The Scotsman Bulletin Monday February 10 2025 #Education

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to education correspondent Calum Ross on the latest on the education front in Scotland

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Monday.

00:04My name is Dale Miller.

00:06I'm deputy editor of the Scotsman, and I'm joined by our education correspondent, Callum Ross.

00:11Callum, we'll get to talking actually about a couple of your stories that feature today.

00:17One of them that we splashed on on the front page of today's Scotsman,

00:22and that's the Scottish hospitality sector faces a $369 million tax bill hammer blow.

00:30Which is all about national insurance.

00:31We'll get to talking about that shortly, Callum.

00:34But also it was a big day in sport.

00:37You can get the full wrap and the full out from Scotland's Six Nations loss.

00:41Really a disappointing performance in the end against Ireland that didn't start well

00:46and didn't end well either, unfortunately.

00:49So we've got the full match coverage from that.

00:51And also Rangers suffering a shock defeat in the cup being bundled out by Queen's Park,

00:59which has poured further heat on the manager and his position in the wake of that result.

01:05So you can read all about those stories at scotsman.com or please pick up today's paper.

01:11Callum, just on, I know it's not something that you've been following every scratch and turn on,

01:19but can you tell us a bit about this story that we led on today?

01:24Obviously, national insurance has impacted the education sector as well,

01:27but some concerns about hospitality.

01:31That's right, Dale.

01:32Hospitality firms, pubs and hotels and restaurants, like you say,

01:37are one of the many areas, sectors expected to be hit by the rise in national insurance contributions for employers.

01:46I think it comes into effect in April.

01:51Obviously, a lot of these businesses are already operating within quite tight margins.

01:58Other costs rising with inflation might be impacts from Brexit and just, I guess,

02:03people not going out so often to pubs and things like that.

02:08So there are fears really that this could be a further blow that might lead to cuts in jobs

02:16and ultimately more closures.

02:19Today's story is based on some research by the Liberal Democrats.

02:24They've been crunching the numbers and reckon that Scottish hospitality firms will face

02:29an additional bill of more than £70 million a year.

02:34They've put it at £369 million over five years, which they're calling a tax bombshell.

02:43And Christine Jardine, Lib Dem MP for Enver West,

02:47she's saying it's a job tax that's going to hammer these firms

02:52and really the Treasury should be looking at an exemption for the hospitality sector.

02:58Gala, what was interesting within that, I think it was a Scottish hospitality group representative

03:05who I thought may have been completely behind what the Lib Dems were saying,

03:09but sort of made the point that this isn't about party politics,

03:14that they just want help at the end of the day,

03:17whether that's from the Scottish or the UK governments,

03:20and wasn't fully endorsing perhaps the message coming from the Lib Dems.

03:28It was interesting, just a clear message there that they want support,

03:33this is important, and they are concerned about closures over coming months otherwise.

03:37I think that is one to watch because we are probably going to have a spring budget

03:41coming from Chancellor Rachel Reeves as well, so there'll be more to develop there.

03:46Callum, also just outside of that, you did a sit-down interview

03:51with the new head of the Scottish Funding Council

03:53and it produced a bit of a feature read that we've got on the site today,

03:58but also some developments that you broke exclusively over the weekend about Dundee.

04:03That's right, Dale, I interviewed Francesca Ossowska last week,

04:08she's the new Chief Executive, like you say, of the Scottish Funding Council,

04:12they sort of oversee the tertiary education sector in Scotland

04:17and all the public money that goes into that.

04:20She's coming from the NatureScot agency,

04:22she's had a few interesting jobs over the years that you see in the piece today.

04:26She was Principal Private Secretary to Alex Salmond when he was First Minister

04:31in his first sort of two or three years.

04:33She also went on to oversee the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014

04:38for the Scottish Government and then went to the Scotland office

04:43just after the independence referendum and was the Director there,

04:47the UK Government Scottish office.

04:50So she was just six days into her post when I spoke to her,

04:53so still kind of finding her feet, but obviously she admitted

04:56that one of the first things in her inbox was Dundee University,

05:00which is in a bit of a financial crisis,

05:04facing a deficit of up to £30 million, it's lost its principal as well.

05:09And during the interview, she raised the prospect that the SFC

05:13could kind of step in and help Dundee University with public money

05:17as part of its financial recovery plan if it requests that,

05:23which I'd imagine it probably will.

05:24We're expecting some more details about that recovery plan

05:28in the next two or three weeks, and I suspect it might have figures

05:33in terms of the number of job losses, and obviously severance schemes

05:37and redundancies cost money as well, which Dundee might not have.

05:41So it'll be interesting to see what emerges there.

05:45Higher education, real pressures there, also real pressures

05:48in further education.

05:50Colleges are in big financial, face big financial challenges,

05:55and the SFC itself is being reformed and restructured.

05:59It's expected to expand and gain some new power.

06:02So it's going to be interesting to see what kind of job she does there.

06:07And Calum's also reported today on concerns, a new survey,

06:13a group-focused survey study done around AI and its use or increasing use

06:21at schools and colleges, and effectively concerns

06:24about how the system needs to adapt, that assessments need to change

06:29to cope with AI over concerns around plagiarism,

06:34and also just its use in general coursework.

06:39So interesting, we've got the financial backdrop,

06:41but we've also got the sector needing to adapt to things

06:45like AI technology as well.

06:48It's a pretty fascinating and challenging time for the sector on the whole.

06:52You can read all the stories we talked about there from Calum at scotsman.com.

06:58If you ever want to read the latest on education,

07:00there's a specific tab in the navigation bar.

07:03And please go out and buy a copy of the Scotsman for your full wrap today,

07:08including whether anyone has been added to the Michelin Guide

07:13or received extra recognition.

07:16That event, that ceremony is taking place later today here in Scotland.

07:21Thanks, Calum. Thanks, everyone, for joining us.

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