Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am flexible. Let us be honest—a modern languages trip, or a history trip to the battlefields, is just as educationally valuable as a trip to an outdoor education centre. I am flexible about that, but if we were to say that the bill had to provide for all those things, we would be looking at a different financial memorandum. I am sure that I will be back here answering questions about that in due course.

Education, in its broadest sense, should include flexible experiences. My point is that there is compelling evidence on the benefits to young people of residential outdoor education. That is why my bill is as it is, because we can get a lot of uptake of good-quality education.

Yes. I would quite like to discuss that a wee bit further with the unions. I have to say that I have not come across terribly many teachers who want to withdraw from this kind of thing. I was a bit—

When we had the debate about changing from a reserved aggregates levy to a devolved aggregates tax, there was an interesting discussion prior to the implementation of that law about how good we are at understanding how much of a reserved tax is collected from Scotland. I know that you are not responsible for that, but do you have better sight of the information and data on how much tax is being collected from reserved taxes than you had previously? There was a bit of a muddle when we had this discussion the last time that you were here.

The committee had a witness from HMRC who, at the time, found it difficult to tell us how much of a UK tax had been raised in Scotland. I was a bit surprised that they did not have the data on that. I am pleased to hear that you think that there is a greater understanding of how—

Both the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise have been extremely helpful to me. Based on evidence that I have taken from other jurisdictions and from Scotland, I flagged up to the Scottish Government the possibility of a public trust model, which is run for the benefit of the public—that is, not for profit. The trustees in a public trust model are appointed by the Scottish Government but can take on board members who might come from various bodies that can provide greater funding.

I have spoken a lot with Celia Tennant of Inspiring Scotland, who was also extremely helpful with regard to the bill, about what that organisation does to balance the public, private and voluntary sectors in such a fund. I have flagged up Rethink Ireland, which uses an interesting model and has been successful in raising a considerable amount of money. In that, there is a suggestion to the Scottish Government that, although the bill would make provision through the Government, the Government could find creative and imaginative ways of finding additional funding at a time when local authorities are under considerable pressure.

That is a possibility, convener. An interesting thing that came out in two or three of the Education, Children and Young People Committee’s evidence sessions is that much of the PEF—which has been a very successful way of funding support, particularly for schools and youngsters who have greater need, in some of the more disadvantaged communities—is currently being used for outdoor education. That speaks volumes about the choices that have been made in local authorities and schools to ensure that that money goes to something that clearly gives positive outcomes. I have engaged with the Scottish Government about the level of PEF that we have and how much of it is going to outdoor education, because it is important to find out what the total is. That funding is obviously provided by the Scottish Government.

It is true that any classroom provision has to be under GTCS control. That is absolutely right and proper, because that concerns the professional qualification.

Existing schools that undertake a considerable amount of outdoor education—a growing number—are able to cope with that scenario without any additional extra costs. They make their timetable work to suit the provision of what is happening both in school and in the outdoor education field. It is the same as for history trips or language trips. It is never easy to organise a school timetable—in fact, it is increasingly difficult, these days—but the issue is pretty well covered. I do not think that there is a significant cost that will impinge on the ability of schools to provide staffing for outdoor education, because the schools that currently take part do not seem to have that problem.

The NASUWT was very concerned about the SNCT aspect. It was able to produce evidence that almost 90 per cent of its members—I think that that was the figure—were very much in favour of school trips, which I thought was encouraging. However, you are right to say that it was concerned about the possibility of the matter becoming statutory and opening up all the tripartite negotiation, which would be difficult.

I must say that the evidence that we have taken from individual teachers, people who work in the sector and some local authorities—the City of Edinburgh Council, which gave evidence to the committee, is a case in point—shows that a lot of teachers are very keen to try to participate in this kind of thing without it having major implications. I got the slight impression from some of the evidence that a lot of teachers would walk away if they were asked to do extra things, but I do not see any evidence of that in the teaching profession just now. Some teachers might feel like that, but I do not see that as a major issue.

The Educational Institute of Scotland and the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association said in their evidence that, actually, they really quite like the principles of the bill; we just have to make it work. I have been clear all along that we just have to make it work. I must come up with the right suggestions about how we can make it work and make people feel confident in the bill’s financial aspects and its workability. From the feedback that we have had so far, we are halfway there on workability. On the finance aspect, we have to find a workable model that allows the Scottish Government to have confidence that it can pursue the bill.

That happens already. There are pressures on families, of course, and not just from childcare. If a member of staff is asked to go away at a time when his or her youngster is doing Scottish Qualifications Authority exams, that is a pressure as well, because they do not want to be away from home, and that puts pressure on another colleague to be able to take up that work. Those pressures have existed for all the time that I have been involved with the issue.

Yes, that is correct. If the bill is passed, the big question is how many schools from the primary sector and how many schools from the secondary sector will choose to participate. This is probably more anecdotal evidence than anything that we can pin down to finite figures. We think, certainly from what schools, local authorities and the sector have told us, that we will probably get more young people from the secondary sector in the second year. That was why we thought that the numbers might drop a bit but go back up. They could be slightly towards the higher end in year 3 and beyond.