Post-school funding body landscape simplification: analytical approach summary

2. Long-list appraisal and arrival at the short-list

2.1 Approach

The impetus for change across the post-school education and skills system came from a number of external reports and reviews of performance across the sector, including an Audit Scotland report (2022)^[1], SFC Review (2020)^[2], Withers Review (2023)^[3] and widespread engagement^[4] on development of the Purpose and Principles (2023)^[5].

Alongside the publication of the Purpose and Principles (P&P) for post-school education and skills in June 2023, a set of short- medium and long-term outcomes for each of the five Principles were published. The outcomes were developed through a series of workshops with a wide range of Scottish Government and external stakeholders and show the collective vision that Scottish Government and its partners have for reform of the post-school education and skills system. Participants included representatives from Universities Scotland, Colleges Scotland, Education Scotland and individual institutions as well as staff from Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Qualifications Authority, Scottish Funding Council, Student Awards Agency Scotland.

Taken together, these reports and P&P outcomes provided a clear steer on the main areas for reform across the post-school education and skills system, with a predominant focus on the need for structural reform to enable future improvements.

The initial scoping of options was developed by Scottish Government officials, without the involvement of external stakeholders, to avoid any potential conflict of interest for public bodies that might be impacted by the changes.

As the OBC sets out, eight long-listed options with sub-options for different delivery methods were developed through several workshops and engagement with relevant policy areas.

The appraisal of these options followed HM Treasury’s Green Book principles, with each option assessed against the Green Book recommended objectives and critical success factors (CSFs) set out in the Strategic Case, taking into account any constraints, dependencies, unmonetised and unquantifiable factors as well as unintended consequences. This assessment was done in an assessment workshop, with participants from all relevant policy areas in the Scottish Government’s Lifelong Learning and Skills Directorate (LLS).

Participants collectively rated the long-listed options as “red”, “amber” or “green”, expressing the delivery structure as ‘not satisfying’, ‘partially satisfying’, or ‘fully satisfying’ the appraisal criteria as set out above. The shortlisting of options was taken forward as follows.

First, as per the Green Book guidance, only options that met all four objectives set out in the Strategic Case were considered for the short-list.

Second, none of the options were assessed as fully satisfying the CSFs due to too many uncertainties, particularly in relation to value for money and affordability. Therefore, options that were deemed to at least partially satisfy all of the CSFs in addition to fully satisfying the objectives, were considered for the short-list.

Finally, the final short-list was arrived at using further consideration as to whether any of the options were sufficiently similar to allow for a single representative option to be selected for the short-list.

This led to two options being taken forward for more detailed short-list appraisal, alongside Business as Usual (BAU) which was used as a baseline against which the other two options are compared, as per Green Book guidance.

2.2 Quality assurance

The long-list appraisal method was developed together with relevant policy colleagues and Education Analytical Services (EAS) Economists and Social Researchers, with expert advice sought from Scottish Government legal colleagues.

Each step in the appraisal, from the development of the objectives to the assessment, was quality assured by senior policy officials and analysts. The approach and the outcome of the assessment – i.e. the short-list – was signed off by the project Senior Responsible Officer, with all analytical input signed off by the Analytical Deputy Director for EAS.