Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill - Island Community Impact Assessment (ICIA)

Data and Stakeholders

The provisions within the Bill focus on technical and operational matters for the SFC. The Bill creates new functions for the funding and administration of training for employment, work-based learning and apprenticeships by the SFC. These types of programmes and some apprenticeships are currently being funded and administered Skills Development Scotland (SDS). Therefore, the primary stakeholders for the Bill are the SFC and SDS, including their boards, leadership teams and staff and trade unions.

In addition, there are four other groups of stakeholder organisations affected:

• higher education institutions (including universities) and colleges;
• training providers (of apprenticeships and work-based learning);
• employers (of apprentices), noting that these may be public or private sector organisations; and
• private providers of higher or further education (in relation to the designation process for student support).

Learners are also stakeholders, as the Bill aims to facilitate different, more transparent ways of funding apprenticeships and other work-based learning and training, so that the system is easier for learners to navigate and access the right provision.

The Bill enables Scottish Ministers to secure NTP provision that is designed to achieve a particular outcome or targeted at particular groups of people. This could mean that a programme is targeted locally or regionally, for example to deal with the aftermath of a major employer closing or moving away from an area. However, the Bill is not otherwise regional or area-based, nor is it aimed at particular communities. The Bill provisions, therefore, have the same potential impact on all communities in Scotland.

The Bill sits within a wider programme of reform and the overall policy objective of the Bill is supported by a robust evidence base, including:

• the Purpose and Principles which sets the vision and objectives for the wider post-school education and skills reform programme; and
• the Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape^[2] by James Withers (“the Withers Review”) which makes 15 recommendations for change in skills delivery. This includes reform of the functions of two of the principal public bodies which help run our post-school education and skills system, SDS and the SFC.

The Islands (Scotland) Act 2018^[3] defines an island as a naturally formed area of land which is surrounded on all sides by the sea (ignoring artificial structures such as bridges), and above water at high tide. An inhabited island means an island permanently inhabited by at least one individual. An island community is defined as a community which consists of two or more individuals, all of whom permanently inhabit an island (whether or not the same island), and is based on common interest, identity or geography (including in relation to any uninhabited islands whose natural environment and terrestrial, marine and associated ecosystems contribute to the natural or cultural heritage or economy of an inhabited island).

Using this definition, there is modern apprenticeship data available for the three separate local authority island groupings of Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands and Na h-Eileanan an Iar^[4]. Other islands are part of larger local authorities such as Skye in Highland; Arran in North Ayrshire and the inner Hebrides in Argyll and Bute. Data has also been included from Argyll and Bute due to the 28 inhabited islands within this council area which makes up 17.5% of the local authority population according to the 2022 census^[5].

Overall, the data indicates that achievement rates across Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands and Na h-Eilian Siar were higher than the average across Scotland, except for Argyll and Bute which falls slightly lower than the average in 2023/24.