Commission for the land-based learning review: report to Scottish Ministers

2. What did we do?

2.1 Commission initial discussions

Members reviewed and discussed the overall Sector learning and skills development landscape and the existing challenges as they perceived them. The initial anecdotal evidence indicated the scale, impact and the challenges but it was recognised that this needed to be ‘sense checked’ with those more directly impacted. The wider Sector background was supported by the following presentations to the Commission:

• SDS presentation on Employment in Land-based and Aquaculture Sectors
• SDS presentation on the 16+ Data Hub
• RESAS presentation on the Rural Economy

To support planned stakeholder engagements, the Commission developed and refined a series of questions and identified perceived evidence gaps prior to undertaking the stakeholder engagements.

2.2 Stakeholder engagement

The Commission led a series of engagement workshops to enable a broad consultation on the content of the review. Stakeholders were encouraged to submit written evidence prior to, during and after the workshops.

Four stakeholder workshops were held over September to October, covering the following four consolidated themes decided upon by the Commission:

• Education and Training
• Employers, Skills and Skill Gaps
• Awareness/Perception of the Sector
• Learning for Sustainability (LfS)

The events were held online via Microsoft Teams, using facilitated break-out groups and online discussion facilities, where participants could record their views and shared links.

Participants were encouraged to:

• Discuss a series of questions set by the Commission and issued to participants prior to the events (see Appendix 3)
• Share their experiences, evidence and knowledge by working collectively through core questions in mixed groups
• Engage across sectors using a Current State/Future State approach, by describing what the current answer to the questions would be, an ideal future scenario and ideas on how to get there
• Ensure that contributions were evidence-based rather than assertion (where possible) and triangulate where this was not possible
• Highlight any relevant case studies and examples of good practice

2.3 Engagement

• 59 people attended the Education and Training workshop
• 46 people attended the Employers, Skills and Skills Gaps workshop
• 34 people attended the (rescheduled) Awareness & Perception workshop
• 42 people attended the Learning for Sustainability workshop

Over 200 pages of online responses were collected from the workshops. These were reviewed by the Commission and a summary of the emerging themes was also presented by the Report Writer to the Commission, for discussion and broad agreement.

The Commission acknowledges at this early stage the valuable contribution made by stakeholder participants to inform and shape the review. Some participants attended all four workshops and others helped to ensure that there was always a sectoral or organisational presence at each event. A list of organisations that took part in the workshops is contained in Appendix 4.

2.4 Data gathering

Data was requested from The Scottish Funding Council (SFC), The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Skills Development Scotland (SDS), Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), Lantra and Scottish Government. Additional supporting data and insight documentation was also provided by the Royal Highland Education Trust (RHET), Scottish Forestry, SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College) and The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). Some of this data appears directly within this report to identify or support an emerging issue or where it conflicts with perceptions. However, much of the data has been used to inform and support views and recommendations developed within the report and may only appear in a limited form within the appendices. Where some internal organisational data has been provided in confidence, due to commercial sensitivities, it has only been used to support and inform specific aspects of the report.

2.5 Desktop review of policies, research and Sector reports

Given the very broad scope of the land-based sector and learning pathways, included within this review, over 40 Scottish Government, non-government organisations, and other agencies, Industry specific sponsored reports, Sector briefing papers and wide cross cutting Education Scotland reports and research papers were examined. The range of evidence which has been considered is extensive, with over 12 organisations potentially influencing directly or indirectly the learner’s journey to employment within the Sector.

It is not the intention of this report to drill down to the very specific issues affecting each of the land-based sectors, although some sector specific examples are provided. Instead, the focus is on the cross cutting common areas which are affecting land-based learning pathways and uptake.

2.6 Interviews

Commission members were interviewed separately by the Report Writer to ensure their diversity of backgrounds (see Appendix 1), specialist knowledge and views were captured and key emerging report messages sense checked.

Additional interviews were also undertaken with SDS, SQA, SRUC, UHI, Education Scotland, RHET, Teagasc and Lantra (Scotland) representatives, to gather additional insights and clarify some emerging messages.

2.7 The land-based learner’s journey explored

The graphic below outlines the key areas of the land-based learner’s journey explored by the Commission.