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The premise of Ms Duncan-Glancy’s question is that ASN can be met only by an ASN teacher, but that is not the case. As we know, 95 per cent of pupils who are identified as having additional support needs are in mainstream education. Classroom teachers in Scotland have a responsibility to meet additional support needs, which is why they are provided with support to do that in their teacher training—

On Thursday evening, I spent a long time at the EIS annual general meeting with my official, who I am looking to, listening to the concerns of members in relation to some of the points that you made.

The views of teaching staff have been central to all of my work as cabinet secretary. In the past year, as I alluded to in my opening response, I have spoken to every headteacher in the country, which has not been without challenge. Your point about engaging with them directly is important. I have directly addressed the issue at every single one of those events, and we had a robust discussion about it at the EIS AGM.

More broadly, one of the points that I have made when that point has been raised with me is that, across our society, we see challenges with aggressive and violent behaviour. We see that playing out in increases in misogyny, and we even see it in politics. Therefore, it should not be a surprise to people that that is now happening in our classrooms. We should look to connect those two issues and try to tackle them jointly, as opposed to saying, narrowly, that they are issues faced only in our classrooms.

As for teacher engagement, the EIS and our other professional associations have been at the forefront of helping to formulate the national action plan, which I launched last August. The plan is part of the solution here, but I accept that it is not the totality of the response that is required. Schools cannot tackle such behaviour alone. The national action plan is starting to have an effect in our schools.

You will be aware that, in addition, before the end of this term we will publish updated guidance not only on consequences but on violent incidents in our schools, which I think was the premise of your question, convener, and in particular on conducting risk assessments.

I want to be absolutely clear that no teacher should experience violence in school. They should not be in fear of that happening in their classroom, for example. In recent weeks we have seen really challenging cases that have given me great cause for concern, and you have given examples of those from press articles. I will continue to engage with the teaching unions, to listen to Scottish teachers who have been at the forefront of the issue and to provide the funding that is required.

You will be aware that the Government’s budget provided for extra funding to increase the numbers of teachers and additional support needs staff. That is imperative to providing wraparound support for classroom teachers, in particular, in our school community. We need to work with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, too, to that end. We might come on to talk about some of those points in more detail but, for me, having that extra workforce is fundamental to tackling the behavioural challenges that we are seeing.

I would like to make other points on mobile phone use and gender-based violence, but I am aware that we have limited time. Members might want to come back on those, though.

I might bring in Mr Logan, because Mr Mason mentioned him. To answer the point, we might argue that the variance on ASN that we see across the country—this relates to Mr Rennie’s point on teacher contracts—has been a feature of our educational landscape for many decades. It is what happens when, sometimes, 32 councils are doing 32 different things.

That is not always good for parents and children, particularly children with identified additional support needs, who need consistency. There is a feeling among parents groups in particular that support might look different in different local authorities and, as a result, might be better elsewhere, which I do not think is fair. The revised code of practice, which Ms Dunbar asked about earlier, is about giving a clearer, consistent message. For example, it will provide further clarity on the previously addressed point that a diagnosis is not needed to obtain support.

To respond to Mr Mason’s point, the code will also give further clarity on the reasons for placing request decisions that fall under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. The transitions chapter will also be strengthened, reflecting concerns about ASN pupils moving from primary into secondary.

The code will also look to clarify the relationship between co-ordinated support plans and other children’s and young people’s plans through a staged intervention model. That goes back to the point that I discussed with Ms Dunbar about whether we should have a national staged intervention model, which would be quite a radical departure from where we are currently. However, it is important that the Government reflects on that and responds to it accordingly, given the concerns that MSPs have recently raised and debated, so that we can consider it all in the round when we agrees the scope of the ASN review that we have committed to.

No. As I understand it, the engagement is to happen over the summer.

I am pleased to be joined today by my colleagues Mr Dey and Ms Don-Innes. I will start by setting out some of our key work across the committee’s remit and acknowledging some of the challenges.

In childcare and support for families, we have expanded the provision of free early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours a year and we continue to work with local authorities to reach more of the eligible two-year-olds. We are investing in 23 early adopter communities across six local authorities to design new childcare offers for children from early years to the end of primary school. That work is targeted at families who are most at risk of living in poverty. Our £3 million bright start breakfast fund will create thousands of new breakfast club places and, just this week, we announced more investment in our extra time programme.

Across Scotland’s schools, we have reset the agenda, following the pandemic, by using the national improvement framework to focus on our ABCs: attendance, attainment, additional support needs, behaviour and the curriculum. We are prioritising investment in those areas through our joint commitment to increase teacher numbers and our behaviour action plan, and we continue to speak directly to stakeholders to inform that work. As of yesterday, through our headteacher national events, I have engaged directly with every headteacher in Scotland, and I pay tribute to them and to all of Scotland’s teachers and school staff for the care that they invest in our children every day.

Members will note that the latest statistics, which are from December, show the highest levels of literacy and numeracy since records began, as well as the lowest ever gap in literacy attainment between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. This year’s settlement with local authorities has provided a 3 per cent real-terms uplift for education, and we continue to have the best-paid class teachers, the lowest pupil-teacher ratio and the greatest spend per pupil across these islands.

In further and higher education and skills, we have worked to support colleges and universities through extraordinary financial challenges that have been influenced by factors that are outwith the control of this Parliament. Ministers listened closely to the sector as we developed this year’s budget, and we are investing more than £1 billion in university teaching and research in 2025-26.

Since February, we have made an additional £25 million available to support the sector. Yesterday, Mr Dey chaired a cross-party discussion on the future of the sector with Universities Scotland, and we both look forward to continuing to work closely on that. Crucially, and unlike in the rest of the United Kingdom, we have also ensured that university tuition remains free.

All of that is complemented by an ambitious reform agenda across our education and skills system—strengthening and rationalising our curriculum, assessment and qualifications landscape; simplifying funding arrangements; and focusing on improved outcomes for all learners.

I will close there and hope that I have set the tone for a collegiate evidence session that will have the wellbeing of Scotland’s learners at its heart.

As I understand it, principals’ salaries are set by our universities, which are independent, autonomous institutions. However, the point that the convener made, which was raised at committee last week, relates to restraint. I believe that restraint should be exercised in relation to salaries, and that we should be particularly mindful of other salaries, the cost of living crisis and the optics of salary levels to other staff.

We have to accept that, since 2014, in the round, teacher numbers have increased by more than 2,500. However, it is my clear expectation—I think that this is the point that Mr FitzPatrick was making before he left the room—that teacher numbers will increase in the next year, because we have put in the extra resource to allow local authorities to do that. If they are not able to do that, we will be unable to deliver on reducing class contact time. That goes back to my point that all these things are inherently linked. Our aspiration is to return to 2023 teacher levels to allow us to deliver on reducing class contact time.

I mentioned earlier some of the action that we are taking to support local authorities with funding to help with school trips, for example, and the support that we can provide through the pupil equity fund. Mr Briggs is right to highlight the funding for free school meals, because it has been a challenge for the Government. I accept that and I have discussed it with the committee. We brought forward a Scottish statutory instrument, which I was at the committee recently to debate, and we talked about how we could broaden eligibility by getting children who are in receipt of the Scottish child payment signed up to free school meals. Free school meals are saving families an average of £450 a year, so they are making a difference.

Mr Briggs talked about the increase in the cost of school meals. That has been impacted by inflation. Everything is more expensive now. Wages are going up and things cost more. We work with local authorities in relation to that, but they have statutory responsibilities at the local level. We have given them a significant uplift of more than £1 billion in their settlement this year, so significant extra funding is going to local authorities. We know that many local authorities do not pursue school meal debt. That is in the gift of local authorities; they can decide not to do that.

On the point that the member asks me about, we previously set out guidance on the issue, working with COSLA to be clear about our expectations. We also made extra funding available to help local authorities to write off school meal debt. We have taken a range of measures to work with councils to help to alleviate the costs that are associated with school meals and to support families more broadly.

I will address Mr Greer’s point before I bring Graeme Logan in to talk about the changes that we have made to the SNSAs and reflect on the points that he has made.

Mr Greer talked about significant additional reporting being required. I am so old that I remember sitting around this exact table with Mr Greer in the previous session of Parliament and talking about these exact issues. The workload that we talked about then was associated with local authorities doing many different things in relation to how they measured attainment.

We must remember the rationale behind the SNSAs. I accept that there was a lot of debate about them at the time, but the rationale was to have a consistent approach across the country. We have heard today about what inconsistency does to children, young people, parents and teachers, so it was important to have a consistent approach to gathering that data.

However, regarding Mr Greer’s point, I am aware that some local authorities have kept their own reporting mechanisms in place in addition to using the SNSAs, which has resulted in an increase in workload. We have reflected on that through some of the changes that we have brought forward for the SNSAs. I will ask Graeme Logan to speak about that in a moment, but I do not accept the fundamental point that the broader workload is being driven by asks from the Government.

I am happy for Graeme to talk about some specific details of the SNSAs, but I will first reflect on a crude example from my experience in school some time ago. Classroom teachers are often asked to do administrative tasks, and my department used to have support once a week for data entry. For example, someone would deal with the administrative aspect of pupil reports, taking that task off my desk, which was really helpful in freeing me up and allowing me to do more planning, marking and other things during my free periods.

There are ways in which local authorities can drive workload, but they can also assist with it. The budget, which Mr Greer’s party voted for, provided extra funding to support ASN and extra teachers, which we know will make a difference, and some of that funding can be used by local authorities to alleviate teacher workload.

I will bring Graeme in speak about some of the substantive changes to the SNSAs.

I obviously do not have that detail in front of me; I would need to go on myjobscotland to collect it. It is important to recognise that many ASN staff are now employed using the PEF money that I mentioned in my answer to Ms Dunbar.

Mr Rennie raises a wider issue that he has written to me about as part of his constituency correspondence. The situation varies by local authority area. The issue of teacher recruitment practices was one of the first that I raised when I was elected back in 2016, because we have 32 different approaches and I do not think that that is a great way of supporting our teaching profession.

In a debate that we had a few weeks ago, there was a line in the Labour amendment about having a national list of supply staff. I am all for supporting that, and we agreed with the Labour amendment, but we now need COSLA to work with us on delivering that in practice. We see too much inconsistency in how local authorities use contracts and a huge overreliance on probation. We should not divorce the issues of permanency and short-term contracts from that of having a centrally funded probationer scheme. I have committed to reviewing that because, to my mind, we are seeing too much churn in the system, particularly in primary schools. That is not good for our early years teachers, it is not good for supporting them and it is not good for retention.

We need to work with local authorities to encourage them to provide permanent contracts. The budget settlement has been part of that process. The other part of it, which I alluded to in connection with pupil equity funding, concerns the four-year funding streams that the now First Minister committed to when he was cabinet secretary, to give local authorities clear sight of the funding that was coming, so that they could create permanent or longer-term posts, which Mr Rennie asked about.

There are significant challenges for our whole workforce just now, but that issue is not unique to Scotland. Last year, the United Nations published a really helpful report that talks about the precarity of employment that exists across the education landscape in many different countries, which we are seeing across the United Kingdom.

The situation has been partly driven by wages. It was right that we awarded the profession the good pay rises that we awarded it, but that means that local authorities are now having to look at other budget lines. We need to re-evaluate how we fund the totality of the teaching workforce, which was another point that came out of the debate that we held the other week.