Gavin Donoghue, CEO of Colleges Scotland said: "College students and staff deserve to learn and work in facilities that are suitable for great teaching and world-class skills training. At the moment some colleges have outstanding campus spaces, but others have not yet had the investment required to adequately to respond to the needs of their local communities, and have industry-standard learning environments for their students. The work by the Scottish Funding Council takes the college sector a step closer to understanding, and hopefully resolving, these long-standing issues.
 
"The guidance given to colleges today enables them to retain the proceeds from sales under £1million, and keep 70% of any surplus from selling assets over £1million - this is a welcome move. Colleges are community anchors across Scotland and college buildings are part of the fabric of many rural locations, as well as in towns and cities, bringing positive benefits locally by delivering training and education where people want to learn.  

"As Scotland's skills engines, colleges need infrastructure investment to continue to deliver qualified learners at pace for critical industries, and central to that is having the right learning and teaching facilities. The new report published today is a step towards having a national plan for college infrastructure which recognises changing curriculum needs, and crucially how and where learners want to access colleges. We look forward to the final plan being published in the coming months, and the call to action for all stakeholders to ensure that college estates are fairly prioritised and funded to maximise outcomes."