Education, Children and Young People Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Official Report 724KB pdf

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Pre-Budget Scrutiny

Good morning, and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2023 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. Our first item of business is an evidence session on local government spending on education and children’s services, to help inform the committee’s pre-budget scrutiny. I welcome Dr Douglas Hutchison, president of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and executive director of education, Glasgow City Council; Carrie Lindsay, executive officer, ADES; and Kirsty Flanagan, director of finance, Argyll and Bute Council, representing the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy local government directors of finance in Scotland. Thank you for joining us this morning. We have a lot of ground to cover, so I will move straight to questions from members.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I have a question for the whole panel. Arguably, it is a framing question. I am a member of the Finance and Public Administration Committee, so I am interested in the specifics of how the process for the Verity house agreement will work. To frame that, Scottish Government financing is deeply affected by the late decision making of the United Kingdom Government. You may have seen the recent letter from the Welsh Government complaining about the late UK autumn statement. That has also had an effect on the Scottish Government—the statement has been pushed back to 22 November, which makes the original planned budget date of 14 December unrealistic.

What is your understanding thus far of how the financial elements will work in the context of the flow-through and late decision making and processes of the UK Government? Anyone can go first. Perhaps Dr Hutchison might like to do so, but I know that Carrie Lindsay and Kirsty Flanagan will have an interest.

I have to be honest and say that I am not particularly familiar with the question. I have a broad understanding of the Verity house agreement and its principles, but my understanding is that we are still working through those. I suspect that it is more likely to be a question to direct to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which would be involved in discussions on behalf of local authorities. I have a broad understanding of Verity house and its implications, but my understanding is that we are still working through it. I am not in a position to comment on any late decisions from the UK Government, and I am not sure whether Kirsty Flanagan is.

At the moment, as part of the Verity house agreement, we are looking at the in-year transfers and the transfers from all the portfolios, so we are interested to see how that progresses. There is also the presumption of no ring fencing or direction, so I am not quite sure how the UK Government position affects that. I suppose that the overall quantum of funding affects that. We just need to see the working out of the Verity house agreement and how having no ring fencing or direction will work for the total quantum of finances that will come to Scotland.

I agree that the late announcement of funding puts on extreme pressure to pull together a budget at a late stage. One-year budgets are not helpful either. For some time, we have been pushing for multiyear budgets that would allow us to plan ahead for financial sustainability. The one-year budgets are not helpful at all.

I think that that is commonly understood. It came up in yesterday’s Finance and Public Administration Committee meeting that, largely, the UK Government has been working to a one-year budget process, which flows through to the Scottish Government. I do not want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds to me as though, in the strategic review group’s understanding of the detail of both of those things, it is still fairly early doors. It is not just about the initial budget settlement; it is about in-year changes, of which we have seen quite a few, that affect and could have an impact on ring fencing, because there is a lack of visibility and transparency in relation to money coming through. Am I putting words in your mouth?

No, I agree with that.

Okay. Carrie, you can have the final comment on that.

Most things have probably been said, but I will reiterate that, where discussions need to happen at local authority level, if anything is late, that is challenging. If you do not know what your quantum is, you are not quite sure yet what your outcomes are in the outcomes framework for the Verity house agreement, and you are not quite sure what the funding conditions will be, the lateness of that always has an impact. Things are perhaps not as clear as they could be if you had a longer lead-in time.

Thank you.

Ben Macpherson has questions on that theme.

Good morning, all. I will build on what my colleague Michelle Thomson asked about. Thinking back to before the Verity house agreement, in recent years, one of the main reasons for ring fencing and direction was because of political pressure being applied on the Scottish Government by Opposition parties and others to meet certain policy obligations that required local government to be a significant part—the main part—of that delivery. As we move on after the Verity house agreement, open up the flexibility and remove the ring fencing and direction—for clarity, I support that approach—what should be the Scottish Government’s role if a local authority is failing to improve outcomes in an area of national priority such as education?

In some ways, there has been reference to that question in one of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports. I think that it was the 2015 OECD report that said that the role of the Scottish Government in education is to set the overall strategic direction and policy direction, but delivery is done at local authority level, and where that national approach comes up short is in getting through the classroom door. That phrase might even be mentioned in the document.

Where there is a failure, there are various mechanisms in the system to address that. There is legislation under which the inspectorate can inspect a local authority if, for example, it is failing in its duties in relation to education. That has rarely been used, but it is available. Equally, Audit Scotland has carried out its best value reviews, which, again, highlight where there are weaknesses. There are various safety mechanisms in the system that are available to Scottish ministers to direct, for example.

Overall, given that the Government is elected on the basis of a manifesto, it is right that it delivers on that manifesto. We live and operate in a parliamentary democracy, so it is right that that happens. The Government delivers its manifesto commitments and sets the policy direction, and that delivery is local. Where that delivery is failing or where a local education authority is failing, it would be appropriate for the Scottish Government to intervene, and that can be done in the various ways that I have outlined.

I am familiar with the best value report process and the considerations thereafter around how the Government and, in this instance, the education inspectorate should engage with the specific local authority, both at a political level and an official level. It seems that you have outlined that that is the right course for Scottish ministers and for parliamentary pressure to be directed.

Carrie, do you want to come in?

Yes, thanks. The word “failing” is quite a pejorative term, and there are probably different challenges for different local authorities at different points for a range of reasons. Every local authority will have improvement processes already in place and, if there are areas that are not reaching the targets, the Verity house agreement and the outcomes framework will be a way of giving support, where that is required, if people are finding that challenge in particular areas. In ADES, we support local authorities in that way. If people in a local authority ask for support, we would provide that very much on a collaborative basis. Education Scotland—either itself or through the regional improvement collaboratives—has a role in that. We have quite good systems in place to allow that to happen. The Scottish Government needs to look at the outcomes, and there are things that it can use, as Douglas Hutchison outlined, if it feels that something further is required.

Thank you, both, for your reflections. That is helpful.

Pam Duncan-Glancy has a brief supplementary.

I thank the panel. Given the Verity house agreement, do you have any concerns about the overall quantum available to you for education locally? Are you aware already of stretched budgets and the use of other budgets, such as pupil equity funding, to plug holes that exist in core budgets across the piece?

Carrie, do you want to come in, or is that more for Kirsty Flanagan?

Kirsty Flanagan may want to go first.

We are concerned that budgets are stretched right across local government. There just is not enough budget to do everything that we want to do. The Verity house agreement is a positive step because of the relaxing of ring fencing and direction. One example of ring fencing in education is absolute teacher numbers. You could get into a situation where that is not providing value for money or efficiency and local authorities are trying to maintain an absolute number for a declining school roll. The overall quantum of funding, not just education funding, needs to be looked at. The relaxing of ring fencing might help, but we still need to keep a focus on outcomes. Councils were doing that prior to the introduction of ring fencing for the absolute teacher numbers.

Members will ask questions on that specific topic later, Kirsty, so we can get into more detail then.

Pam, are you okay with that response? I am just checking.

I would be keen to hear from Dr Hutchison or—

I will move on to Bill Kidd now. Thank you.

On education spend and its protection, other than free school meals, does the panel have any examples of ring-fenced or earmarked funds where the Government has not uprated its contribution in line with inflation?

Did you say “other than free school meals”? Free school meals is probably the best example of where we get an allocation to implement a policy but it is never sustainable in the long term. Free school meals is a perfect example, because all of us around the table know about the cost of living now and how it is increasing.

We are looking for another example.

Any other example.

Carrie Lindsay has something, I think.

I am thinking of the 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, and the private, voluntary and independent sector payments for that. Due to inflation, the uplift for PVI payments has seemed to be necessary to keep that whole project going and deliver the 1,140 hours, but the budget does not match that. That is another example.

We know about the situation with free school meals, which Kirsty Flanagan mentioned, and whether the ring fencing has kept up with that. I just wanted to find out whether there are other areas such as the one that has been mentioned.

We are powering through. Sticking to the subject of early learning and the ring fencing terminology, do you get a sense that the ring-fenced grants support the ELC cover that we need and the cost of delivering the expanded ELC offer?

There have been changes to the funding over the past three years in particular. As the models were put in place incrementally, it has taken some time for local authorities to have their absolute models in place. There is also a biannual survey of parents about what is required. There are then some changes, and some models are more expensive than others. For a quantum, therefore, it is quite difficult to continue to deliver an almost parent-led system where they are looking for particular things. There have been real challenges in delivering on that policy agenda. If we are to include two-year-olds and one-year-olds—we are not really clear about whether the Government will implement that policy—there would be big implications, as there would not be enough in that budget.

09:15  

Sticking with two-year-olds and one-year-olds, others might want to come in on this, but I have a question on the data sharing agreement between HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions to identify the two-year-olds who are eligible for the ELC. What progress has been made in reaching those families? What are the anticipated costs and locations? How will all of that be funded within the envelope that we have?

Over the past three years, we have seen a significant increase in the two-year-old uptake. Of course, some parents of two-year-olds and one-year-olds do not want to take up their places. It would be helpful to see that information from the DWP. We have been asking for it for some time, because the information is available in England but we are not able to access it. There will definitely be an impact where there are families who, perhaps, were not aware that they were able to access the provision. All the budgets were aligned to the information that we were given on birth rates and the expected percentage uptake. We will now have a much firmer idea of the numbers, and that might have a significant implication.

Is that data not yet available at local authority level?

It is just starting now.

It is just starting to come through to you now.

Yes.

Okay. That is fine.

I am interested in how you view the state of the PVI sector in early learning and childcare. What are the pressures? Perhaps Carrie could talk us through that first.

We cannot deliver the 1,140 hours policy without the PVI sector. We value those organisations because they are often much more flexible and can do different things because they are small, rather than large, organisations. There is absolutely no doubt that we want to work in partnership with them, but there are real challenges for them from costs including inflation, staffing costs and the minimum wage. They have been expected to be able to deliver a range of things that have made it challenging for them to produce business cases that stack up.

Another thing about the PVI sector is that some of the organisations are very small and do not have sustainable management committees because parents change often, which becomes a real problem because people come in who do not have the experience that is needed. We are now seeing childminding being brought in, as well.

From the local authority perspective, a lot is required to support people in the PVI sector to make sure that the quality of provision is acceptable. One of the recommendations now is that they have to be rated as “good” or better to stay in partnership with a local authority, so a lot is required from local authorities in supporting them. Sometimes, those costs are hidden: the PVI sector does not see the support because it is not monetary and does not come through to it as an amount per pupil or per child. The hidden costs are sometimes not recognised as much as they could be. That gives you a flavour of the situation.

Do you recognise that there is a significant difference between the fees that are paid for council nurseries and those that are paid in the PVI sector?

That is a hard question to answer, because of what I have just said. A whole range of things come from the local authority to the PVI sector—

Do they really amount to that difference?

The sectors have completely different set-ups and structures. Councils do not work on the same type of business case as the PVI sector does, so that is a challenging question to answer.

The outcome seems to be that the PVI sector is losing significant numbers of experienced staff. It is not able to retain them because the sector cannot pay rates that are competitive with other the rates of other organisations inside or outside the sector. They are really worried about the sector’s future. Do you not recognise that?

That has always been said in all the time that I have been involved in early years provision, which is many years—

Does that make it any better?

I was going to go on to say that I do not see that happening in reality, as such. Providers often retain their staff through modern apprenticeships, for example, which we run through the PVI sector as well as in local authorities. Many local authorities have agreements with the colleges that enable them to support staffing so that providers can access enough staff.

In the system as it is currently set up, there are differences in payment structures—absolutely. That happens in lots of things.

To be honest, I am really disappointed by that response. Last year, Matthew Sweeney from COSLA acknowledged that there was a significant difference, and it was agreed, right at the beginning, between Government and local authorities that that would happen.

We see real threats to the sector now. The PVI bodies are getting staff, but they need to keep experienced staff. I worry about the integrity of bodies and that we will, perhaps, in the future get Care Inspectorate reports that indicate that we have not managed to keep up with the standards that you mentioned earlier. I am disappointed that you do not recognise that.

It is not that I do not recognise that there is a differential; I think that I said that I do. We are trying to make sure that we support the sector in a way that means that it can survive. As I said earlier, it is a partnership, so we need to work jointly to deliver. That is why a number of groups have looked at what we need to provide. It has been difficult to get a figure or an amount for what is required, or to determine whether it is just about staffing or about all the other things that are offered in order to retain organisations’ ability to deliver their services.

Dr Hutchison wants to come in to respond to some of those points, and I have a small supplementary.

I just want to say, convener, in response to Mr Rennie’s disappointment, that this is a discussion and argument that comes up annually when local authorities are required to set the sustainable rate. I absolutely acknowledge that there are significant differences between PVI and local authority rates.

Part of the reason for that is, in a sense, historical. If we were starting with a blank sheet for early years provision, there would be much more equity, but we did not start with a blank sheet. There were already partner providers and third sector organisations: a range of organisations were providing early learning and childcare, and those organisations did not have the commitments that local authorities have in relation to pension funds and various other things, including the commitment to pay the real living wage. A differential that existed at the very beginning has almost become baked in. That makes the situation very challenging. These discussions and arguments come up every year. That is partly why there is a discussion about whether we should set a national sustainable rate.

You are absolutely right that the situation is “historical” and “baked in”, but people’s expectations of the PVI sector are almost exactly the same as they are of council nurseries. People expect the same service from both, when it comes to care and education. So, although you are right, that does not make the situation right. We need to work on a plan to bring them closer together, do we not? Do we need to bring them closer together?

That is the issue that comes up annually in terms of agreeing a sustainable rate. Part of the discussion is about whether the rate should be set nationally, because that would be more likely to bring the sectors closer together, but that would be a significant task.

I will ask specifically about the rates that local authorities pass down to the PVI sector. There is variation across local authorities in what they pay for over-twos and under-twos. You mentioned, and we know, that the cost for under-twos is higher in terms of ratios of staff.

There is a local authority—in fact, it is the one that we are sitting within the boundaries of: the City of Edinburgh Council—that pays the same, irrespective of the age of the child. I wonder how it can be perceived to be fair to put that pressure on the PVI sector when it is not getting the additional resource that is required to fund and support the under-twos sector.

It is difficult to comment on a particular local authority—

It is not just about Edinburgh; we are seeing variation.

As I said in answer to Mr Rennie’s question, other things are offered, as well as the sustainable rate. Some local authorities will offer teacher support while others will say that the teacher is part of the PVI sector and so is that sector’s responsibility. There is a wide range of different ways in which people make up those costs and how they—

They do so to justify the fact that they are not passing adequate funding on to the PVI sector.

Okay. I now have some—

I am sorry, convener—I have a point to make about variations in funding. I moved from a local authority with a large rural hinterland to Glasgow City Council, which does not. The funding pressures are different. For example, if childcare is being provided in Ballantrae, there might be only three children, but two members of staff are still needed, so provision is proportionally more expensive in rural areas. I found that the PVI sector tended not to make provision up a glen or down in Ballantrae but to do so in centres of population.

The variations across the country are understandable, and are why there is a challenge in setting a national rate. There is a huge difference between a fairly efficient system such as that in Glasgow, where the early years centres are largely full and the staff ratios are efficient, and rural local authorities, where there is almost built-in inefficiency, because of there being smaller numbers of children for which numbers of staff are still required. That makes it more expensive.

Thank you for those comments.

I am going to switch to primary and secondary schools now. We have had a look at some of the figures. What factors mean that, in real terms, the net spend on schools is planned to be higher this year than it was in 2019-20? As an adjunct to that, why is there what appears to be a planned reduction in the real-terms spend between 2022-23 and the year that we are in now, 2023-24? Are you able to take that one first, Kirsty?

Yes, but I will have to get you to ask the second question again.

The net spend on schools is higher. We are living in a time of high inflation, so a big proportion of the expenditure on education—about half of it—is employee-related expenditure. Not only have there been significant pay rises, but we have had high levels of inflation in utilities costs and other costs that schools have to meet. Those are the reasons for the increase in spending.

What was your question about the real-terms spend?

Why is there a planned reduction in the real-terms spend between 2022-23 and 2023-24?

I am not sure whether I know—

—if you quite get that question.

I do not have the figures for that real-terms reduction in front of me.

We have some data that sits behind that, Kirsty, but we will follow up on the question in writing. That might be the best thing to do—unless Carrie wants to come in on either question.

I will come in on the reduction in primary school spend in particular. There has been a significant reduction in births across Scotland—some local authorities have had 500 or 600 fewer births a year over the past few years. The bulge from primary education is now in secondary education, so spend is higher for secondary schools. You will see that secondary school spend is still going up but primary school spend is coming down, because not as many children are attending primary school. It is less efficient for schools to try to manage budgets in that situation.

Okay. Thank you. We will move to questions from my colleague, Ruth Maguire.

Thank you and good morning.

I would like to talk about teaching and other staffing costs. Kirsty Flanagan mentioned protecting teacher numbers. We have spoken before in the committee about the situation in which pupil rolls are falling in some local authority areas, yet they are expected to maintain teacher numbers. My local authority has also lost attainment challenge funding, which adds additional pressure. Can you speak a little bit about the opportunity costs of having to maintain teacher numbers and what that looks like for children and young people in schools where that is the case?

09:30  

I am not sure whether what I said earlier answers the question about the opportunity cost. If we are trying to maintain absolute teacher numbers, that is to the detriment of other services right across the local government portfolio. We are seeing costs in education increasing, but you will see a budget reduction in most other portfolios because they have to take the burden of the cost savings, due to the real-terms decrease in the overall quantum of funding.

We have education colleagues here; obviously, we want to maintain good schooling. If I compare maintaining current teacher numbers with the pupil to teacher ratio that we used to have, I would say that although the latter was not a perfect formula, it recognised the school roll.

Maybe we can move on to reflections from ADES. Does Carrie Lindsay or Douglas Hutchison want to come in?

I agree with Kirsty that the focus on absolute teacher numbers is a challenge. It has been done this year, and it was done previously when Mr Russell was the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, when there was a year during which we had to focus on absolute teacher numbers. It is difficult to see the logic of that in a local authority that has a declining roll, compared with a local authority like West Lothian Council, where there is an increasing roll and new schools are being built. Councils almost have falsely to keep supernumerary teachers because they have to focus on absolute teacher numbers. I struggle to see the logic of that. I can understand there being a pupil to teacher ratio: if there is a falling roll but councils are forced to keep teachers, the opportunity costs become clear.

I have been either a head of education or a director of education for 10 years. In almost every one of those 10 years—with the exception of the Covid years, when there seemed to be lots of money—I have been involved in reducing the budget in education and in having to find savings, because the council’s overall budget has been reduced. If we protect teachers, the burden of savings falls on others: support-for-learning workers, educational psychologists, home-school liaison workers, technician support services and administration staff in school offices. There are a range of people without whom education services cannot function. If we protect one group, albeit that it is a very important and valued group, the burden of savings falls more heavily on others in education.

That is true of education and it is true of council services more generally, because education depends on other council services to operate. The burden of savings falls significantly more heavily on other parts of the council if education is protected. Obviously, as a director of education, I am happy that education is protected, but I also recognise the impact that that has on other services.

For example, in Scotland, there will hardly be a school that is more than 15 or 20 years old that does not have some kind of maintenance backlog. If we reduce budgets for other council services, we reduce the money that is available for repairs and renewals of our school buildings.

You spoke about Glasgow City Council reducing its education budget. I know that there are other local authorities that have protected the education budget, even throughout these really challenging times. It would be good to hear what, within education, the money could be invested in and what that would look like for children and young people in the education system. To go back to the Verity house agreement and the priorities for us in relation to that, it would be interesting to hear your reflections on where that money might be invested and how that would benefit children and young people.

I am happy to say something on that. If a local authority is in the luxurious position of being able to maintain the education budget without having to offer lots up and it does not have teacher numbers to keep, there are lots of things that it can do, as some have. They have kept their teaching numbers, but they have also invested. It is about having that flexibility. A number of local authorities have put early years officers into their primary 1 classes to look at how they support communication and socialisation after Covid, which has been challenging in the early years. Some authorities have put in staff to support attendance, because, again, pupil attendance has been a bit challenging since Covid. People have used that budget or extra budget, if they have had it, to keep their teacher numbers and to give themselves the flexibility to use other members of staff who are not teachers.

Teachers are absolutely essential to the business of teaching and learning, but there are lots of other things that families, children and young people need support with. Another example is that authorities have invested more in counselling services, play therapy, art therapy and other support for young people who are really struggling and having a difficult time in school. Maintaining the education budget would give that type of flexibility.

Thank you. That is helpful.

Generally, the pay of teachers and local government employees is subject to negotiations between COSLA, local authorities and trade unions. However, in recent years, the Scottish Government has stepped in to fund uplifts in pay. What role is there for the Scottish Government in relation to the pay of local authority workers?

Kirsty first.

Kirsty is smiling.

It is an interesting question. Obviously, we are very much in the negotiations for non-teaching staff at the moment. The Verity house agreement outlines that the negotiations for non-teachers take place with COSLA and the trade unions. However, we are seeing pressure—there has been pressure from the Scottish Government—to increase pay.

As for the role of the Scottish Government, if it wants pay to be increased, we need additional funding to support that, because we have only so much money that we can put into the pay award. I know that additional funding was put into the teachers’ pay award last year, and we got additional funding into our staff governance committee negotiations as well, which was helpful, but there is the on-going cost of that. We might get a one-year injection, but there is the inflationary aspect that gives us a bigger hit in future years.

Your question was about what role the Scottish Government plays in that. I am not entirely sure what role it should play in such negotiations, but I know that it has intervened in the past.

Okay. Thank you. I do not know whether any of the other panel members wish to come in.

Not on that one.

Thank you. That was helpful.

I want to build on what Ruth Maguire asked. The answer from Dr Hutchison and the elaboration from Carrie Lindsay on teacher numbers was really interesting and important. I want to be absolutely clear: you think that consideration, whether in our public discourse, media commentary or analysis, should be given to the pupil teacher ratio rather than teacher numbers. Was I correct in taking that as your overarching message?

That is certainly my view. There is a logic to the pupil teacher ratio. If, collectively, we reach a decision that we should aspire to a particular ratio, whatever that is, that makes sense. As your pupil numbers decline, if you are in a falling roll situation because the population in that part of the country is declining, you will not need as many teachers, so, as teachers retire, leave the profession or whatever, they will not be replaced, but the pupil teacher ratio will be maintained.

However, if the focus is on absolute numbers, that does not make sense if you have a declining roll. One year, your numbers might go down—our primary numbers have gone down by several hundred, but secondary numbers in Glasgow have gone up by several hundred, so it has almost netted itself off. The main issue is where you have a declining roll situation. As was mentioned, there are things that are funded, but they are funded on a flat cash basis. The strategic equity funding, for example, is flat cash, as is the pupil equity funding. Therefore, if I could buy 10 teachers last year, with a pay rise, I will not be able to buy 10 teachers this year, but I will still be required to maintain teacher numbers as an absolute. That does not make sense. In broad terms, there is a logic to a focus on the pupil teacher ratio that people can understand. I struggle to understand the logic of absolute numbers.

Thank you for that emphasis and clarification.

I agree that there is a logic to the pupil teacher ratio over and above pupil numbers. The Verity house agreement talks about having a

“focus on the achievement of better outcomes”.

I still think that the pupil teacher ratio is an input measure, rather than a focus on the outputs and outcomes. It is better than absolute teacher numbers, but there should be more of a focus on the outcomes.

Carrying on the theme of teacher numbers and so on, I will bring in Willie Rennie.

Why do we still have so many teachers on short-term contracts? Who wants to answer that? Douglas, do you want to have a go?

I would be interested in seeing the data. As I sit here, I do not know whether there are more teachers on short-term contracts now than there were previously. I know that around 900 supply teachers were used in Glasgow last year, with just over 300 on fixed-term contracts. I presume that those fixed-term contracts are being used to cover maternity leave, but we have a number of supply teachers to cover short-term absences or teachers on secondment. As regards your question, I do not know; I would have to look at year-on-year figures. I have certainly seen media reports, but I do not know what they are based on. I would need to see the data in order to come to a view on whether the reality is that we have more or fewer now.

Overall, whether there are likely to be posts for the number of people who are going into initial teacher education is a matter for the national workforce planning group. Sometimes we have got that right, and sometimes we have got it wrong. I started off as head of education at South Ayrshire Council. In around 2014-15, you could not get a supply teacher for love nor money, because the number of people going into initial teacher education had been reduced drastically due to negative headlines about unemployed teachers. The numbers going in were reduced significantly, and that led to a crisis in the availability of short-term supply teachers, among others. It was challenging at that time to get English teachers, for example.

That is a matter for the national workforce planning group. It takes account of a broad range of indicators, but sometimes there are too few or too many. Without the data, I could not answer your question.

09:45  

I agree with what Douglas Hutchison said: without the data, it is hard to answer the question. Obviously, we have a significant female population, so a number of teachers will be on maternity leave, and those posts are always filled temporarily. There are also people who might come into a temporary post in a school during the year. Sometimes, there is a bit of a misnomer—that might not be the right word—and people do not understand that a teacher in that position is full time but is temporary to that school. At the end of that year, when they go into a permanent post, people think that there are lots of vacant posts, but there are not; people are just being moved around. In that respect, when people see those posts becoming available, they often think that they are not available to them to apply for.

However, I think that there are significant challenges in filling posts in particular subjects. At the moment, we have many more primary staff than are required, and we have a problem in secondary schools in particular subjects. As Douglas said, we are in a healthy position when it comes to supply staff for primary schools, but that means that those people are on temporary, not permanent, contracts.

In that light, do you think that we are educating too many primary school teachers?

That question is for the workforce planning group, obviously.

Neatly dodged.

That is what it looks at. I have been involved in education for many years, as has Douglas, and we have seen the demographic of society change. On this occasion, it was probably a bit less obvious. I think that the pandemic has had an impact on family size and when people start their family. There has been a significant shift in the birth rate over the past few years, which we now see coming into the organisations.

You will have received communications and letters similar to the ones that I have received from primary school teachers who gave up other careers or have been really passionate about teaching young people and have had their dreams torn away from them. Some can only get a series of short-term contracts—in some cases, for up to six years—and others cannot find a job at all. We have not got it right just now, have we? I get that it is a difficult balancing act and that the situation goes in cycles, but it is particularly bad just now, is it not?

Again, we do not have the data in front of us to know what the picture has looked like over the past few years. Anecdotally, there are stories about people who are in exactly the situations that you describe. Equally, there are people who have got permanent jobs and are comfortable, having gone through the training. For periods of time in education, people have expected to go into supply teaching first and then find a permanent job. However, with the probationer system, there is almost an expectation that you will get a permanent job if you have had a probationer post. It is seen as a bit like training for your permanent role. Perhaps we need to do something to help the profession to understand that a probationer post does not give an automatic right to a permanent job at the end of it, because some of the people coming out of university believe that that is their right.

Liam Kerr wants to come in on this area.

I have a brief question on absolute numbers. Several of my colleagues and I were at a very good event about engineering last night. Is there a concern that, when we talk about changes in overall numbers due to, perhaps, declining rolls, that masks specific challenges such as—as we heard last night—the fact that there are 300 fewer English teachers, 300 fewer maths teachers and 178 fewer computer science teachers than there were in 2008? I presume that those are the sorts of areas that we absolutely need to focus on, if we are to have a future in which we are sufficiently upskilled in science, technology, engineering and mathematic subjects for areas such as engineering.

There might be a reason why there are fewer English and maths teachers compared with 2008, and it might be population related. Within living memory, there were 59 secondary schools in Glasgow; there are now 30 secondary schools in Glasgow, because the population has shifted. Without comparing the population in 2008 with the population now, it is difficult to comment on absolute teacher numbers. However, in general, I agree that there are some areas where there are concerns. Recruiting computing teachers is a real challenge. Recruiting technical teachers is another area of challenge. It is difficult to find home economics teachers for secondary schools.

Generally speaking, we can fill all our vacancies from our probationers, which is why they are interviewed, given a score and allocated, but this year we have struggled to fill all the vacancies for maths and technical teachers. Recruiting computing science teachers is a challenge, as is finding home economics teachers. There are some areas where the vacancies are harder to fill. You are right: they are in the key areas for STEM careers, where we want young people to develop their skills. You are right to say that there are some challenges within the overall picture.

I am grateful for that answer.

Carrie Lindsay wants to respond to that question as well.

There are schemes to attract STEM subject teachers that give bursaries and various things. There is an acknowledgement that that area is a difficulty. In some parts of Scotland, it is impossible to get subject specialists, because people just do not want to move to there. Places such as Aberdeenshire have struggled to get people to “move up”, as we would class it in Scotland. As part of the workforce planning group, we have to consider how to encourage people not to only want to be in the central belt, where it is much easier to fill the subjects, although even there it is not as easy as it used to be.

Pam Duncan-Glancy, over to you.

May I indulge in asking about one point that was mentioned by Carrie Lindsay and Dr Hutchison? Why is there a difficulty in recruiting maths, technical and computing teachers?

I presume that it is because, if you have a STEM degree, you might have more attractive options elsewhere. That would be my guess, but I do not know.

On free school meals, my first question is about the current provision for primary 1 to primary 5. Local government put a joint submission to the Finance and Public Administration Committee stating that there was a shortfall in the funding for that. What is that shortfall and how is it being met?

I am not sure. Do you mean the quantum of funding? I would imagine that the shortfall in funding is due to the inflationary aspects of free school meal provision, which I touched on earlier. We are all finding in our pockets when we go to the supermarket that things are way more expensive. When that policy commitment was made, as with many policy commitments, we got it funded in the first year and that funding was then rolled forward. It is not inflated, but this is an area of severe inflation.

What are councils doing to maintain the provision?

They are having to make savings in other service areas in order to maintain that service provision.

Do you know where those savings are broadly coming from across the piece?

No. It will vary from authority to authority, so I could not answer that. It will not be directly linked. An authority will not be saying, “Well, I’m going to cut the roads funding because I’m having to meet the inflation of free school meals.” The funding will come from across the broad range of services.

Does the panel have an understanding of what the cost for extending free school meal provision to P6 and P7 will be and how that will be funded?

We are working on pulling together that information. We could have capital costs as well as increased revenue costs, because expansions to kitchens might be required. When this was talked about a couple of years ago, not enough funding had been set aside, so it was delayed. I do not know what we need at this time; as I said, the information-gathering exercise is taking place just now. However, we would need to have it fully funded in order to deliver on that commitment.

Is there a risk that you may not be able to do so in the timescale that the cabinet secretary set out?

The timescale now is 2026, if I remember rightly. Depending on the funding that we get and when the funding is announced in order to plan for that, 2026 is probably doable. It depends on the funding.

When we were trying to deliver on that commitment before—I think that it was supposed to come in a couple of years ago—and we had not had the funding announced, there was no way that we were going to deliver on the commitment, because we could not plan. As long as we have the funding confirmed, we can plan.

Will there be any impact on the capital expenditure to make the infrastructure changes that might be needed as a result of finding reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—in schools? Will that impact on the available budget?

In general terms, the expansion of free school meals also requires capital investment. One of the savings that were made in my previous local authority a few years ago was to reduce the number of production kitchens. We centralised production kitchens in particular schools and removed them from others. It was quite contentious at the time. However, as we begin to roll out free school meals and the uptake is bigger, we need those production kitchens back. It is that kind of capital investment that is needed.

If RAAC goes on to become an issue, it is part of the same capital budget.

We will have a question specifically on that later, if you do not mind. Thank you.

Okay.

Could the member keep to her topic, please?

The delivery of free school meals is dependent on infrastructure, and I am keen to understand whether, if the budget were to be squeezed from other places, including for RAAC—that is not an unreasonable statement—that would risk the delivery of free school meals.

It is difficult to answer that question. All I will say is that the delivery of free school meals also requires capital investment. As Kirsty Flanagan said, we can deliver the policy as long as the capital and revenue costs are funded.

That is the key point. In order for us to deliver on the Scottish Government commitments, they need to be fully funded.

Finally, what outcomes arising from the expenditure on free school meals are you seeing across the piece?

The very short-term outcomes are that children are fed and they are able to access education. There are so many contributing factors to attainment outcomes that it would be hard to say that we were seeing that in the attainment outcomes of our young people, but the question is whether, over time, we can say that there is a cause-and-effect relationship. However, we are seeing young people who might not otherwise receive breakfast, in particular. We have extended breakfast provision in a lot of local authorities so that breakfast is available in secondary schools as well as primary schools. Having that meal or food that they can access during the day makes young people much readier to learn.

May I follow up on that? This question is specifically for you, Carrie. How are the educational outcomes of the universal free school meals being monitored at a local level? Do you think that local government might like the Scottish Government to consider the relative cost effectiveness of the universal provision, given that you have spoken about the challenges and choices that you are making in your budgets?

The measure for this policy is inputs, not outcomes. As I said, it is hard to say whether there is cause and effect when it comes to attainment outcomes, but the input at the moment shows that large numbers of our children are receiving food during the day. There are also some families who do not wish to take up free school meals. The challenge is that, when you have a universal provision such as this, some families will not access it or may feel that they do not need to access it because they are able to provide for their children themselves. I am not aware that we are recording outcomes; it is more the inputs.

The conversation around free school meals is very interesting, and it demonstrates really well that it is all about prioritisation. If children are sitting in school and they are hungry, they will not learn at their best or perform at their best level. It is all about choices, and there is evidence that having universal free school meals increases the uptake of school meals among those children who need it most, as it reduces the stigma. We are talking about further investment and the finance behind it, and I appreciate that there are capital costs as well, but surely it is a priority for all local authority areas.

Who would like to pick up on that? Is it a priority for all local authority areas?

I am happy to have a stab at that question. It is about the amount of funding that is required to be able to deliver on a policy such as that and whether the ultimate outcomes are beneficial to the other policy areas that we are trying to address. If we think about what PEF is trying to do and the challenge of trying to close the attainment gap and then consider the funding that is going to some families who might not require that type of support—I am trying to put that quite carefully—we see that having a universal programme means that we cannot then have interventions for the parts of the population that we want to give most to in order to allow them to close the poverty-related attainment gap. Nobody would ever say that it is not a good thing to have food available universally for our children and young people. Rather, it is about cost and balancing that against other policy areas in which we may be able to invest.

10:00  

I have a couple of questions about additional support needs, but, as a precursor—this is relevant—I go back to Michelle Thomson’s and Ben Macpherson’s line of questioning on the Verity house agreement. What flexibilities, such as the removal of ring fencing, from Verity house will be in place for the coming financial year for education? Is it your expectation that there will be no ring-fenced pots in the coming year? I cannot remember exactly how it is phrased, but will there be the equivalent agreements between local government and national Government rather than ring-fenced pots, and will that take place from 2024-25?

I am not sure that that is what I expect from 2024-25. The Verity house agreement is about moving to no ring fencing or direction. For 2024-25, we are focusing on in-year transfers. It would be nice if we could have it from 2024-25. Although we are moving in that direction, it may happen in future years.

I will press you on that a little bit, because that is really helpful. In that case, what is your expectation for 2024-25? Is it just the in-year transfer flexibility that you referenced, or are you expecting some, but not all, of the currently ring-fenced funds to become flexible and go into the general grant?

We need to be careful when we talk about ring fencing, because it is about directed funds as well. Sometimes it is specific grants, such as the childcare-specific early learning grant, that could go into the general pot. I would like to see a relaxation of the payments that we have to give our health and social care partnerships. Teacher numbers, and the absolute nature of that, might be too quick a step for 2024-25, but that remains to be seen. I have not been involved in the discussions that COSLA has been having. If COSLA had been here, it might have been able to comment.

On additional support needs, I am interested, in the first instance, in the guidance that is provided to local authorities on completing their local financial returns. It is quite interesting that some local authorities are able to detail their spend on ASN across primary, secondary and special schools. They can break it down and disaggregate it. Some local authorities record an ASN spend of zero outside of special schools either because they feel that they can or because the guidance is not clear enough for them—I am not sure. Whatever the reason is, their return states that ASN spend is zero, certainly for primary and secondary schools. They have integrated it into their wider spend. Is the guidance on what is expected of local authorities in a local financial return clear enough? I ask that specifically about ASN, but, if you want to speak more generally about the expectation of a local financial return on education spend, that would be helpful as well.

I apologise, but I am not able to answer that question. I do not fill out the LFR, so I am not involved in that level of detail. I can come back to you on that, however.

That would be useful. Thank you.

I am aware of the LFR and the provisional outturn and budget estimates, but I tend to defer to colleagues who deal with accounts and returns. I do not know any detail on the guidance, but, in broad terms, some local authorities have their spend at zero because of the complexity of what constitutes a resource for additional support needs. I will not go into the detail of staged intervention, but stage 1 is the class teacher, differentiating material and so on. Does that count as an ASN resource when the class teacher is the first person who meets additional support needs? Probably not. You therefore go along the continuum, all the way up to specialist external placement, where it is very easy to determine, but there is a grey area in between normal provision and additional provision that may make doing that difficult. I do not know about the guidance on the LFR, however, so I probably cannot answer.

I can ask the question in more general terms, because I recognise that that was a very specific technical question. Do you, in your local authorities, feel confident that you are directing spend as appropriate for children with additional support needs? There are a number of points of tension here. In the first instance, the Morgan review tells us that we need to see all education as ASN education and that it needs to be mainstream. That leads you towards a position where it is very hard to disaggregate the data, but we all recognise that the outcomes for children with additional support needs are not nearly as good as they should be and are not nearly as good as they often are for children without additional support needs. We need to be confident that we are putting in the right resources. There is obviously a tension here. How do you manage that in your local authorities so that you are confident that the resources are going to the individual children who need them and that you are directing resources at class and school level towards those where there is a higher prevalence of ASN in general and of specific, more complex needs that require additional resource?

I have been involved in additional support needs for a long time, and there is a constant tension because the legal responsibility on us is to meet every need, but the reality, as we are discussing today, is that there is a limited resource. Systems need to be put in place to ensure that the allocation of the resource is as fair and equitable as possible. The 2005 legislation recognised that there would be tension, which is why it included remedies that did not exist before, such as informal mediation, dispute resolution and access to tribunal. Those remedies were put into the primary legislation because there was a recognition that there will always be that tension between a limited resource and an almost limitless demand.

How we address that is through systems and processes such as staged intervention, which I referred to. At stage 1, I would expect a class teacher to identify that there might be issues with a child, monitor them for a while and put in place resources. At stage 2, it is flagged up at school level, so there might be an additional support for learning teacher who will do some assessment. At stage 3, you are beginning to look externally to the school, to the psychological service. At stage 4, you are potentially looking at a specialist placement within the authority or outside it. All local authorities will have some form of staged intervention, and it is through staged intervention that we try, as best we can, to allocate the resource in as fair a way as we can.

On the issue of universal allocation, broadly speaking, the scheme of delegation for devolved resources to schools has some kind of formula that applies across local authorities. There will be some kind of formula that takes account of overall population, levels of deprivation and levels of additional support need in the allocation of resources.

Broadly speaking, those are the systems and processes that are in place across the country that attempt to address the really difficult challenge of allocating resources as fairly as possible. I recognise that it is hugely contentious. My inbox has been filled—as, I am sure, some of yours have been—with complaints about children and young people not being allocated a specialist place. However, that is done by a central monitoring group, for example, which looks at the broad range and says that there is space for a certain group of young people and that another group of young people will be managed and supported within their local mainstream primary or secondary schools.

On that last issue, there is an important point about whether we support kids with ASN either in mainstream or special education. Do you feel that, at the moment, in some cases at least, that is coming down to a question of resource and that there are children in mainstream education because of the lack of capacity in special educational settings? I recognise that there are two points here. The first is where the judgment is made that the child with additional support needs would thrive more in a mainstream setting. However, secondly, on the basis of what we get in our inboxes, there is the implication that local authorities are putting kids with more complex additional needs who would be better off in special educational settings into mainstream settings due to a lack of resource.

All of that depends on the context but, broadly speaking, local authorities aim to make decisions that are child and young person centred, and we operate in line with the presumption of mainstream education and of children and young people being educated in their community, because, as soon as you take them out of their community into some specialist facility where they are not known locally and do not make connections, they can end up coming out of school having no connections in the local area. We operate in line with the presumption of mainstream education generally.

With regard to local context, I was an HMIE inspector for five years. In that time, I focused mainly on inspecting specialist provision. It depends on what is available locally. I visited a mainstream primary school in Campbeltown. In that school, they support children who, in many other local authority areas, would be in a specialist facility, but it is Campbeltown, so there is no special school. The travel makes it prohibitive, so they support those children in their local mainstream secondary school. It depends on the context. In Glasgow, we have a large additional support for learning estate—a legacy of the Strathclyde era, probably. The bigger centres of population may have it. A lot depends on the local context.

I have one final question if we have time, convener.

Briefly.

It is just about additional support needs support staff or ASN assistants—the job title varies massively, and that is the point of my question. A couple of years ago, the Government statisticians who compiled the school staff census merged the categories of “classroom assistant” and “ASN assistant” into “pupil support assistant”. Our predecessor committee in that session brought them in to give evidence on that. Essentially, they said that there was no longer enough distinction in many settings between a general classroom assistant and somebody assigned to work specifically with kids with additional support needs, so they were unable to give us numbers on how many ASN assistants there were. Does it present a challenge for you that we are unable to count how many support staff work directly with children with additional needs rather than providing general support to the whole class?

I think that that merging of the categories was probably just consistent with practice out there. If my memory serves me, classroom assistants came in at the time of the McCrone agreement, and things have moved on from there. The vast majority of them were involved in directly supporting children and young people. In a lot of local authorities, negotiations took place so that they all went on to a single contract, because they were paid the same anyway. The classroom assistant is a historical legacy from the McCrone agreement. My presumption—I may be wrong—is that the vast majority are involved in supporting children and young people with additional support needs.

Thanks.

I have a couple of questions about children’s services. The first is about the Promise. I am interested in the witnesses’ reflections on the practicalities of delivering the local government elements of the Promise in the current financial context. While you are thinking, I point out that a live issue for the committee is the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, which obviously has implications for local government, so perhaps you can speak to that a little.

10:15  

I am happy to go first to give Douglas Hutchison a wee bit of thinking time, since he has been speaking.

I think that everybody accepts that the Promise is a really useful tool for us with which to change the way that local authorities work with our most vulnerable young people. At the outset, there was an expectation that there would be no funding or very little funding. There is some funding for particular projects, but there was none of the money that would normally have come through COSLA to local authorities. For me, that was the right and the wrong decision, if I can put it that way, because there is an expectation that you look at all your processes and systems—you do not always need money to do that—to be able to deliver some of the asks.

In education, some funding through the PEF—I cannot remember exactly what it is called—supports care-experienced young people, so such funding supports some implementation of the Promise and the expectations for education. Across children’s services, people have been working really hard at a partnership level to identify where they need to pull funds together to be able to deliver on that. If some funding had gone to all children’s services partnerships to support the delivery of the actions in the Promise, that would have been beneficial.

I echo what Carrie Lindsay has said. We are all absolutely committed to the Promise, and we recognise that there is significant scope to improve outcomes for care-experienced children and young people. The care-experienced pupil equity funding—I do not think that it is called that—is certainly making a difference and is helping. In Glasgow, the Glasgow virtual school team is working intensively to support better outcomes for care-experienced children and young people. We are absolutely committed to the Promise, and we will find ways to deliver it, regardless.

There is a reduction in real terms in the expected net spend on children and families social work services in 2023-24 in comparison with the 2019-20 net spend. What might that reduction look like in practice for children and families services and for the children and families who use those services?

Until I retired recently, I was a director of education and children’s services, so I had responsibility for children and families services. I will speak from that perspective, not in my ADES role.

We have seen that our young people want to stay in their communities for the same reasons that we want ASN young people to be in their communities, as we said. In Fife, young people who had been away from home returned home when they reached the age of 16. Many local authorities, including Fife Council, took the decision to think about how they could support young people to stay at home rather than removing them to another place, which, at the time, might have seemed to be the best thing to do. There has been a significant reduction in the number of high-cost placements for residential care, and you will see that people across Scotland have tried really hard.

The Promise has helped with that a lot in relation to keeping brothers and sisters together and making sure that families are supported in their homes. There has been a shift in the way in which children and families services work in a lot of local authorities. They now provide support in a much more preventative way, or family support might be provided along with statutory social work support. The reduction in cost was—I hope, based on what I saw in Fife—from the reduction in the number of high-cost placements; there was not a reduction in what we were able to offer families. In fact, it was quite the reverse—we were able to use the money much more effectively to support families and keep them together, which was of benefit to the children and young people.

That is interesting. Does Kirsty Flanagan have any comments on that?

I have nothing to add.

Education services and children and families social work services work very closely together, so a challenge for either of us has implications for both of us. The whole family wellbeing fund provides a great opportunity, because it is focused on transformational change. Carrie Lindsay mentioned bringing young people back from expensive external placements, and Glasgow has been particularly successful at that. The whole family wellbeing fund provides the opportunity for that kind of transformational change that involves getting young people back in their community with the right support.

That is helpful. Thank you.

I would like to investigate some areas of capital expenditure. Do any of you have a view on the design of the Scottish Government’s learning estate investment programme, particularly given that, I presume, local authorities pay the up-front costs of that?

Everyone is looking at Kirsty Flanagan.

Yes, there is a risk that local authorities have to take with the current programme. We have to borrow or fund up front, and we get funding only if we meet a number of criteria. I do not know all the details, but the criteria relate to energy and such things. Therefore, there is a risk, but I would like to think that the risk is low if we are trying to deliver a better estate, which is what the programme is all about. It is disappointing that we have not had the announcement of the third phase of the learning estate investment programme. We were expecting the announcement before Christmas, but it has been delayed and delayed.

I will follow up on that exact point. As I understand it, funding for the third phase was meant to be allocated last year but has not been. What impact will that have on any capital investment programme, and, bluntly, will it affect the building of new schools?

It might well do. Last year, we produced in September the business case for the funding that we applied for, but costs have moved on since then. Even if an announcement is made, local authorities will have to assess whether, in the current financial climate, they will still be able to deliver what they hoped to deliver last September.

I have a final question. As we heard from Pam Duncan-Glancy, into this context has come the RAAC situation. Do you have any concerns that addressing the RAAC situation might have a detrimental impact on future LEIP funding?

I am hearing that that could be one source of funding to deal with the RAAC situation. Will it have a detrimental impact? If there are RAAC issues in the current school estate, we will need to deal with them, because the safety of children is important. Yes, there could be a detrimental impact on the building of new schools that are probably much needed.

How are local authorities preparing to deal with the RAAC situation and fund any necessary work?

COSLA could probably give you a better answer to that. I have not been involved in that work; it is more my property colleagues who have been involved in it. In Argyll and Bute, only one school has elements of RAAC, and it is just small elements. We were aware of that, and we are dealing with it as part of routine maintenance and are putting mitigation measures in place. However, I know that, in some local authorities, a number of establishments are affected, so there will be a huge financial challenge for them.

I cannot provide any further comments on that. Other colleagues might have more information.

I see that no one else wants to come in on the subject.

I am grateful for those answers.

I thank the witnesses for their time today. We will now have a suspension to allow for a change of witnesses.

10:25 Meeting suspended.  

10:40 On resuming—