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PE1953, which was lodged by Roisin Taylor-Young, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review education support staff roles in order to consider urgently raising wages for education support staff across the primary and secondary sectors to £26,000 per annum; to increase the hours of the working week for education support staff from 27.5 hours to 35 hours; to allow education support staff to work on personal learning plans, with teachers taking part in multi-agency meetings; to require education support staff to register with the Scottish Social Services Council; and to pay education support staff monthly.

We previously considered the petition at our meeting on 9 November 2022. The submission from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities states that there are no national rates for non-teaching staff and that pay levels are determined through job evaluation. The submission notes that a separate salary increase for one group would have a wider impact on other roles and raise affordability concerns. Similarly, the submission explains that pupil support assistants work varying hours that are based on pupil needs and that changing that would have financial implications for various roles in councils. It notes that involvement in personal learning plans and multi-agency meetings varies locally and is determined by school and teacher discretion. Lastly, COSLA notes that the issue of pay periods and its impact on universal credit falls under the responsibility of United Kingdom benefits.

The committee also received a response from the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills that indicates that the Bute house agreement exploration group will share its recommendations on a qualification and registration programme for additional support needs assistants by the autumn of this year.

We have received a late written submission from the petitioner, which has been shared with the committee this morning. Unfortunately, a technical issue caused the submission to be received late; it was through no fault of the petitioner. I thank her for working with the clerks to get the submission to us in time for us to consider it this morning.

The petitioner’s submission raises a number of points in response to the submissions that we have received, to which I have just referred. She asks that the Bute house agreement exploration group consider recommending national, rather than local, agreements for the registration and accreditation of education support staff in schools. The petitioner highlights the “School Support Staff—The Way Forward” agreement, which was produced by the National Education Union in England, which considered similar issues to those of the exploration group.

In response to COSLA’s submission, the petitioner highlights that the single status agreement is almost two and a half decades old and that pay disparity exists between areas such as Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Harpur Trust v Brazel case from 2022 is highlighted and put into the context of the petition, with cautionary points about the potential implications of backdated unfair pay claims. The petitioner concludes by suggesting a number of options for the committee to pursue.

Do members have any comments or suggestions?

The second of the three new petitions that we are considering this morning is PE2014, on reverting to the appeals system used in 2022 for Scottish Qualifications Authority exams. The petition, which was lodged by Elliott Hepburn on behalf of Moffat academy students, calls on the Scottish Government to implement a revised SQA appeals process that takes into account evidence of pupils’ academic performance throughout the year, particularly prelim results.

The SPICe briefing states that the Scottish Government intends to replace the SQA and that it is expected that a bill will be introduced later this year for that purpose. The briefing outlines the appeals system used in 2022 and notes that the SQA described the 2022 appeals process as “an emergency response” to the Covid-19 disruption.

The SQA conducted a review of the certification and appeals processes, which included a consultation with learners, teachers, parents and others. The review found several issues, including increased workload for teachers and perceptions of unfairness in the process. All MSPs have probably received representations in relation to that.

Views on the approach for the 2023 appeals were mixed. The SQA appeals process for 2023 will involve a marking review by a senior marker that will focus on the correctness and consistency of the initial marking, and it will no longer consider alternative assessment evidence. The process is free, and individuals can appeal directly to the SQA.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has responded to the petition. She has stated that the SQA is responsible for its operational decisions, including its approach to the appeals process for 2023. Her response highlights the examination exceptional circumstances consideration service, which supports pupils who are unable to attend their exams due to reasons that are outwith their control or whose performance may have been affected by personal circumstances.

I am struck by the fact that the appeals process now is simply that a senior marker focuses on the correctness and consistency of the initial marking and no longer considers alternative assessment evidence. I have to say that I thought that that was very often the principal thing that many schools submitted on behalf of pupils. It was a case of presenting evidence to suggest that the individual had done better than the process had shown. Notwithstanding that, that is what is happening in 2023.

I imagine that colleagues elsewhere who are intimately concerned with these issues will have debated them thoroughly. We are in a situation in which the Scottish Government is, I think, indicating that a forthcoming bill will alter the situation, so I am not sure that there is terribly much more that we can do at this stage.

PE1961 is, as I mentioned a moment ago, also in the name of Edward Grice on behalf of the Scottish Private Hire Association. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to expand the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 to include private hire and taxi drivers by creating a specific criminal offence of assaulting, threatening or abusing private hire or taxi drivers while they are engaged in private hire or taxi work; and considering such offences as aggravated when the offence is committed while the driver is enforcing a licensing or operational condition.

We considered this petition, along with the previous one, on 7 December 2022, when we agreed to seek further information from Police Scotland, the Scottish Taxi Federation and Unite the union. Since then, we have received a response from Unite in support of legislating to protect private hire and taxi drivers but recommending that the scope of any such legislation be extended to include all transport workers. The petitioner has indicated that he would be agreeable to that suggestion.

Police Scotland has provided data on the number of breach of the peace and threatening or abusive behaviour offences that have been recorded over the past 10 years but was unable to provide a breakdown by occupation.

Do members have any comments or suggestions?

A bill would be required to amend the legislation. It is not just a case of waving a wand and us all saying, “Aye”; there is a bit more of a process to it.

I am inclined to give the petition one last hurrah because Unite has come in in support of the petitioner, who has said that he would be agreeable to its suggestion. I think that I can anticipate the Scottish Government’s response, but, nonetheless, the petition has had that additional level of support, and we can flag up that that is the case and ask whether the Government might be prepared to contemplate that, if even only in the longer term. Are you content with that, Mr Stewart?

Agenda item 2 is consideration of continued petitions. PE1911, which is on a review of the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 as it relates to post mortems, was lodged by Ann Stark, who I believe is with us in the gallery this morning—you will have to forgive me, because my glasses are not that good, but I am aware of people at the other end of the room. Thank you for coming along this morning to observe our discussions.

The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 and relevant guidance to ensure that all post mortems can be carried out only with the permission of the next of kin; do not routinely remove brains; and offer tissues and samples to next of kin as a matter of course. This morning, we will take evidence remotely from witnesses, because we will be exploring the relevant issues as they relate to practice in England, which the committee has been intrigued by in our previous considerations of the petition.

I am delighted to be joined this morning by Dr James Adeley, senior coroner; Dr Simon Beardmore, consultant radiologist; Ann Edwards, coroner services manager; and Dr Mark Sissons, consultant pathologist. Thank you all for giving us your time this morning and for joining us to discuss the petition, because the committee is genuinely intrigued to understand the different practice in England and why for the moment it is judged as being difficult to emulate in Scotland.

Having wished you all good morning, I will move to questions. I should say that our clerks will be keeping a careful eye on things, so please just indicate when you wish to contribute.

All of you provide a post-mortem scanning service in Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen Council, and it is a collaboration between the county council, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a private scanning provider, Digital Autopsy UK. I understand that the whole arrangement has been in place since 2016 and was the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.

Can you, by way of introduction, provide a bit of background? What prompted the establishment of the service? Was it simply a good idea? Was there similar public concern about the arrangements that had been in place? Was it a matter of professionals coming together who believed that it was possible to do things differently and in a way that better served the public interest? I am very interested in understanding how all this came about in the first instance.

Who is going to kick off? I am looking for one of our witnesses to volunteer.

What you have said is very helpful. At the start of your comments, you said that there was a rapid reduction in the number of pathologists. Can you elaborate on why that was the case? Has that reduction continued apace, or has anything been done to try to arrest that decline?

Yes. That is fine. When questions are asked, to avoid us operating in a vacuum, it will possibly be helpful if I come to you first and you direct us to the colleague who you think would be most appropriate to answer.

Fear not. We will have a number of questions.

This is all incredibly technical. In some of your answers, you may well volunteer information that will come up again in questions that my colleagues will ask. It is quite a complicated subject, and we are keen to understand it as well as we lesser mortals can.

The conclusion that I am coming to is that there is variable practice, but the common feature no doubt is that the number of pathologists is reducing everywhere because of the way in which the service is structured and the voluntary nature of electing to participate in post mortems. That is an interesting consideration.

I will bring in my colleague David Torrance. We have been told by the Crown Office in Scotland that achieving the skill sets required to move to different technology would be incredibly difficult.

That is helpful to know, because it sets in context what we are discussing. It means that our situation in that regard is not unique, and yet the provision has been established elsewhere.

My colleague Foysol Choudhury has a supplementary question.