Seòmar agus comataidhean

You are speaking about the draft order, and I reflect that there have been changes in leadership roles in recent times. That has been reflected in the evidence that the committee has heard. I also reflect on the fact that we have a new chair in the form of Shirley Rogers. Shirley Rogers has been leading some transformational—

I have accepted that the Government will, in a Parliament of minorities, always have to work on a cross-party basis.

I have to ask this in response. The committee backed the principles of the bill at stage 1. Is that a position that you do not now support?

I have accepted that, as I did in the chamber.

I have accepted that there are areas in which the Government will willingly work on a cross-party basis to strengthen some of the key provisions, but there is an on-going need to reform our qualifications body. As I said, standing still on the issue is not acceptable to Scotland’s teachers, our children and young people, or parents and carers.

It is vitally important that the legislation moves forward so that we can deliver on that ask from the country in relation to how we deliver qualifications, especially post-pandemic.

One of the interesting points of the budget agreement that the Government struck with local authorities was the establishment of an education assurance board that will allow us to hold the Government to account for things that we are responsible for, and will also hold local government to account. The partnership approach that has been spoken about today is really important. I am keen to take the issue that Mr Briggs raised about identification and support to the education assurance board, which should meet for the first time in the coming weeks.

Incidentally, convener, if there are any other hot topics or issues that the committee would like me to address at the first meeting, I am more than happy to do that.

We must get to a place of understanding that, without local government buy-in in education, we will not drive the improvements that we all want to see. We have a number of willing partners in local government. Dave Gregory spoke about the quads work that is being led by ADES, which is showing real tangible results. That is the headspace that we need to get to. I accept Mr Briggs’s point about care-experienced young people, and I will raise that at the first meeting of the education assurance board.

I will defer to Nico on that.

Earlier, we touched on initial leavers’ destinations. The gap between the proportion of school leavers from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland moving into positive destinations is 4.3 percentage points, which is an increase on the previous year. I gave a figure of 3.7 per cent in response to Mr Mason—

Thank you, convener, and happy new year to you and to committee members.

As the First Minister outlined on Monday, this budget is rooted in delivery and hope, and it has been drafted in response to the views of a multitude of stakeholders across Scotland and to those of members from across the chamber.

The education and skills budget is no different. Mr Dey, Ms Don-Innes and I have listened intently to the views and asks of teachers, schools, local authorities, early learning and childcare providers, universities, colleges and the wider skills system. The draft budget for my portfolio for 2025-26 reflects those views and seeks to go some way towards addressing the challenges that we face across the education sector, particularly following the pandemic.

I will begin by setting out the resource and capital position for the portfolio. The education and skills resource budget has increased by £158 million, which is equivalent to a 3 per cent real-terms increase. In addition, overall capital and resource has increased by £116 million. For early years, we continue to invest in a high-quality funded early learning and childcare offer and our wider family support offer. Overall, the Scottish Government will invest more than £1 billion in high-quality funded ELC from next year.

The 2025-26 draft budget also provides an investment of £8 million in our six early adopter communities in Dundee, Inverclyde, Clackmannanshire, Glasgow, Fife and Shetland. The draft budget also includes funding to provide local authorities with an additional £9.7 million from 2025-26 to increase pay for early learning and childcare workers delivering funded childcare, so that they earn at least the real living wage from April, as well as ensuring that children’s social care staff employed in the private, voluntary and independent sector will also receive the real living wage.

The budget invests in our schools, teachers and support staff. It includes £186.5 million for councils to maintain teacher numbers, and it speaks to the asks made by local government as part of the biggest recorded settlement made to local government in Scotland.

The budget includes £29 million of additionality for additional support needs, including funding to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce. I know that that issue is of interest to the committee, so I hope that members will welcome the steps that the Government is taking through this budget to provide more support for ASN.

That funding is part of a wider package and deal agreed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. That deal is predicated on trust and will see the Scottish Government and COSLA working together to restore and maintain teacher numbers at 2023 levels, freeze learning hours and make meaningful progress in reducing teacher class contact time. Importantly, that deal also includes a provision for the creation of an educational assurance board, which will allow local and national Government to collaborate better on educational improvement, noting the legal responsibilities shared by both.

In addition, we continue with our investment of £1 billion in the Scottish attainment challenge over the course of this Parliament to support closing the poverty-related attainment gap, with £130 million in this budget earmarked for the pupil equity fund being allocated directly to head teachers for activities on the ground that will close the poverty-related attainment gap in their schools.

Committee members will note that the most recent statistics, from December, show that we now have the narrowest attainment gap ever recorded between the most and least disadvantaged pupils. That should be welcomed, as should the statistics showing that we have the highest levels of literacy and numeracy since records began.

Lastly, we remain committed to supporting a high-quality post-school education, research and skills system with more than £2 billion of investment in further education, higher education and skills. I am sure that the minister will say more about that. We have listened to the asks of the sector and have responded as best we can and with as much flexibility as possible in the current fiscal circumstances. That has included protecting funding for apprenticeships while, at the same time, increasing our core funding for both higher and further education. We also continue to protect free tuition, which means that, unlike students elsewhere in the UK, Scottish students studying in Scotland do not incur additional debt. We have sought, where possible, to respond to specific asks from the sectors and to provide the flexibility that I mentioned.

Like every cabinet secretary, I have been concerned by the United Kingdom Government’s decision to increase employer national insurance contributions, which will hit ELC providers, colleges and universities hardest within my portfolio. We are also still faced with an incredibly challenging fiscal context. Nonetheless, this is a budget that protects education spending throughout the lifetime of a child’s education.

I will finish there, but I look forward to discussing the budget settlement with the convener and committee members in more detail.

You have made a number of suggestions, Ms Duncan-Glancy; I do not agree with all of them.

I am sure that you are au fait with the data on achievement of curriculum for excellence levels—ACEL—which we published in December. It showed a record narrowing of the attainment gap, particularly among our primary 7 pupils, which is to be welcomed. We are starting to see real progress.

Of course, if you look at some of the—