Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Official Report 512KB pdf

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New Petitions

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Education (Qualified Teachers Contact Hours) (PE1391)

PE1391 is on protecting the right of children to be taught by qualified teachers for 25 hours a week. I refer members to paper PPC/S4/11/2/2. Members have a note from the clerk, the briefing from the Scottish Parliament information centre and the petition.

I declare an interest. I am a member of Renfrewshire Council and I know members of Renfrewshire parent council forum.

Thank you. I welcome our witnesses from Renfrewshire parent council forum: Stephen Wright, who is the chair; and Donna Alexander. I invite Mr Wright to make a short presentation, after which we will move on to questions.

Thank you convener. I thank the committee for the invitation to come along and give evidence.

The petition stems from an attempt by Renfrewshire Council to, in its own words, exploit a loophole in the law in relation to the two and-a half hours of so-called McCrone time. An attempt was made to introduce what was described, without any apparent irony, as an enrichment programme. It would have seen the two and a half hours that are currently taught by teachers being taught by a range of other staff, such as sports coaches, drama workers and so on.

The council was clear that that was being done not for educational purposes, but to save money. As the petition says, there was a significant campaign involving parents and teachers to oppose the move, which we see as a diminution of the education of our children. Opposition to the move is the purpose of the petition.

Most parents in Scotland will be unaware that the law does not stipulate that teachers should teach for 25 hours of the school week. I understand that the number of teaching days—about 190 days per year—is enshrined in statute, but the number of hours is not. It is that apparent loophole that we are looking to the Parliament to close.

We are not in any way suggesting that this is merely a little local difficulty in Renfrewshire, but we are concerned that, if the proposal goes ahead, by the end of their time at primary school, children in Renfrewshire will have had approximately 700 fewer hours in front of a qualified teacher than their counterparts in East Renfrewshire, Glasgow or any other local authority area. If we open up the prospect of some sort of postcode lottery, in which all 32 local authorities can hold differing views, that would be a recipe for anarchy.

We are of the view that the universality of the way in which primary school children in particular are taught is essential to the Scottish education system. We think that the proposal was not made because people want to see the number of taught hours drop to 22.5 from 25, but because of a loophole in the legislation. I suspect that our view as parents in Renfrewshire is the same as that of parents throughout Scotland. We want our children, particularly our primary school children, to be taught by professional, trained and qualified teachers. Obviously sports coaches, drama workers and others have a role in the school, but it needs to be as part of the curriculum and directed by qualified teachers.

The petition is about defending the professionalism of our education system and ensuring that our children are properly taught by properly qualified teachers.

Thank you, Mr Wright. I will start with a couple of questions and then throw the discussion open to committee members.

If I understand your petition correctly, you are advocating that a teaching time of 25 hours a week be protected by law.

Yes. Teaching time is not protected by law, so the local authority in Renfrewshire was able to propose reducing that time by two and a half hours. We acknowledge that there are a number of issues around teachers’ terms and conditions and we are aware that the McCormac review is on-going, but we are clear that when kids are in school for 25 hours, they should be being taught by a professionally qualified teacher.

Would a two-and-a-half-hour enrichment programme, as opposed to being taught for that time by a qualified teacher, mean that children in Renfrewshire would lose out on quality education?

Renfrewshire Council’s proposal was certainly to use people who were less qualified than teachers. At one point, the council was talking about people who were qualified to SVQ level 2. Although all parents are in favour of more sport, drama and other such subjects being taught, particularly to primary school children, the basics of reading, writing, maths and English are essential. I suspect that members are well aware of the problems of kids who cannot do the basics going to secondary school, and how much that holds them back. Frankly, we thought that the council’s proposal would be a diminution of education, which, as parents, we could not accept.

You mention the enrichment programme and drama and sports. Was it the programme itself that you were against, or was it just the fact that it was not to be taught by qualified teachers? Would you be happy to have the enrichment programme for the two and a half hours per week, but with a qualified member of staff along with a drama worker or sports coach?

There is a fair amount of semantics around the term “enrichment”. As I am sure you know, most parents are in favour of education enriching their children. One issue that the teachers and teaching unions raised about the proposal was that, at present, when people who are not qualified teachers come in to deliver sport or other activities, that is done during school hours in the context of the curriculum and with the supervision of a qualified teacher. So they are not merely doing sport for sport’s sake—it is part of the curriculum. That is what we are keen to defend. As you will be aware, there are enough issues about the changes that are taking place with the curriculum for excellence, so we should not further cloud the issue with things such as the enrichment programme.

We can take away the word “enrichment” and use “enhancement” or whatever you want. I was asking whether you would be happy if primary school children were to be given more sports or drama, for the two and a half hours per week that we are talking about, with a qualified teacher along with someone else. That was the point that I was trying to make. Alternatively, is it your point that you would prefer the 25 hours to be spent on teaching the three Rs, if I can put it that way?

On the question of enrichment or enhancement or whatever we call it, in Renfrewshire, the term “enrichment” was a euphemism for cuts. That was part of our objection to the plans. The other concern was that all schools are already meant to deliver two hours of physical education a week, and the proposal was to add another two and a half hours of sports to that. I am very much in favour of sports, and both my children are very sporty, which is great, but that would be an imbalance in the curriculum. So my answer is that we can look at that and there can be a degree of flexibility, but most parents are pretty insistent that the three Rs are critical, particularly at primary stage.

Many specialist coaches have a qualification in coaching, but not in teaching. Do Mr Wright and the parent council forum think that such coaches are not fit to teach children about those individual sports?

Teachers go through a fairly extensive programme of training to learn to teach classes of 30 kids. I do not doubt that qualified sports coaches or experienced drama workers have a role in schools, but the issue is the link to the curriculum. It is one thing to bring in such people because that enhances and develops the curriculum, but if we bring them in because we need to save money and we can get a sports coach for about a third of what a teacher costs, that is not being done for educational reasons. That is our objection. The proposal was not about enhancing or enriching the kids; it was about saving money.

The curriculum for excellence changes education delivery in this country. I believe that it is much better than previous systems because it allows children to attain, and not necessarily just in the academic subjects. Far too many children miss out because, in some cases, there is an overemphasis on academic subjects.

10:30

I am thinking back to my childhood and to some of the experiences that I had in Aberdeen of teachers being taken out of the classroom to allow kids to be taught other things. In my day, it was motor mechanics and hairdressing. The folks who deliver those things are not qualified teachers, but they are ensuring that kids can aspire to be all that they possibly can be.

I have a great fear that if we put caveats on this, we might not allow for cases such as I am talking about of children who do not fit into the normal education system and for whom a qualified teacher is not beneficial. We need to help those children to acquire life skills so that they can aspire in areas other than academia.

We do not spend a lot of time in Renfrewshire teaching primary 1s motor mechanics or hairdressing, so that argument falls down slightly. I take the point that you are making, but either we take the view that teachers are professionally qualified and are the best people to teach our kids or we do not. Within that framework, it is entirely possible that we can bring in other experts and specialists to teach kids in particular sessions, but to replace teachers and not to have such sessions linked to the curriculum is not acceptable at all.

The sort of enrichment that was suggested included things like finding out about your favourite footballer and the sport that he is involved in and drawing a picture of him. The quality of the enrichment was very poor. It was a babysitting service; it was not providing a level of education in which parents would be interested.

I had moved off primary 1s and 2s. I know of various folks from Satrosphere Science Centre, which is a science organisation in Aberdeen, who go into schools. Those people are not qualified teachers. From my perspective, having seen some of the work that has gone on in the past, I think that in some regards you can get more out of children by teaching them things other than just the basic three Rs, as some folk would have us do.

Curriculum for excellence is broad based, from early years all the way up to secondary school. We have to realise that there are going to be changes to the system that currently exists, and rightly so. In recent years we have had McCrone in place, which was supposed to drive up attainment, but attainment has actually remained static. With curriculum for excellence, we are already seeing some changes in that. If we stick to the current system and do not change it at all, we will probably end up with static attainment. We have to tailor things to individual children. That might mean bringing in folk who are not qualified teachers.

Bringing in other experts and specialists is fine but, as I understand it, at the moment that is done under the supervision of the headteacher and a member of the teaching staff. People do not wander in and out of schools to deliver whatever they like willy-nilly. The distinction was that the qualified teaching element stopped at 22.5 hours and the remaining 2.5 hours were to be delivered by people who are not qualified. That is what caused parents concern. As I said previously, within the context of the curriculum and under the direction of the headteacher and other qualified teachers, we want more people to come in. Such diversity does help to improve attainment and to develop children, but that is not what was being proposed in Renfrewshire. The majority of parents in Scotland would take the view that they want their children to be taught by teachers at primary school. If those teachers decide that they can enhance the education experience by bringing other people in under their supervision, that is great—I do not think that anybody has a problem with that—but in our view you cannot replace teachers with non-teachers.

How confident are you that the budget savings that have been made in authorities such as Renfrewshire will not lead to proposals to reduce teaching hours? Did Renfrewshire Council back down because of the protest from parents or was it because the council considered that the idea was not worth proceeding with?

I will take the first part of your question first. Clearly, if we had been confident that local authorities would not introduce the proposal, we would not have presented the petition to the committee and we would not be here. Our concern is that in these times of economic difficulties, local authorities think about saving money rather than educational benefit.

I cannot speak for Renfrewshire Council or say why it eventually decided to scrap the proposal. The parent power that was demonstrated in Renfrewshire earlier this year, the demonstrations, the lobbying of councillors and MSPs and so on had a major effect in shaping its thinking. On Mr Stewart’s comment, parents are prepared to consider how education is delivered. We know that we need to be flexible and that we need to consider changes, but that must be done in a particular way and it must be done with parents and not to them, as happened in Renfrewshire. There are some changes that it is extremely difficult for parents to go along with, particularly when those changes are presented in such a way that they are all about saving money rather than the education of people’s children.

Am I right in saying that part of the problem with the enrichment programme was that the activities that were talked about previously were rather basic because the only people who are able legally to teach the curriculum are professionally qualified teachers?

Also, what discussions did you have with the Educational Institute of Scotland and the General Teaching Council throughout the period earlier this year?

As I understand it, legally only teachers are allowed to teach, which is why staff coming in for the enrichment programme were described as “helping pupils to learn”; that was the somewhat odd phrase that Renfrewshire Council used. Non-teachers cannot teach, but can help children to learn, apparently.

The EIS was clear in its opposition to the proposal and balloted its members on industrial action. It had a 77 per cent turnout and a 97 per cent vote in favour of taking industrial action, were the proposals to be introduced. The GTC indicated that it thought that the proposal from the council was illegal. It was difficult to find support in any quarter, other than from a small number of councillors in Renfrewshire Council and perhaps a few officials. Parents, teachers, the GTC and the churches were all opposed to the proposal. The community of Renfrewshire was united against it.

This is about how changes are made in the education system. People are rightly proud of education in Scotland, and parents in particular are prepared to defend it.

I am very much in favour of the three Rs—I am a bit of a dinosaur in that regard. I want everything to be focused on that, including the so-called enrichment activities. I was in a primary school in Dunfermline recently as a newly elected MSP to help the children understand politics. It was interesting that the project involved all sorts of numbers, writing and drawing under the control of the teacher.

I am sympathetic to the point that you are making. This is one of the many not-so-unforeseen consequences of McCrone, which I did not think was very good in the first place. The 22.5 hours of teaching issue has allowed this to come to the surface: “Oh, let’s see how we can save some money.” I was surprised that there is not a statutory obligation on the amount of professional teacher contact children must have.

I am very happy with non-professional teachers coming into schools subject to all the disclosures and so on. I take it that your point is that there should always be a professional teacher present in enrichment activities.

In addition, I know that schools must be open for 190 days a year, but I noted in what I read that it said only that they must be open and not that children must be taught. Is there scope in that regard for referring to the total number of hours in a year rather than to the amount of hours in a normal week?

On Mr Walker’s first point, I think that most parents would take the view that MSPs should not wander into schools unchaperoned. However, as you pointed out, you would not go into a school to do anything other than what would enhance children’s education, and it would be done within the context of the curriculum. From what you described, the teachers put the activity in a context that allowed them to teach maths and English, too.

We argue that the issue of the number of days needs to be looked at. I suspect that when the legislation was framed—perhaps in better economic times—people assumed that schools would be open for 190 days a year and 25 hours a week and that kids would be taught for that time. However, because it was just an assumption, an apparent loophole has been created. Our hope is that this committee and Parliament will consider the issue in more detail and see where the legislation can be firmed up in that regard.

The petition raises a number of issues in which the committee is interested. The petition refers only to primaries 1 and 2. Would you be happy for the variation also to take place in primaries 3 to 7?

The petition is intended to apply to all primary schoolchildren. There is a reference to primaries 1 and 2 because we became aware that in some areas, though not in Renfrewshire, the teaching hours for P1 and P2 are flexible.

I read the petition as referring just to primaries 1 and 2, so that is why I sought clarification. We must try to develop questions for other bodies that are based on the petition that is before us.

On the enhancement element, the petitioner said that the petition’s proposal could be adopted Scotland wide. The issue for me is that a number of local authorities use classroom assistants alongside teaching staff to assist children’s educational attainment. How do you envisage the role of classroom assistants in the context of the petition’s proposal? Your view is that only qualified teachers should be involved, but classroom assistants are not, in the main, qualified teachers. How does that fit with your view of who should deliver education in the classroom at any level?

The petition’s text is clear. A subordinate clause refers to primaries 1 and 2, but the substantive clause refers to “children”, which is intended to mean all children in primaries.

The point on classroom assistants is interesting. In Renfrewshire, as in many other areas, the council has reduced—often disproportionately—the number of classroom assistants in schools. I know that the numbers have been reduced drastically in other parts of Scotland. My understanding is that classroom assistants should not and do not teach children, but support teachers.

10:45

In some circumstances, the dividing line between teaching and teaching support can get blurred. Over the past 10 years or so classroom assistants have played a vital role in supporting and developing education not just for children with special needs but more generally and, as a result, many parents are concerned about the reduction in their number. However, given that it was looking to reduce the number of assistants by 40 per cent at the same time as it was attempting to introduce an enrichment programme, Renfrewshire Council did not seem to think that the answer was more classroom assistants.

Much has been made about the 190 days provision in education legislation. Does Mr Wright know for how many hours each week or each day education should be provided to children?

My understanding is that that is not provided for in legislation. Taking Mr Walker’s point, I guess, therefore, that schools could be open for 24 hours a day.

Or 23.

Indeed.

Or 22 and a half.

I want to make it clear that we are not suggesting that—on this occasion.

My point is that it has been suggested that Renfrewshire Council found and were exploiting a loophole in the education legislation to deliver less of an interface between teachers and pupils in the school week. We want to examine that, because we need to formulate questions for certain bodies. As I have said, what might come back to us is that the school week is being shortened to help local authorities deal with the McCrone agreement and other matters, which will take care of the issues that are raised in the petition.

There are also a number of people who, although they are not teachers, have professional qualifications in various areas and who have, as part of curriculum for excellence, access to pupils. Are you saying that none of those individuals should be allowed to speak to schoolchildren on their own without a qualified teacher being present?

The current position is indeed as you described it: there are people who go into schools and either are supervised by a teacher or, if that is not directly the case, are properly disclosed. We are not suggesting for a minute that those people should not come into school or that allowing them to do so is not educationally a good thing. However, that is very different from the proposal that they replace teachers. For us, the key thing is that whatever happens in a school during school hours should be under the headteacher’s jurisdiction and guided by people who are suitably qualified to form the curriculum in a way that most benefits children. We are not in any way suggesting that no one else should come into schools—indeed, quite the contrary.

There was a slight anomaly in how schools dealt with McCrone time. For example, some dealt with it through classroom assistants continuing with project work and in other schools, following the introduction of curriculum for excellence, other teachers on the staff gave additional lessons. However, the whole point about the two and a half hours of enrichment time is that, as a result, the assistants dropped their existing project work and worked on drama, drawing or other quite meaningless subjects and children from P1 to P7 lost out for those 700 hours.

I have two points. First, I want to follow up on what Ms Alexander said, because I think that we need clarification. Are you saying that, at present, in certain schools in Renfrewshire, while the teachers are out for their 2.5 hours of McCrone down time the classroom assistants deal with classes and work on projects? Is that correct?

In some cases, yes. That is what we were told.

That being the case, bringing in qualified people to do other things during that time might have been a better approach than using mainly classroom assistants who do not have any formal teaching qualifications.

No, I do not think so. The classroom assistants are supported by additional teachers as and when required, and the teachers’ class work is continued. That did not happen in the school that my children go to. My children were fortunate, in that other teachers came in. For instance, my P6 daughter was taught French, which was an extra. I see that as a real enhancement to her education, as opposed to someone coming in and doing a drama workshop with them, which is something that they get anyway through their weekly time at school.

I return to Mr Wilson’s point about the number of days of teaching per year. The petition is all about hours. I wonder whether the petitioners are aware that one council—North Ayrshire Council—decided to see whether it was possible to introduce a four-day school week but was told that that would be illegal. How would you feel about the 25 hours being delivered over four rather than five days? I have a great worry that, if you want to change things and not concentrate on the number of days, which I believe is important, you might hit other difficulties in the future.

That happened in the middle of our campaign. As I understand it, the suggestion was flagged up by officials in North Ayrshire Council, but it was not pursued by the council in any way. To be clear, we are not suggesting in the petition that things be changed. We are suggesting that what already happens should be enshrined in statute. That is the key point.

It seems to me on a personal level that making schools reduce their week to four days is a crazy suggestion. Many parents would struggle with that. It would be difficult for those who work, for example. For us, it is not about the number of days. That might well be something that could be looked at at some point but, at the moment, most parents understand that they send their children to school for 25 hours and they expect them to be taught by a teacher—in fact, they assume that that will be the case.

You talked about “McCrone down time”. My understanding is that the time is for preparation, so I think that that is a rather pejorative term for it, to be honest.

We need to acknowledge that the world is changing. We need to look at things, and McCormac is doing that. That is fine but, at the risk of oversimplifying the issue, parents expect their children to be taught by teachers, in the main. That is the point of the petition.

The petition does not say anything about the existing legislation remaining. It just mentions the 25 hours. I have some concerns about that, convener, which I will raise in our discussion after we have heard from the petitioners.

Mr Wright, you mentioned that you wish the number of hours to be enshrined in statute. We heard from Donna Alexander that her child in primary 6 had an enriching time because she was taught French. This is where I see a problem. Local authorities do things differently. I am not sticking up for Renfrewshire Council, which is basically what the petition is about, but there are implications—

No.

Well, we have heard about what Renfrewshire was doing to try to save money, and we have heard about North Ayrshire, but not all local authorities have taken that approach. The problem is that enshrining the petitioners’ proposal in statute might mean that local authorities that are good at providing enriching and enhancing activities for a certain number of hours a week will have to stop doing that, and those children will lose out. Do you have any evidence of other local authorities doing what Renfrewshire was trying to do, before it stepped back from its proposal?

I am quite clear about the fact that this is not a Renfrewshire issue. We have dealt with it in Renfrewshire, at least for the moment, but there are implications across all 32 local authorities. The director of education in Renfrewshire was quite clear, in a number of meetings, that his colleagues in other local authorities were looking to see what happened with the proposal in Renfrewshire, and there is no doubt that, had the council been successful, a number of others would have followed suit. It is a Scotland-wide issue.

We are not suggesting in any way that our proposal should restrict the enhancement and enrichment of children’s education. We acknowledge that some local authorities take a different approach from the rest. The reference in the text of the petition to flexibility in primary 1 and 2 was because we recognised that Edinburgh—I think—has a slightly different school week in those two years because of local arrangements. We do not want to get in the way of that. Why would we? To some extent, we, as parents, will be guided by you and others, as lawmakers, about how best to implement our proposal. However, the intention is to enshrine what already happens. If you asked any parent in Scotland how many hours a week their children are taught for, they would say 25, not 22 and a half.

Does Donna Alexander have anything to add?

I should make clear that the French lessons to which I referred are taught by a qualified teacher—the school’s deputy headteacher—not a person who is brought in and does not have a teaching qualification. That means that those children are being taught by teachers for the full 25 hours that they are at school for.

I thank the petitioners for their attendance. They are welcome to stay for the rest of our proceedings, but I will understand if they have other things to do.

That sounds like a threat, convener.

I will suspend the meeting for a minute to allow the petitioners to leave the table.

10:57 Meeting suspended.

10:58 On resuming—

That was a useful question-and-answer session. Do members have any views on the next steps for the petition?

We should continue the petition. It would be sensible to write to various organisations to seek their views on the points that have been discussed. In particular, we should write to the Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education.

I do not disagree with Mrs Milne, but I think that we probably need to do a combination of things. In some regards, we should let the Education and Culture Committee consider the petition, as that is the committee that deals with such matters. Beyond that, I have no problem with writing to the Government and COSLA. In the first instance, there are concordat issues to consider, so we must talk to COSLA before we move forward.

11:00

One of the key things that have been highlighted throughout is that different things happen in different areas. It seems that, even in Renfrewshire, classroom assistants are used for that two and a half hours of down time when teachers are out of the classroom doing preparation. It seems that different things are going on within one local authority. Having been an elected council member and turned down such proposals in the past, I look at some individual classroom situations and ask whether it would not be better to have an expert in some other field in the class rather than another teacher at that time. In my experience as a pupil, which was a number of years ago now, many of the experts who entered the classroom were not qualified teachers, and the teacher was not in the classroom while they were there discussing the subject and ensuring that children were getting new experiences.

I have difficulty with the petition but, in the first instance, it is a matter for the Education and Culture Committee. Beyond that, this committee should write to the Scottish Government and COSLA on the concordat issue and pass our findings on to the Education and Culture Committee.

I agree that we should write to COSLA, the GTCS and the EIS. It is also important to give Renfrewshire Council the opportunity to address some of the issues that have been raised today. We have heard one side of the argument and what the parents are objecting to, but we did not delve into why the council stepped back from making the final decision. As well as writing to COSLA, it is incumbent on the committee to write to Renfrewshire Council for its views on the petition as it has been presented to us and so get a fuller picture.

Kevin Stewart is right to say that, once we have written to the various bodies and received their responses, the committee might want to move the petition on to the Education and Culture Committee, depending on the issues that COSLA and the others raise and whether there is a general fear that the proposal to reduce hours will be enacted more widely by local authorities.

It is a local authority issue and different local authorities will look at it in different ways. I do not want us to be too prescriptive and put something in legislation, as has been suggested. We should find out what schools elsewhere do and whether they follow the practice in Renfrewshire. I agree with Nanette Milne and others that we should ask for more evidence, but the Education and Culture Committee is best suited to considering the petition.

I agree with much of what colleagues have said, particularly about going to the Education and Culture Committee. I am concerned about falling standards in all walks of life but, in this case, subject to limits, we should leave it to local authorities. I echo a lot of what Kevin Stewart said about the issue.

We have heard concerns about the deprofessionalisation of education and the removal of teachers from classrooms. That stems from what happened in Renfrewshire, but it has ramifications for all Scotland. I support what other members have said about what we should do before we refer the petition to the Education and Culture Committee. We should write to the Scottish Government, the GTCS, the EIS, COSLA and HMIE to ask for their evidence on what has been discussed and the concerns that have been raised.

I want to follow up on that and on what John Wilson said. I do not disagree that the petition might eventually need to go to the Education and Culture Committee, but it is important for this committee to gather a little bit of evidence initially before referring it. When John Wilson and I were on the previous committee, we found that there are a lot of issues that could go to subject committees at the risk of overloading their work programmes. It is quite important for us to sift out what we can and decide what is important enough to send on to other committees and what is not. We should therefore do a little bit of groundwork first.

For the benefit of new members, the clerk has advised me that, as experienced members know, if we refer the petition to a subject committee, that will be the end of it as far as the Public Petitions Committee is concerned. Everyone here is saying that the petition is very important and we all seem to feel that a lot of other work should be done. It is a case of deciding whether we call for all the extra information or refer the petition to the Education and Culture Committee immediately. As far as Nanette Milne’s point is concerned, when subject committees have a lot of work, particularly later in the parliamentary session, it is difficult for us to refer work on because it might not be dealt with. As it is early in the session, this is clearly a good time to refer petitions to the subject committees because—although I cannot speak for other committees—they do not have all their work programmes sorted out yet.

If the petition goes to the Education and Culture Committee, it will do a lot of specialist work, very much like what we have suggested. It is a case of timing. Do members think that we should send the petition straight to the Education and Culture Committee and let it do a considerable amount of extra work, or do the further work that members have talked about ourselves and then consider whether we should pass the torch to that committee at a later stage?

I am sorry for not knowing all the protocols as I am a newbie here. Being used to protocols elsewhere, I am glad to be corrected.

We should probably gather a little bit more evidence, but we should not hang about for long. From my experience of dealing with such issues, we will have to work around the school year. I am sure that it will not be possible for the Education and Culture Committee to deal with the petition before the next school year, which begins in August. However, I would like to think that it could run its eye over it before the following school year at the latest. If we are going to deal with the petition, we should act quickly so that we can pass it on quickly, so that the Education and Culture Committee is not overloaded and is able to deal with it prior to the start of the school year after next.

That is a reasonable point.

I am not disagreeing with Kevin Stewart, but I want to move on. We could send the petition to the Education and Culture Committee with the recommendation that it contacts COSLA, HMIE and so on, and that committee could go straight to them.

Although I accept that we might want to pass the petition on to the Education and Culture Committee at some point, as Nanette Milne has indicated there is no point in doing that if the evidence that we gather shows that no other local authorities are considering taking action in this way. We could be passing on a red herring to the Education and Culture Committee. If evidence that is provided to the committee starts to ring alarm bells, we can pass the petition to that committee.

The previous Public Petitions Committee tried to pass petitions on, but if we try to pass the petition to the Education and Culture Committee at this stage and it decides to take no further action, that is the petition finished. It will be referred back to us and we will only be able to tell the petitioner that the subject committee decided that no further action should be taken. Our hands will be tied and we will not be able to proceed with the petition.

My plea is for this committee to consider the petition and get some evidence. If we think that there is an issue to discuss, we can refer it to the Education and Culture Committee. If we do not, we can deal with the petition ourselves and respond accordingly.

I agree with John Wilson, in that we cannot determine the actions of another committee. There will be other opportunities for referrals of petitions later on the agenda, and we have to be aware of that option.

I agree with the comments that have been made. We should write to ask for evidence from the various organisations before we refer the petition.

There is a lot of agreement in the committee. I suggest that we continue the petition and follow up on all the extra pieces of information to which members have referred and which the clerks have noted. However, we should build in a strict timescale, so that we do not sit on the petition. It is important that we get all the information. When we meet again early in the autumn, we will decide whether it is appropriate to refer the petition on to the Education and Culture Committee. That way, we will have done a lot more homework, which was John Wilson’s point, and actively considered this important petition. We can then decide at a later date whether to refer it on. Is that acceptable?

Members indicated agreement.

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Coastguard Stations (Closure) (PE1389)

PE1389 concerns the adverse impact of coastguard station closures. Members have a note by the clerk, a Scottish Parliament information centre briefing and the petition. Members will be aware that the House of Commons Transport Committee recently published its report on the future shape of the coastguard service. That committee accepted the need for modernisation, but it was of the view that the UK Government’s plan was “seriously flawed”. Members will also be aware that there was a members’ business debate on the issue in the Parliament last week, sponsored by Stuart McMillan. I contributed to that and other members might have spoken in it.

I invite comments from members on the issues that are raised by the petition.

As members have no comments, we need to consider the three options that the clerks have given us. They are to continue the petition in order to look for further information and, in particular, ask for an update from the Scottish Government; to refer the petition to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, which is the appropriate subject committee; or to close the petition, not because it is not important—it is extremely important—but because, in effect, the Scottish Government has done what the petitioners have requested, which is to make representations to the UK Government. It is important that we process some petitions. The danger is that we will not move any petitions on, which will make it difficult to look at new ones. Those are the three suggested ways forward. What are members’ views?

The petition is important, and I am not just saying that because one of the coastguard stations is in Fife. The issue is important to Scotland, without regard to the party politics of it. We have a long coastline compared to that in the rest of the UK. Members might not realise it, but Scotland’s coastline is longer than England’s. Further, proportionately, we have a greater relationship with the sea through ferries and fishing. The issue is important to us. That is apart from the safety aspects and the political considerations.

For me, it is not all just emotion and it is not just a nimby-type thing because I want to keep my station. The issue is important. It would be a dramatic move to reduce the number of stations so that there was one for the whole of the north of the UK and another one for the south, with other stations that are part-time. As far as I can see, those will operate only during the day, which is kind of daft, as an awful lot of dangerous things happen at night.

I am another new boy but, one way or the other, we must continue the petition and do something about the issue. We should certainly not dump it in any way. The issue is proportionately more important to Scotland than it is to the rest of the UK. For that reason, we are right to pursue it strenuously.

If I were being parochial, I would say that everything is hunky-dory because Aberdeen coastguard station will stay. However, Bill Walker is absolutely right. In the past, we have seen some of the awful things that can happen when there is an inability to deal with an emergency. It is vital that the UK Government gets the issue right. We should continue to monitor the situation. I know that the UK Government is talking about adapting the original proposals—I believe that there was news yesterday about a slight change of heart. We need to continue the petition. We should at least get one more update to check that the Scottish Government is lobbying hard to ensure that we have the coastguard service that we need and deserve in Scotland.

11:15

I wonder what we can do in a practical sense. Obviously, the Scottish Government has been in touch with the Westminster Government, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has been involved, and there has already been a lot of activity. I wonder whether we should simply write to the Scottish Government to ask for an update, as Kevin Stewart has suggested. We could say that the committee is aware of the on-going action and ask whether the Scottish Government could keep us up to speed, as we are very interested in the outcome.

That seems to be a sensible way forward. Are members happy to continue the petition and to write to the Scottish Government to ask for an update on progress?

Members indicated agreement.

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Essential Ferry Services (Governance) (PE1390)

PE1390 is on the governance of essential ferry services.

I want to place on the record that, over the past four years, I have been involved in the issue of the governance of essential ferry services; that I have had communications with Neil Kay on a number of occasions; that I have shared a platform with Neil Kay at an event on the matter; and that I recently lodged a number of parliamentary questions on the matter.

As members do not seem to have any specific comments to make on the petition, I refer them to the clerk’s note, which outlines possible actions. The first possible action is to continue the petition, seek further information, and look at the issue again in September. As members know, there is currently a Scottish ferries review, which will cover some of the points that have been made. Unfortunately, Neil Kay could not be here today, but I know that he is keen to give evidence in September. Would members be happy to continue the petition in line with the option in the clerk’s note?

Members indicated agreement.

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City Status (PE1392)

PE1392 is on city status by right of ancient prescriptive usage. Do members have any views on the petition?

I do not know whether this is the appropriate time to say that I have a little declaration of interests to make. I am the member for Dunfermline, which is mentioned quite heavily in the petition, and I believe that I signed an e-mail request some weeks ago for the petition to go forward. I do not know what the correct procedure is, so I wanted to make that declaration at this stage.

Thank you, Mr Walker.

I think that Mr Walker is basically arguing for the petition to be continued.

Very much so.

There is an argument, which does not apply uniquely to this petition, that the issue is wholly reserved and that we do not have any locus in it. It is possible that we could close the petition on that basis. As members know, we must give reasons for closing a petition. Would members like to continue or close it? There is, of course, the option of referring it to the Education and Culture Committee.

I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to make it aware of the petition and ask for its views on it. The petition calls on

“the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to make representations to the UK Government”.

The petitioner has therefore recognised that the matter is legally within the UK Government’s jurisdiction. Given that the petitioner has requested that we get the Scottish Government to write to the UK Government, we should continue the petition and proceed along those lines. We should ask the Scottish Government to take up the issue with the UK Government in order to move it forward.

The issue is similar to issues that we have previously discussed this morning. It could be fitted into the Scotland Bill, and it could come to Scotland. I hope that I will not be pulled over red-hot coals for being guilty of referring to “the city of Dunfermline”, but it seems that the matter should be devolved to Scotland, and one of my questions to the Scottish Government would be whether it could be fitted into the Scotland Bill.

Do members agree that we continue the petition to refer it to the Scottish Government and pick up Bill Walker’s point?

I flag up to members that we have a lot of petitions to deal with, so, although I agree with the point that has been made, it is important that we have some sort of timescale so that we do not end up having no time to consider new petitions.

Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.