Seòmar agus comataidhean

As I said in a response to Mr Rennie earlier, as part of the budget agreement, we got an agreement from all local authorities, through COSLA, that they would work back to 2023 levels. I am really pleased that the deal was made. It was made in good faith and it involved a lot of extra public money, including for teacher numbers and additional support needs, so I cannot believe that any local authority in Scotland is taking that additional money from central Government and planning to reduce teacher numbers, having signed up to those conditions and to making meaningful progress on reducing class contact time.

We are engaging with a number of local authorities on the substantive issues, but our understanding is that the budget deal remains absolute and that local authorities will, in good faith, work back to 2023 teacher numbers. If they all did that tomorrow, I could deliver on reducing class contact time in primary schools, because we know through our independent modelling that we would have enough teachers to do that. These things must not be divorced: when we talk about teacher numbers and reducing class contact time, it is really important is that they sit together. Having a sustainable workforce will help to reduce class contact time, which will allow teachers to engage in reform.

Is there a specific area of the education brief that you are interested in?

I am scheduled to meet the group’s members shortly. You raised this matter with me in the chamber and I am scheduled to meet them in the coming weeks, I think—before the end of the term.

I will engage with the group’s representatives at the next meeting.

As cabinet secretary, the route for me to engage with the workforce and the profession is via the professional associations that I meet regularly. However, I have met that new group, which is not affiliated to the trade unions, as I understand it. I look forward to meeting its representatives soon.

I might defer to my officials on that, convener. It is fair to say that the process was oversubscribed with bids from local authorities that are keen to upscale their delivery of free school meals. I might hand over to Graeme Logan on that point.

On your wider point, we want to engage with those other local authorities on how we can support them, because we want to encourage them all to take part in a wider roll-out of free school meals.

Perhaps Graeme could say a bit more on our engagement.

It is difficult to say why a local authority might not want to be part of it. We would want them all to be engaged to some extent. However, decisions needed to be made because a limited level of funding was available through the budget negotiation process. Our next steps will need to involve engaging with COSLA about the local authorities that were not successful and, more broadly, to learn lessons from the pilot about how we might scale up the process at national level in the future.

There are examples from across the brief. I see Mr Dey indicating that he wants to come in, and Mr Logan has just reminded me of the CivTech work that he alluded to earlier in relation to AI and the points that Mr Greer has raised about reducing teacher workload. Those are examples of public-private collaboration to try to drive a different approach to tackling an on-going challenge, as we heard from Mr Greer.

I thank members for lodging amendments 331, 175, 25, 177 and 334. I appreciate that members are looking for assurances about particular things that the inspection plan will cover, which is a familiar theme from the previous groups. However, it is my view at the current time that those amendments reflect operational-level decisions that are for the chief inspector to make, and I worry that the amendments would inhibit their independence in that regard. My view is that it would not be appropriate to prescribe that level of detail in legislation. I note that, in their evidence to the committee, both Professor Donaldson and Professor Muir highlighted the risk of hemming in the chief inspector with excessive strictures in legislation.

The inspection plan will, of course, have to be prepared in consultation with the advisory council and others. I will come to Mr Greer’s amendment 92, which would guarantee the committee a voice in that consultation, in a moment. However, my view is that it is much more appropriate for the content to be set by the chief inspector in the light of that consultation, rather than being fixed now in a way that might not always remain appropriate.

For example, there could be a thematic inspection where evidence is sought from a range of schools about a particular aspect such as pupil attendance rates. If evidence was simply being sought from them by email, for example, it would not be an inspection where notice would need to be given in the usual way. However, amendment 331 would implicitly require that some notice of inspection was always given.

That is why we are best to take the view that, as long as the inspection plan is capable of covering all those matters, which it is, we should not set it in stone in primary legislation. I know from my discussions with the inspectorate that that view is supported by the FDA, the trade union representatives and Education Scotland, with whom I discussed the matter only yesterday. I therefore encourage members not to support those amendments.

Mr Briggs’s amendment 176 proposes that we include in the inspection plan the process for making recommendations and also expectations regarding how they should be responded to. I cannot see that changing over time or inadvertently tying the chief inspector’s hands, so I am happy to support that amendment.

I also believe that Mr Greer’s amendments 38 and 39 are useful in making explicit the importance of consultation by both the chief inspector and Scottish ministers, as applicable, with those who might be considered to be representative of educational establishments. Although that might reasonably be assumed to be implicit in the existing provisions, I am happy to support those amendments. We will likely want to return at stage 3 to the mention in amendment 39 of the “Chief Inspector”, which I suspect might be a typo, as I am not sure that it makes sense to have the chief inspector make a judgment call about consultees, given that ministers are the ones with the consultation duty under that provision. However, if Mr Greer wishes to press amendment 39 today, I will be content to support it, and it can be tidied up as necessary.

I move on to the amendments in the group that would require the draft inspection plans to be laid before Parliament. Although I support the principle of amendment 92, I strongly encourage members to support the Government amendments 92A and 92B, which seek to amend the one that Mr Greer has lodged. For operational purposes, 40 days is a much more manageable and proportionate time period. It is also in line with the time periods that are attached to numerous other plans such as the fuel poverty strategy, the national islands plan, the additional support for learning code of practice, the community empowerment national outcomes, the wildlife code of practice and the Scottish Parliament elections code of practice. If that period is sufficient for all those very important documents, I do not see a compelling case for making it significantly longer in the case of the inspection plan.

A 40-day period aligns with the period that the Parliament has to annul negative regulations and the period that the committee has for voting on affirmative ones. That includes regulations that are far longer and more complicated than I would expect the inspection plan to be.

I highlight that amendment 92 does not, in fact, confine the reports or resolutions of the Parliament to those that occur during the specified laying period. The amendment has a bit of latitude: as long as the plan is still in draft form at the time when the resolution is passed or the report is issued, it will have to be taken into account. I also note that our working assumptions on commencement are that factoring in the timescale of 60 days excluding recess would leave it almost impossibly tight for the chief inspector to produce the first inspection plan.

As such, although I will remain supportive of the principle of amendment 92 if my amendments 92A and 92B are not agreed to today, I will, in light of the points that I have just made, look to bring the issue back at stage 3 for further consideration. However, I hope that members are willing to support my amendments today.

In the stage 1 report, the committee recommended that a statement on the purposes of inspection should be included in the bill. I agree on the value of setting out the purposes of inspection, but it is also my view that we need to strike a careful balance to ensure that we do not hinder the flexibility or independence of the chief inspector, which I believe Mr Kerr’s amendment 304 would do. As committee members will know, Professor Muir highlighted the importance of that balance when he gave evidence during stage 1. He advised that the bill should set out only the

“high-level principles in relation to how the inspectorate should operate”,—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 18 September 2024; c 18.]

leaving operational detail to the chief inspector.

As I said earlier, I remain open to further consideration of the topic. I note that Ms Duncan-Glancy raised a pertinent issue in relation to teacher recruitment. She will be mindful of the issues that I raised in response to Mr Kerr about the responsibilities of local government. However, I am also mindful that the inspection plan could set that out as a national focus, for example. The committee will have the opportunity to review the inspection plan and feed into it accordingly.

I intend to press amendment 86, as it is a minor, technical amendment that clarifies how an existing power in section 31 of the bill can be used. That is being done to ensure that the end result is transparent and accessible, with a full definition in one place, rather than a definition being split between the bill, when enacted, and regulations. I will not press my other amendments in the group, and I ask that Mr Kerr and Ms Duncan-Glancy do the same in order to create the opportunity to bring forward a strengthened amendment at stage 3.

Amendment 84, by agreement, withdrawn.

Section 30—The inspection function

Amendment 304 not moved.

I thank all members for their contributions on this group of amendments. It is clear that we all agree on the importance of effective collaboration and working among national organisations across the education system. Indeed, that has been a central aspect of our education reform programme as it relates to our national education infrastructure.

My amendment 87 seeks to emphasise the importance of that while not being overly prescriptive, and allowing for future developments. I see Mr Briggs’s amendment 169 as unnecessary, given the existing obligations on all public bodies, to which I have alluded. However, as I have said, I will not stand in the way of the amendment if he chooses to move it, as I think that he will.

However, I am not able to agree with Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendments. As I mentioned previously, amendments 317 and 350 relate inappropriately to an executive agency of Government and do not take account of the fact that that might change over time. I see amendment 318 as more problematic, as it would take the chief inspector into an area in which they would have no role—that is, the co-ordination of support for individuals. I think that Ross Greer made that point, too.

I ask members to support amendments 87 and 169, and I ask Ms Duncan-Glancy not to move her amendments 317, 350 and 318.

Amendment 87 agreed to.

Amendments 165 to 167 and 315 to 318 not moved.

Section 34—Duty when exercising functions