Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you, Mr Bruce—I wanted you to put that on record for completeness in your evidence this morning.

I was going to ask about workforce planning. You have probably covered most of my questions, but I will ask them in case you want to fill in any gaps.

Can you say a bit more about the workforce planning that you are undertaking to address the high staff turnover? You mentioned the lack of corporate memory. You have said a lot about stabilisation and recovery, but resilience is a key issue. As with any small organisation, it only takes one or two people not to be there to present a significant challenge.

You mentioned workforce planning. Can you link that to future resilience?

That will chime with MSPs, as we employ staff for one thing but, in reality, the demands of the office mean that we deploy them as necessary for other business needs. I think that MSP staffers would recognise that, too.

I will move on. The auditor found that,

“based on legal advice”

that you obtained,

“the ... operation of the investigation process (as amended in August 2020) and the assessment process does not comply with the required legislation.”

What confidence do you have that the MSP complaints that were handled during that period were assessed properly? You have spoken a lot about getting continuity and consistency for the future, but, looking back slightly, what confidence do you have that investigations were assessed appropriately?

I am not really sure how to interrogate that—well, “interrogate” is the wrong word; I do not mean it in that way. I am not sure how to probe further in that regard, because of course you would give us that reassurance. You have put on the record today that, wherever you thought that there was a lack of clarity or you were not sure, you sought external legal advice as you went along. I suppose that there is a degree of reassurance in that.

Convener, some of my colleagues might want to expand on that point, so I will not hog this line of questioning. I anticipate that there might be some further questions in this area.

I have a couple of unrelated questions; I do not know whether you want me to cover those now or not, convener.

I do not want to dwell on that, for obvious reasons. I am trying to look forward as much as back. You have a team of five in total—as I think that you mentioned—and you lead on all complaints, but you delegate the day-to-day operation of dealing with the processes around those complaints, and the details of investigations, to your team.

For clarity, has the investigations manual been in operation for some time, or is it new?

I have no further questions. I thank Mr Bruce for his evidence and for answering our questions this morning.

We are having a really interesting evidence session this morning. I was quite taken by Professor Ainscow who, it seems like a lifetime ago now, said that we should celebrate success. He was quite clear that there are lots of challenges still, but it is right to put some of the successes on the record.

We see that school leavers from low-income backgrounds in Scotland are doing better in relation to positive destinations, and, in the past few years, there has been a record narrowing of the gap between the most deprived and least deprived groups for positive destinations. That is to be celebrated, as is significant progress that has been made at national levels 5 and 6, although we would all agree that it is not fast enough.

However, I want to flip the question on its head and direct it at Professor Ainscow, given that I mentioned him. We know that progress has been made, but do we know how we achieved it, and do we know how we can achieve more?

That is helpful, but let me broaden it out and ask the other witnesses. The reason for asking the question was that we do not know the reason for the progress that has been made. It could be to do with exceptional careers advice for young people or teachers prepping young people for their exit exams, but it could also be to do with successes three, four or five years ago, because that is how long the attainment challenge has been going for and how long significant amounts of PEF money have been in the system.

Earlier in the meeting, we spoke about early learning. I want to give one example, then ask about how we measure the success of that. I will also widen the question out to other witnesses.

A few years ago, one of my local primary schools encountered significant issues with what they thought of as physical literacy and the health and wellbeing of young people. The school used PEF money to bring in a third sector local organisation to do physical exercises—not physical education but physical workshops—with the young people over a period of time. The school told me that that led to pupils showing much greater confidence in the classroom and there being better interaction between the young people. Spending that money led to success. That was done with pupils in primary 1, P2 and P3. Those kids are now going through the education system. The point is: we do not know our successes until we achieve them.

That takes me back to the question about measurement. How do we know the successes that we are baking into the system for the future? Is there a longitudinal study going on? Is there a cohort of young people who were there at the start of the attainment challenge and who have been monitored as they have gone through that over the years? That is an open question. I am conscious that schools will say that they are already doing all the things that we are talking about here today. They will say, “There’s great work going on. Just let us get on with it.” How do we measure that in a way that is not bureaucratic but that will build an evidence base for doing more?

Perhaps Emma Congreve could answer first.