Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

Yes. I broadly agree with the member’s point. I remember the work on reducing bureaucracy, which I think was led by one Michael Russell back in 2014, because I was a principal teacher at the time. I remember running a department meeting in which we were broadly re-evaluating general education, looking at all our units across the course and considering senior phase arrangements. At the end of it, I thought, “We have to reduce bureaucracy.”

We have to look in the round at what we are asking our classroom teachers, headteachers and principal teachers to deliver. I am really keen to talk to the professional associations about what we mean by unnecessary workload at the local authority level. I was discussing the issue with officials earlier, and there is very little that the Government asks for at national level that drives teacher workload. Much of it, certainly in my experience, is driven at local authority level through things that the professional associations might quite rightly argue are not about learning and teaching but more about administration. There is a body of work that we need to undertake.

I recently discussed revisiting the reducing bureaucracy agenda with the NASUWT. That speaks to the work on reducing class contact and teacher workload to create the time that is needed. Many of those tasks should not necessarily be for the working day of classroom teachers. They are driven at local authority level. They differ across the country in terms of reporting requirements, what systems are used, how information is inputted and how often it is required for each and every class that teachers teach. We do not have a national approach to that, which has been a key theme of today’s discussions.

I will bring Graeme Logan in to talk about the specifics that we ask for at national level. Anything else is being driven at local authority level. However, I accept the point that Mr Greer raises about reducing bureaucracy more broadly.

We took up that case directly with Orkney Islands Council, which was very clear that what Mr Mason suggests is not what happened. As I understand it from what my officials have said, the issue relates to the movement towards spending 0.1 of the school week on management time, so I am not sure that what Mr Mason said is accurate.

The wider point that Mr Mason raised is live. I did my teacher training in Glasgow many years ago, and I ticked the box that said I was willing to work anywhere in the country, as people will be fed up of hearing.

The preference waiver scheme that we operate, which offers £8,000 to secondary teachers and £6,000 to primary teachers as a golden handshake, is not being taken up in the way that it was before the pandemic. Part of the challenge is that, during the pandemic, we gave probationer teachers a job in their local authority, which I think has fed into the belief that there will be a job for them in their local authority at the end of their training. That has never been the case; it has always been a competitive marketplace. I remember what it was like for me many years ago. I had to apply to a multitude of local authorities across the country, and I had to move.

I accept Mr Mason’s point that moving is much easier for some people than it is for others. If you are single or do not have a family and—to be blunt—you have the money to do it, you can move.

There are other incentives that we need to build on. We need to work with local authorities to encourage people to move to different parts of the country.

We have challenges in Aberdeenshire Council and Highland Council. I have addressed those challenges directly with both local authorities. In the past, local authorities such as Aberdeenshire have worked with us on part funding programmes that encourage people to resettle. Additional funding is available for people who work in rural schools. In the round, in reviewing the probationer scheme, we will have to consider the preference waiver scheme, which we know is not as popular as it arguably should be, if we are to fill the gaps that we accept exist in some of the rural and remote locations that Mr Mason spoke about.

We have talked today in the round about some of the pressures that our teaching workforce face, not least with regard to behaviour, additional support needs and expectations. More broadly, I have engaged substantially with our professional associations on all those points, and they have been key to driving some of the change that we have seen.

The national action plan on behaviour was quite a departure and a shift in tone from the Government on the issue. I do not know to what extent members have reflected on that, but there has been a shift with regard to talking about behaviour in schools. We need to accept that and accept that there is a challenge. I have been up front about that for the past two-and-a-half years, because I know—from my friends who are not politicians and because of my engagement with trade unions and headteachers—how difficult the situation is in schools just now.

Something is happening in our schools in the post-pandemic period. We saw that in the behaviour in Scottish schools research, but we also see it across the world. I alluded to the work that has been done by the UN, changes in behaviour, dysregulation and changes in the type of learning and teaching that we have.

Mr FitzPatrick’s substantive question was about support for teachers, and I have a couple of points to make on that. First, in 2023, I announced the establishment of the new centre for teaching excellence, and we know now that the host institution is Glasgow. In the coming weeks, we will announce opportunities for staff to take part in that centre, which I think will be key. That is an offer to the profession. It is quite unique. It is about pedagogy and excellent learning and teaching. We know that that makes a difference. We have forgotten some of that in recent times, but we need to go back to the bread and butter of quality classroom teaching that makes a difference at the chalk face. The centre for teaching excellence is an offer for teachers to come out of school on secondment and have an opportunity to engage in academic practice, then to go back out into the system.

The second point is about reducing class contact. To me, that is fundamental. We have to free up teachers to engage in the processes of educational improvement and education reform that we want to drive. We will do that by reducing their workload and class contact. In order to deliver that, I have to work through that tripartite structure with our professional associations and, of course, with COSLA. That process has not been without its frustrations—I think that members know that.

The point that Joe FitzPatrick made about teacher numbers is in a similar space. I can talk about how I have protected funding at national level for teacher numbers, but it is challenging when local authorities then decide to take that extra money and make cuts regardless. The budget agreement that we have reached with COSLA was agreed in good faith, so I expect local authorities to go back to 2023 levels, because that is what the budget, with extra funding, provided for. In so doing, councils had to make substantive progress in relation to reducing class contact.

In February, we put a suggestion to the tripartite group about how that might work, but COSLA said it needed more time. I understand that COSLA will come forward with a paper in the coming weeks, before the end of this term, that will contain proposals about how that might work. We need to talk about the practicalities. The arrangement will look a bit different in primary schools, where it will arguably be more challenging to deliver than in secondary schools.

On the broader working relationship, the new education assurance board, which was a key part of the budget agreement, brings the Government and COSLA to the table. We must work together to respond to challenges, whether on teacher permanency, on how we support ASN pupils, or on reducing class contact. We must have a partnership with COSLA or we will not be able to deliver the change that we all want to see in our classrooms.

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.

I am happy to investigate that with Ms Duncan-Glancy ahead of stage 3. The point that I was making in response to Mr Greer is that we need to be careful about what we do and that we should engage more broadly with stakeholders. I am mindful of the fact that the teaching trade unions, in particular, will have views on the issue, and it is important that those are heard.

I am also cognisant of the issues associated with stipulating, for example, the number of inspections that should be carried out in a school year, which I think that Mr Greer spoke about and which Mr Kerr addresses in his amendments. We need to be mindful of the fact that, by increasing the number of inspections, we might be decreasing the quality of the information that would be made available.

It is not in the gift of the minister alone to make affirmative regulations, which is why, I am advised, there is an issue with the word “must”. However, I would be more than happy to engage with the member on the matter ahead of stage 3, so that we can reach a position that we agree on. I agree with the broader point that she has made.

Amendment 312 would add a requirement that ministers must consult registered teachers, as well as

“persons who appear ... to represent the interests of registered teachers”,

before making regulations about the frequency of inspection. Given that ministers would consider it appropriate to consult such persons in any case, I am happy to support the amendment.

I recognise what Ms Duncan-Glancy is saying, and I would be keen to work with her on that aspect ahead of stage 3. There is much common ground in that area that we can work on, and I hope that, through joint consideration, we can reach a mutually agreeable position.

My concern with Stephen Kerr’s amendment 304 is that it is overly prescriptive. Including amendments of such a nature in the bill would make it difficult for the new chief inspector to develop their role organically and, importantly, it would limit their ability to respond to the changing needs of the education system over time. Although I agree on the importance of each of the issues that he has listed, they are not high-level purposes for the chief inspector to have regard to over the longer term. They would prevent the carrying out of focused thematic inspections by requiring every inspection to cover each of the matters listed. For example, discipline policies would always have to be inspected, as would the employment contracts held by teachers, even when those aspects were not relevant to the theme that the chief inspector wanted to examine.

Many of those matters are already included as quality indicators in the “How good is our school?” framework that is currently used by the inspectorate. I hope that that reassures Stephen Kerr that the concerns that his amendment 304 looks to address are currently, and will continue to be, of importance to the chief inspector.

It is important to highlight that the purposes specified in amendment 84 have been consulted on and align with those identified by Professor Muir—which was Pam Duncan-Glancy’s point—and that the drafting delivers a strong position on the purpose of inspection. Notwithstanding that, although I will move amendment 84 for the purpose of opening up this group for debate, I will be happy to seek to withdraw it if Pam Duncan-Glancy does not move her amendment 313, and I suggest that we work to identify an agreed position for stage 3. That will also allow me to ensure that, when we bring the matter back, we address a concern that has been raised by the EIS, which is that it be made clear that the purpose of inspection is to hold to account institutions, not individual teachers, which I agree with.

I urge Stephen Kerr not to move his alternative amendment—amendment 304—and I urge members not to support it if he does.

I move amendment 84.