requires the SFC to “consult the fundable body to which the recommendations have been issued” before publishing, and the SFC would be able to issue formal written recommendations – potentially including “setting specific improvement targets” or “requiring the development of an improvement plan” – and publish them to create public pressure on institutions to comply.

For the Greens, Maggie Chapman (the Scottish Green MSP for North East Scotland and former party co-convenor) has proposed a wide-ranging set of amendments to enforce statutory transparency, accountability, and ethical governance. Her amendments would require governing bodies to publish agendas, minutes, and papers on major decisions (Amendment 52), and maintain a comprehensive “governance publication scheme” detailing governance structures, risk registers, audit summaries, and more (Amendment 57). She also proposes mandatory remuneration committees with student and staff input (Amendment 58), statutory whistleblowing procedures allowing protected disclosures directly to the SFC (Amendment 59), and strict conflict of interest policies with publicly updated registers (Amendment 60).

Crucially, Amendment 59 doesn’t just require whistleblowing procedures – it gives “staff, students, governing body members, and auditors” the right to “make a protected disclosure directly to the Council,” bypassing institutional processes entirely. Amendment 60 requires public registers of interests updated within 28 days, covering “close family relationships with contractors or commercial partners” as well as financial interests and shareholdings.

For Labour, Pam Duncan-Glancy (Scottish Labour’s MSP for Glasgow Region and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education) has introduced amendments aimed at strengthening participation, training, and consultation in governance. They would require mandatory training for governing body members on financial oversight, legal duties, and whistleblowing (Amendment 56), and new duties to consult unions, students, and external partners before implementing decisions affecting learners or staff (Amendment 66).

She also seeks to guarantee protections and equal access to information for staff and student governing body members, ensuring their views are formally considered and documented (Amendment 68).

Duncan-Glancy has also tabled 14 amendments creating reporting and review requirements. Amendments 38 and 39 would require ministers to publish an annual national skills and apprenticeships funding strategy, while Amendment 48 would mandate a review of FE funding models within a year. Amendment 205 would direct the SFC and Student Awards Agency Scotland to jointly assess the equity of maintenance support across FE, HE, training programmes and apprenticeships, comparing entitlements and assessing distributional impacts on protected groups. Amendment 206 would require the SFC to annually review the Act’s impact on learner experience, employer flexibility, participation outcomes, and regional uptake, with ministers responding on intended actions.

Multiple amendments would make Fair Work First criteria a statutory funding condition rather than policy guidance. Miles Briggs’s Amendment 50 would make “compliance with Fair Work First criteria” a funding condition for all fundable bodies. Ross Greer’s Amendment 61 would create similar employment practice conditions, while Daniel Johnson’s Amendment 73 would require the SFC to impose conditions that non-public-authority payment recipients “provide value for money, adopt fair work practices, are transparent on spend.” This would elevate Scottish Government fair work policy from guidance to legal requirement, with funding consequences for non-compliance.

Conservative MSP Pam Gosal has tabled Amendment 3, which would create an entirely new statutory duty around gender-based violence. It would allow ministers to impose a condition requiring the SFC to demand that institutions:

…take action to address gender-based violence against staff and students of the body, including engaging with an evidence-based, evaluated framework that independently assesses and quality assures policies, procedures and practices in relation to addressing gender-based violence.”

Institutions would have to report annually to the SFC on compliance, including “details of the framework that it has engaged with,” specific “actions taken by the body to prevent, intervene in, provide support for individuals who are experiencing or have experienced gender-based violence,” and “outcomes of those actions.” The SFC would gain power to “publish guidance in relation to the requirements of an evidence-based, evaluated framework,” following consultation.

The Conservatives are usually sceptical about imposing new regulatory burdens, but campus safety and gender-based violence have sufficient political salience that Gosal presumably calculates this would attract cross-party support – and puts the SNP government in the unenviable position of either accepting an expansion of SFC powers beyond what they proposed, or trying to convince colleagues that best practice and self-regulation are working.

Meanwhile Ross Greer’s Green Amendment 62 would require institutions to “ensure the adequate funding of student associations and unions” as a condition of receiving SFC funding, making SU funding a statutory requirement rather than leaving it to institutional discretion. And Miles Briggs’s Amendment 63 would require institutions to provide mental health and wellbeing support “in line with such a framework as the Scottish Ministers may by regulations establish.”

The Conservatives, led by Miles Briggs and Stephen Kerr, have tabled over 20 amendments to embed economic alignment and external evaluation into the governance of post-16 education. Amendment 41 would direct the SFC to consider national and regional labour market needs and support economic resilience in rural and deprived areas. Amendments 43–45 would require ministers to ensure funding delivers measurable improvements in skills and productivity, and align with national economic strategies and employer demands. Amendment 46 would mandate a triennial independent evaluation of the SFC, Amendment 49 calls for a review of the FE credit-based funding model, and Amendment 202 would require a detailed pre-implementation report addressing employer leadership, apprentice rights, and other key criteria.

For the Lib Dems, Willie Rennie has tabled 14 amendments aimed at shifting control of apprenticeships to employers via an “independent industry-led board” embedded across the governance structure. This board would feature in ministerial strategy (Amendment 24), SFC framework development (Amendment 29), and would chair the SFC’s apprenticeship committee (Amendment 37). Amendments 26–28 would redefine apprenticeships around employment contracts and Fair Work First compliance, while Amendment 34 would ringfence apprenticeship funding exclusively for that purpose.

Ross Greer’s Amendment 47 would insert environmental priorities alongside economic and social priorities that the SFC must consider when exercising functions. Amendments 91 and 91A would create a minimum rate of pay for Scottish apprentices at or above the standard national minimum wage, removing the apprentice wage exemption for Scottish apprenticeships. Amendment 51 would cap the percentage managing agents can take to 10 per cent of funding, addressing concerns about subcontracting chains.

As ever with debates on regulation, few would argue that universities shouldn’t be transparent, or shouldn’t be doing more on harassment and sexual misconduct. Why would universities want the autonomy to not seek input from staff and students?

Hence for most of the proposed measures, resistance from government would depend on being able to assure MSPs that these things are happening anyway. In some of the areas identified in the amendments, that would be a tough sell.