Chamber and committees

All of that was considered by the previous cabinet secretary prior to my time in office. On reforming the SQA, we could have made administrative changes to the body, which might not have needed primary legislation. We could have changed what it is called and how some of the governance structure looks. However, the bill is fundamentally about rebuilding trust and saying that things have to be different. I am of the view that, if we had not taken this approach, we would not have taken people with us.

We will probably come on to talk about the people who are involved. The committee will be aware that we have a new chair in Shirley Rogers, which has been key to driving some changes in the organisation. Shirley has been tasked with taking a range of measures in relation to looking at our leadership structures, for example, which we might come on to talk about later. We also have a range of new board appointments, which officials assure me will be announced and confirmed imminently, which is important in shifting some of the balance.

I go back to the point that I made to George Adam: we still need a qualifications body to exist at the end of the process, but the test will be how it engages with parents, teachers and pupils, and how that will be different. That takes me to the governance structures. Embedding the learner and teacher voices in the governance structures is really important. For too long, in my experience—having worked in schools—it often felt as though the SQA was quite detached from the reality of what went on in our schools. For example, changes might be made to a qualifications requirement in the middle of the academic year, which was deeply frustrating for teachers. That does not happen any more. There is much more engagement, as the committee has heard.

However, we need to continue that improvement journey. Mr Kerr is right that we will be judged on that. That cultural change will not happen overnight with legislative change, so we need to continue to embed it through the governance structures and the right people. The appointment of Shirley Rogers is really important in that regard, as are the appointments of the new board members that I referenced and the work that she is undertaking in relation to whether the current leadership structures in the organisation are fit for purpose for a new qualifications body.

That is an interesting point. I gave Parliament the update on Professor Hayward’s recommendations a couple of weeks ago. In that statement, I set out my intention to come back before the end of the year to set out our updated national improvement framework, which will look at that longer-term strategic vision—which, to my mind, pulls together the strings from all those reports.

It is really important that the approach is not siloed. We need to reform the qualifications body. I also need to deliver on the aspirations of Professor Hayward’s review, but I cannot do so without that reform of the qualifications body, so the chronology is important. As the committee will be aware, I built in an extra year. Committee members might argue that that was the wrong thing to do, but I believe that it was important because hearing the voices of teachers is really important.

Mr Dey is leading on the wider work in relation to post-school reform. That work needs to sit together with our wider qualifications reform, which is linked to the work on accreditation. We might come on to talk about the latter. Fiona Robertson gave an update on her work in relation to accreditation. It is really important that we consider the matter holistically across our education system.

My final point in response to your question concerns our governance structure in relation to post-school and education reform. I have brought those two pieces together in Government. This might not be of interest to the committee, but we were previously quite siloed—I sat on one side with my responsibilities as cabinet secretary and Mr Dey sat on the other. I brought the two teams together in the overall governance structure of education reform in order to avoid the siloed approach that Mr Kerr has spoken to.

Ten years ago, I was in a classroom, so I might have to defer to my officials on the history of how the Government has worked to support the agencies. I worked in one of those agencies when Professor Ken Muir was in a leadership position, going back 10 years. We were bringing in the new qualifications at that time, so the Government was working to support leadership in all those organisations.

If I can be frank, in the past 10 years, education in Scotland has become deeply politicised. Committee members all know that. It is perhaps less so in the current parliamentary session than in previous sessions, but education is deeply politicised as an issue.

One of the reasons why education has become so deeply politicised is because my party put closing the poverty-related attainment gap squarely at the front of our ambitions. That brings a different level of challenge for all leaders in Scottish education, and committee members should be mindful of that. When I engage with leaders in Scottish education, I am mindful that we are all used to the cut and thrust of Scottish politics in a way that some people in those organisations are not—and nor should they be, arguably, because it is not their job. That landscape has informed some of the challenges that those bodies have faced in the past 10 years.

I met the teaching trade unions yesterday, and they raised that issue. During the previous parliamentary session, we heard evidence in this room about how we can work to depoliticise education. I am being a bit of an ideologist this morning but, fundamentally, we are all in this for the same reason. We want to improve Scottish education for our young people, and that is what the bill is about.

Civil servants have worked to support leadership across the different bodies. Doing so has not been without challenge. We heard about that during the previous session, as Ross Greer and Willie Rennie will remember. Without getting into personalities, I can say that we worked to support leadership in those organisations.

I discussed the pay-cut issue with the SQA on Monday, when we were talking about opportunities for teachers. There is an issue in relation to pay. I am not going to be able to resolve it overnight, because, bluntly, it relates to budget and—as committee members will all be aware—the Government faces a particularly challenging time with our budget. We have had to make some tough choices, such as settling high pay claims as a result of inflation being through the roof, and that is making things difficult. However, I take Mr Rennie’s point, because it is important. It relates to the point that I was trying to make to Ms Duncan-Glancy, which is that we facilitate opportunities for teachers to come and be part of the organisation.

There are a range of ways in which we could do that, such as secondary headteacher secondment, which I have cited. I would like to provide more opportunities for expertise from the organisation to be shared with the profession. The profession should feel that the organisation belongs to it, not that it is something that is done to it, which is how it has felt in the past.

Mr Rennie asked about the leadership of the SQA and qualifications Scotland. I mentioned the appointment of Shirley Rogers as the new chair. We are also advertising for a new chief inspector and a new Education Scotland chief executive. We have been recruiting for new board members, the results of which we will announce imminently, I am told. That will change things.

I mentioned in my response to Mr Kerr that I have asked Shirley Rogers to look at leadership structures in the organisation and to provide me with advice on whether those are fit for purpose in the new body.

I apologise.

I might defer to officials on that. From a teacher’s perspective—taking off my cab sec hat—I do not see why we would be against that approach, in which the committee would seek to listen to the views of young people. I suppose the point that the member is making is that it should not be tokenistic: young people should be able to speak freely, but if they are in a room full of adults, they will not be able to do that.

I will bring in Jaxon on that point.

I do not think that my expectation is that they would sit as members. It goes back to the point that Mr Mason made about the role of qualifications Scotland staff being largely administrative, responding to challenge and listening to and understanding the views of members. If Mr Greer’s view is that we need to stipulate that in primary legislation, we can look at that. That feels quite specific, but I take the point that he is making.

When we are talking about the credibility of the organisation, we need to be mindful that the structures have to introduce a level of challenge that has arguably been lacking in recent times. I do not want to see them stacked with the staff who work in that organisation. That is not the purpose of those structures. They are there to provide a different view and a different role, and to provide challenge.

I am not sure whether we would stipulate that in the primary legislation, but there might be something that we could do around guidance. I might defer to officials on that point. Again, I am pretty sympathetic to Mr Greer’s point.

Absolutely. I take Mr Greer’s point that the 49 per cent suggestion would fly in the face of the purpose of the legislation.