Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sure that we shall be gentle in our approach to you, in light of that. Joining us remotely are Graeme Logan, who is the director of learning at the Scottish Government, and Gayle Gorman, who is the chief inspector of education at Education Scotland. Willie Coffey, a member of the committee, is also joining us via videolink.

I remind those who are joining us remotely that, because this is a hybrid meeting, it would be helpful if you could enter an R in the chat box function if you want to come in on any of the points. Those who are in the room can simply indicate that to me or to the clerks, and we will take your questions or answers.

I want to afford Joe Griffin the opportunity of making an opening statement before we get into the question session.

Thank you for that opening statement. We will now turn to questions.

In the previous session of Parliament, a recurring theme and a cause for concern was incomplete and poor-quality data. When we look at the joint Audit Scotland-Accounts Commission report into outcomes for young people in school education, the issue seems to crop up again. The sets of data that are available, which measure outcomes, appear to be incomplete. The expression used by the Auditor General is that

“there is a lack of robust data”.—[Official Report, Public Audit Committee, 9 September 2021; c 4.]

Our first question is this: what are you doing to address that? Are you taking serious action to address it?

Thank you. We may return to some of those themes before the session finishes, but my final question for now is simply to ask whether you accept all the recommendations in the report.

Thank you. I will conclude the morning’s session by picking up on that last area of discussion. We cannot pre-empt the cabinet secretary either, but we can reflect on the data in and the recommendations made by the Audit Scotland report earlier this year. One of the things that struck me about its analysis was that it said that, although real-terms spending on education increased by 0.7 per cent between 2013-14 and 2018-19, the increase was not reflected in all councils. In fact, it went on to say that there was a drop in real-terms funding for education in the attainment challenge councils, with the exception of Glasgow City Council. Most people would think that the attainment challenge fund was additional money to help those local authorities that have the biggest challenges in closing the attainment gap. Can you give us an explanation of why that was?

Thank you. I am sure that if those local authority voices were around the table today, they would say that their settlements have also been reduced in the past 10 years and that that might be one of the reasons why overall spending has not gone up in the predicted way.

Thank you very much indeed for your evidence this morning, Mr Griffin. We very much appreciate the time that you have given up and the information that you have shared with us. I think that there were a couple of points on which you mentioned you might be able to provide us with some further detail, and that would certainly be helpful. We will await the cabinet secretary’s announcement. Will that be before or after the recess?

Thank you very much. We will now go back to the agenda.

I thank Stephen Boyle for joining us once again, and we are pleased to welcome by videolink Antony Clark, who is interim director of performance audit and best value at Audit Scotland, and Nichola Williams, who is a senior auditor at Audit Scotland. Once again, Willie Coffey, who is of our own, is joining us by videolink.

I ask the Auditor General to give us a brief introductory statement. We would then like to ask questions about the community justice report.

The extent of the current pressure on the capacity of Scotland’s prisons is a matter of public policy concern. Based on your analysis, do you have any sense of the reduction or change in the balance of those figures that would address that concern? You have reported on the state of the Scottish Prison Service before. Do you have a view about the extent to which the balance needs to be tilted from custodial to community sentences to relieve the pressure in the prison service?

At the start, you mentioned the high incarceration rates in Scotland compared with those in other parts of western Europe. In your report, you say that around 5 per cent of the overall justice budget is spent on community-based sentences. What is the international picture, and what does the situation in Scotland look like in comparison with other countries that have much lower rates of imprisonment of people who have committed crimes?

Would the people who are on videolink introduce themselves?

While you are giving evidence on that, will you also address the wider point that you make in your written submission about the importance of multiyear financial settlements to allow planning to take place in the sector?