Chamber and committees

I thank Mr Kidd for his question, which raises an important point. We have a new deal with local government through the Verity house agreement arrangements. As the committee will be aware, some of the budget settlement looks to remove a level of ring fencing. There are two budget lines from which we remove ring fencing, and they are already baselined into the grant for local government. They will be contained within that but come from my budget. Additional lines come from me directly, which are more ring fenced, although they are quite a small proportion—around 5 per cent overall. Therefore, other than that 5 per cent, local authorities have some flexibility in relation to how they spend.

Through the Verity house agreement, I was keen to establish a quality assurance framework between us and local authorities. We have been working on that since this summer. In August, we began engagements with COSLA. I meet COSLA very regularly—every two or three weeks—and I am keen that we deliver on a change in that relationship not just through Verity house but through accountability. I might argue that, as cabinet secretary, I am hyper-accountable to the committee, the chamber and the media, but education is delivered by local authorities, and they retain statutory responsibility for that.

When we look—as I do—at the performance in last year’s exam results, we see that there is variability in the system, and we need to tackle it with regard to outcomes. That is how we close the poverty-related attainment gap, and we need to drill into some of that. At Education Scotland, we have a team of attainment advisers—with whom the committee will be familiar—who support every local authority in trying to close the gap. Part of that work has been driven by local authorities identifying their stretch aims, which involves forward planning and saying, “In three years’ time, this is the progress that we will have made in closing the gap.” Education Scotland is involved in challenging and also supporting local authorities. That speaks to Mr Kidd’s question about improvement and delivery. We need to get into a better space that recognises that local authorities have responsibility for that.

As far as improvement is concerned, whether it is in behaviour, attendance or curriculum, local authorities have a real responsibility. Some of them take that extremely seriously and they have really good support mechanisms in place, such as quality improvement officers. I want to work with local authorities to support them to deliver that.

Part of the improvement will be supported by the appointment of the new chief inspector. I do not want to jump ahead, because we will talk about reform in the next session. The interim chief inspector has a key role to play in supporting local authorities with improvement and has powers to carry out their own inspections of local authority improvement mechanisms and how they work to support schools. I know that some people in the system say that that is a starting point for the new chief inspector. I am sure that she currently has her hands full with a few other things that I have sent her way, but I think that we should look at how central Government supports the improvement function at local authority level, because there are 32 different approaches to it around the country. Sometimes that difference is a strength of the Scottish education system, but sometimes we are not great at learning from other areas where there are pockets of good practice. That is where Education Scotland and the attainment advisers have a key role to play.

That is helpful, and it is correct to recognise that we are going back to the situation that existed prior to the pandemic. We should be mindful that the education system has been through a period of turmoil in relation to Covid. That additionality was built into the system, much in the same way that, post-pandemic, we have now gone back to holding examinations in schools. Things are different. When we try to baseline or measure things against the year that came prior to there being additional places in the system, I do not think that gives an accurate depiction, much like when we try to compare the attainment gap with that which existed last year or the year prior to that, because we had different arrangements in place for those years.

Ms Thomson is absolutely accurate and correct in her assessment that comparing those numbers with 2019 gives a better overall understanding of the progress that we are making in relation to student places.

I do not think that it is something that has happened since 2016.

Michelle Thomson has raised a hugely important point, particularly in the light of the challenges that the Government faces—which are well known to the committee—in relation to the Deputy First Minister’s update to Parliament at the end of last year. My portfolio is not insulated from those challenges.

We have worked hard to protect the education budget as best we can. My understanding of the public sector reform that is needed is that all organisations need to play a role—that all our public sector bodies will have to play their part. We need to take a nuanced approach to that, mindful of the fact that that will be easier for some public bodies than for others, given the services that they deliver. I am acutely mindful of that, given some of my responsibilities to those organisations—for example, our qualifications organisation—and the services that they deliver.

Michelle Thomson touched on education reform. Following discussion of the budget, we will go on to a session on that very issue. I am mindful of the need to support education reform, which is why the budget contains additionality—of just over £12 million, I think—to support the reform process. However, I accept that we will need to work very carefully with those organisations.

At the end of last year, the Deputy First Minister set out that there will be a 10-year plan and that we will look across Government to reduce spend—to be blunt—and to see where there are efficiencies to be made across the piece. All organisations will have to be part of that drive, but, to refer to Michelle Thomson’s specific point, we will have to take a nuanced approach. The way in which the budget has been delivered takes such an approach. It protects certain services, such as health and education, through the three-missions approach. I will seek to do that through reforming the public bodies in the education and skills portfolio while remembering the impact that education can have. It is not just about the spend in relation to education itself; it is also about preventative spend, which can benefit other portfolio areas.

There are a number of different demand-led programmes. I will bring in Stuart Greig on some of the specifics.

My understanding is that some of the savings that were generated from the Scottish Funding Council included—as the committee will know—money from the transformation fund, which saved in the region of £46 million. That is baked into this year’s financial settlement. There were a number of other demand-led budget lines, including the education maintenance allowance, for which there was less uptake in the previous financial year than had been forecast. There were also reductions to the European social fund income and, more broadly, the strategic change transformation fund.

Stuart Greig may want to say more on the specifics of those budget lines from the previous financial year.

I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on that. I do not have the specifics of those budget lines in front of me—

I say to the member once again that, as cabinet secretary, I stand by the policy of free tuition. It is a policy that the Government funds. We also provide additionality to the sector for student support that does not exist in other parts of the UK. I am sure that we will come on to talk about that, too.

The universities are currently facing challenges in relation to international students. I have spoken about some of the challenges around the changes to immigration rules, which are making it far more difficult for certain institutions to attract inward investment through international students.

The member raises a really important point. I engage directly with university principals, and I met the principal of the University of Edinburgh just last week to discuss the exact issue of international students.

I have to say to the member that one of the real challenges comes from changes made to the immigration rules, which make it far more difficult for universities to attract students from outwith Scotland and international students, who are put off by the immigration rhetoric coming from the UK Government and what the rules might mean for visas. We heard more detail of that from Alastair Sim of Universities Scotland on “Good Morning Scotland” just this morning.

I suggest to the member that some of the challenge comes from another Government, although I recognise his point about the cross-fertilisation of Scottish places. That is not a new feature of how we fund higher education in Scotland; it has been the case for a number of years. Bluntly, it relates to my party’s policy of funding free tuition for students. I think that that is a good policy, and it is one that I will stand by, but I recognise that it creates challenges for our universities.

Because our universities are autonomous, independent institutions, they are experts in working independently of the Government to raise finance, whether through international students coming to study at their institutions or through other sources. I have a lot of faith in our university sector and, from my engagement with principals directly, in their ability to respond to the challenges. Nevertheless, I remind the member that some of the challenge, particularly in relation to international students, does not rest with the Scottish Government.

I say to the member that it is not my responsibility, as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills in Scotland, to mop up the mess made by a Government elsewhere in its approach to international students and immigration. Decisions that have been taken elsewhere are harming the sector in Scotland. If the member has any leverage with his colleagues at Westminster, I suggest that he make those points vigorously to my opponent at Westminster. I recognise the challenge, but I will not walk away from the Government’s policy of supporting free tuition for our young people.

I go back to my response to Mr Kerr about those being additional places. Of course, we look to quantify, and the SFC does that measurement by looking at places, how we can allocate additionality into the system and forecasting what that will mean for the sector. I am sure that the committee is aware that longer-term forecasts predict a reduction in demand compared to our current school-age provision and that, therefore, across the piece, we expect to see fewer young people coming through the system in the coming years. That work will be factored into the SFC’s—