Seòmar agus comataidhean

My amendment 34 would simply apply a principle of transparency to qualifications Scotland’s operations. Again, that is a reflection on what has led us to this point, with the lack of transparency at the SQA and the lack of trust in it being the key drivers behind the process, as the cabinet secretary has already acknowledged.

It has been particularly difficult for the Parliament to hold the organisation to account, but it has also been difficult for the key stakeholders involved in the SQA. They are critical to its success and its being respected within the landscape. They have found it incredibly challenging to understand what is going on, never mind feel that their positions have been taken on board.

For example, it should not be a requirement that whatever advice the learner panel gives the SQA—or whatever advice the learner interest committee, as it will be, will give to qualifications Scotland—be followed. However, the panel should be able to understand—and it should be clear to it—how the organisation has taken on board its advice and what its response is. We will be dealing with some of the specifics of the committees elsewhere, but I want to apply a general principle of transparency to the organisation’s operations, because the lack of transparency is one of the key reasons for our getting to this point in the process.

My amendment 4 follows the same principle as my amendments 2 and 3 in seeking to prioritise the needs of those taking qualifications and those delivering qualifications here in Scotland. However, given the agreement that I have already reached with the cabinet secretary, as a result of which I have not moved amendments 2 and 3, I will take the same approach with amendment 4, and we can come back at stage 3 with something that packages everything together.

As my amendment 5, which refers to the strategic advisory council, has essentially been replaced by my amendment 61, I will not move amendment 5 and we can have a full debate on amendment 61, to save time.

My amendment 6 deals with a couple of different issues that have already been touched upon. It is partly about coherence in the system, so instead of—or alongside, perhaps—seeking to name the various specific organisations and other key public organisations that I think qualifications Scotland should be working and have coherence with, it tries to apply the general principle of policy coherence across Government to qualifications Scotland. For example, if it is decided that life sciences are a key strategic economic priority for Scotland—which I would suggest is essential—qualifications Scotland should have regard to whether the qualifications that it is offering contribute to that. For example, is it developing national qualifications that meet the needs of colleges and universities offering courses in, for example, life sciences?

The same approach could be applied to other areas. For example, are we meeting the particularly acute workforce needs in social care?

I am grateful to the member for allowing us to have a debate on this issue. However, I am not clear about the rationale regarding the role of a headteacher. From my reading of the amendment, it appears that it would have to be the headteacher who would supervise any pupils with additional needs who get extra time. I am not convinced that that is the best use of a headteacher’s time in a high school setting. I am particularly concerned about whether that would be practically possible, given the timetabling of exams and the very high proportion of pupils who now have a recognised additional need, even if we were to feel that the headteacher was the most appropriate individual.

John Mason makes a good point. The short answer is no. In and of itself, the solution that is proposed in amendment 280 is not a guaranteed solution, but it is one of a range of measures that we are seeking to include in the bill to provoke the board to participate actively in the process and to fulfil its obligations to scrutinise the corporate plan. It does not guarantee anything other than that board members would, at a certain point in the process, have to make at least one active decision—in other words, they would have to actively vote on the plan.

As John Mason said, we have all been at meetings with people who have voted for or against something and who, it has been quite clear, have not read the papers before the meeting. I am sure that that does not apply to anyone who is at this meeting.

We cannot legislate for everyone to be an effective board member, but we can legislate to build in little mechanisms that provoke some kind of action. Although amendment 280 would not guarantee success, it would, at least, make it a bit more likely.

My amendments 68 and 70 cover a lot of the same ground as the amendments lodged by the cabinet secretary and Pam Duncan-Glancy. What I am trying to do with both amendments is put the principle of co-design in the bill—through amendment 68 for the learner charter and through amendment 70 for the teacher and practitioner charter. It is not good enough to consult with learners, teachers and practitioners only for someone else—qualifications Scotland staff—to go away and draft the charters. They should be co-designed with those groups.

The amendments are based on principles similar to those of a draft amendment that was presented to us all by the Educational Institute of Scotland in relation to the learner charter. They are simply trying to get the principle of co-design in the bill, because that is a superior process to consultation. Co-design is what we should aspire to with documents that will take on the importance that we all believe the charters should have. The cabinet secretary’s amendment 69 will strengthen what is in the bill, but it is still based on the principle of consultation rather than co-design.

I understand that the Government has some specific concerns in relation to my amendments. Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 255 sits somewhat in the middle, because it would require qualifications Scotland to work with those who have been consulted to prepare and publish the charter. There are elements of co-design and consultation in that amendment.

Given that we are all heading in the same direction on this issue, it may be the case—as with a number of other groups—that we can come together at stage 3 to get something that fulfils all our objectives. I will be looking for a commitment from the cabinet secretary that the principle of co-design will be enshrined in the bill and that consultation alone is not sufficient for the charters.

I will touch on a couple of the other amendments in the group—but not all of them, given how many there are. With regard to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments 261 and 271, I would be wary of enforcing unequivocal compliance with the charters. We can all envisage situations in which that may not be possible because of overriding concerns. For example, if the charters had been in place at the time of the pandemic, I imagine they would have improved outcomes in a whole range of ways in relation to the decisions that the SQA made. However, I can also imagine situations in which it would have been impossible, for reasons relating to public health, to fulfil aspects of what I expect will end up being in the charter. That is a legitimate point.

I take the member’s point, which I do not think is unreasonable. He is broadly correct that a lot of this comes down to individuals. Part of the challenge that we have with the bill is that, in a lot of instances, we are trying to legislate for cultural change, which is hard to do. Ideally, legislating is not the way in which you change culture; however, the bill does provide us, as the Parliament, with an opportunity to do that. I hope that the Government will take a range of other measures, as the organisation is set up, to ensure that its culture is different from what went before.

Without seeking to personalise this, I would suggest that, as much as criticism can be made of individuals, the particular point about taking on board views expressed by Parliament reflects an issue that was consistent at the SQA even after changes in its leadership. I would say that there was a wider cultural challenge in that respect—it was not simply down to one or two individuals not having sufficient respect for Parliament; the problem persisted throughout the changes that were made.

Liz Smith is absolutely right that there is a much wider—and, I would suggest, multifaceted—challenge here. The core issue is that there are far more public bodies in Scotland now than there were in 1999, but the Parliament’s ability—or its capacity—to scrutinise and hold them to account has not changed in that time. As a Parliament, we need to look at how we adapt and reform ourselves to ensure that we are fully discharging our responsibilities across a range of organisations, particularly those that are appointed by Parliament—that is, bodies appointed by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. However, we will come to that debate later on.

Part of my motivation for lodging amendment 60—and I understand the challenges that John Mason has raised with me—

I cannot guarantee that. The issue is partly about the board appointment process and making sure that the right individuals are appointed to the board. That is particularly important when it comes to the chair. In recent months, we have seen the difference that having a highly proactive board chair has made.

Nothing that we can do in legislation will guarantee that every individual on the board of qualifications Scotland will be as effective and as actively involved as we want them to be, but we can build in mechanisms that make that a little bit more likely. In this case, given the corporate plan’s importance to the organisation, ensuring that that document was actively considered and voted on would, I hope, improve the situation. There are no guarantees here, because, ultimately, we are talking about individual personalities and performance, which we cannot legislate for.

On amendment 35, we have touched on a couple of points in the past, particularly in relation to proposed new paragraph (c) of section 14(3), which relates to employers. What I am proposing in amendment 35 is that qualifications Scotland consults on the corporate plan before it is finalised. It should consult a range of key groups. As you would expect, that should include those undertaking the qualifications, namely the learners, and those delivering them, namely the teachers, college lecturing staff and so on. However, I also think that that is the appropriate point to engage with business and to bring in employers. We have talked about that in various other settings—for example, whether there is space on other committees for individuals representing industry and so on. It is important that employers who will be using the qualifications that learners will, we hope, obtain are consulted on the corporate plan. Amendment 35 would expand the list of stakeholders and service users who must be consulted in preparing the corporate plan, but it is not an exhaustive list. Proposed new paragraph (d) of section 14(3) states that qualifications Scotland can consult others, as required.

Some members who were involved in the stage 2 proceedings of the Scottish Languages Bill might recognise amendment 71, which is a proposal that the Law Society of Scotland has made on a number of occasions in relation to public bodies to improve transparency. It should be an incredibly unlikely event that Scottish ministers reject the corporate plan of any public body, but, in the event that they did, something would quite obviously have gone wrong. I would argue, as the Law Society has done a number of times in the past, that it would be in the public interest to publish the reasons for rejecting the plan. That is particularly to aid parliamentary scrutiny, which is relevant for this body, given the discussions that we have had about the difficulties of effective scrutiny and accountability in relation to the SQA.

I move amendment 280.

I am grateful for this last-minute intervention being accepted. I take the minister’s point. As I said at the start, amendment 60 was designed to be provocative, as it proposes something that is not the case elsewhere in legislation.

However, it is a reflection of the experiences that this committee and its predecessor committee have had. Given that the cabinet secretary was on the education committee at a point when there were particularly acute frustrations with the SQA’s resistance to accountability, to parliamentary scrutiny and to acting on committee recommendations, and taking on board her point that ministers are accountable to Parliament and that NDPBs are accountable to ministers, it is clear that that arrangement has not worked. That is one of the reasons why we are here.

Although I understand why amendment 60 is not necessarily the way in which to go about that, I ask the cabinet secretary to reflect on the fact that it sounds as though she is saying that the system that we already have is the appropriate one. If that was the case, I suggest, the bill would not be in front of us now. If amendment 60 is not the change that is needed—I accept that, and will not move it—what change is required to ensure a sufficient level of scrutiny, accountability and respect from qualifications Scotland for the Parliament? At the core, that is what has been lacking, up to now. There has been a lack of respect for not just the Parliament but learners, teachers and so on; however, in relation to amendment 60, there has been a lack of respect for the Parliament.

My position on many of these amendments, especially the large group of amendments in the name of Sue Webber, reflects our discussion on the convener’s amendments on a new independent regulator. The Finance and Public Administration Committee—of which, along with John Mason, I am a member—considered issues related to the creation of new public bodies and, in particular, SPCB-appointed bodies. In our report to Parliament, we made a strong recommendation and did something that it is unusual to do in the context of a committee report—we put forward a motion to Parliament in which, rather than asking Parliament as a whole to note our report, we asked it specifically to agree to a moratorium on the creation of new SPCB-appointed office bearers.

I also have some specific issues in relation to moving the inspectorate entirely within the purview of Parliament. Ultimately, ministers have responsibility for the setting of education policy in Scotland, which is a significant responsibility. If we were to have a wider debate about whether we should remove education policy entirely from the remit of ministers, I would have a lot of questions about that.

The example that I have used before—I think that I might have used it in the stage 1 debate—is that it is entirely legitimate for the Scottish ministers to decide on a specific element of education policy, to instruct and expect schools to implement it and, then, after a few years, to ask the chief inspector to conduct a thematic inspection on that. Five or six years ago, the Government made a decision on LGBTQ-inclusive education. It would be entirely legitimate for the Government to say that it wanted to carry out a thematic inspection to ensure that that has been implemented.

Recently, we have had many parliamentary debates about pupil behaviour and violence against women and girls in particular. It is right for the Parliament to hold ministers to account on such important issues, and it is appropriate for ministers to retain the power to instruct a thematic inspection on, for example, how schools deal with violence against women and girls. That is an issue that I think requires such examination, because there are significant inconsistencies in policy.

I want to strengthen Parliament’s role in relation to, and its relationship with, the inspectorate. My amendment 92, which we will come to later, seeks to do that in relation to inspection plans, although I am open to other ways in which we can do that. The best way to describe it is that I want the inspectorate to have greater independence in most areas of practice, but not in relation to its form and not in every area of practice. For example, Pam Duncan-Glancy highlighted the issue of the terms and conditions of inspectorate staff, and I would probably share her position in relation to home schooling.

Turning briefly to Willie Rennie’s amendments, I am minded to support amendment 147 in particular, although I have some questions about the practice of inspectors being appointed “on the recommendation of” the chief inspector when, in practice, they will be appointed by the chief inspector. However, the principle behind that amendment is sound. The same is true of amendment 160. I think that it is desirable to provide for some extra scrutiny of the regulations on the intervals for schools to be inspected.

I have significant concerns about amendment 156, because I can envisage situations in which ministers would want to instruct the inspectorate to inspect a school—for example, for specific reasons that relate to welfare concerns that have been raised—and the delay that would result from having to seek the approval or the input of a parliamentary committee would not be acceptable. There are non-urgent situations for which I would welcome some kind of mechanism whereby ministers would seek the input of Parliament, but I do not want anything that could delay ministers’ instruction of inspections—particularly if there is a welfare issue. I am aware that that has been the case in the past.

I welcome amendments 342 and 345 from Pam Duncan-Glancy. However, on amendment 340, my concern—on which I would welcome clarification from the cabinet secretary—is that, at the moment, in practice, ministers request a copy of every inspection report, and there are a number of those every week, and the process of laying all those before the Parliament would be not just an unnecessary burden on the inspectorate but an additional burden on the Parliament. The business bulletin would certainly get a lot larger each week. For that reason, I cannot support amendment 340. However, the proposals in amendments 342 and 345 are advisable.

This debate will be pretty similar to the ones that we have had in relation to the interest committees, the board of qualifications Scotland and, in particular, the strategic advisory committee.

Amendment 91 is consequential, and amendment 77 would expand the starting membership of the chief inspector’s advisory council because of what I am proposing in amendment 78, although members will note that ministers would still have the power to vary the size of the council as required.

Amendment 78 is the substantive amendment that I have lodged in this group. It seeks to bring in those who have direct experience of actually being in educational establishments that are the subject of inspection by HMIE. Those are primarily schools, so it would therefore relate primarily to pupils in schools and to teachers, but also to college lecturers and college students. Amendment 78 also seeks to ensure that the voice of the staff in the inspectorate—the inspectors themselves and their support staff—is heard as part of the process and is represented on the advisory council.

As much as we have paid a great deal of attention to governance arrangements in other parts of the education landscape in recent years, it is fair to say that the inspectorate is a bit of a black box for a lot of people in our schools and colleges at the moment. There is a real lack of understanding about it. There is an element of a somewhat stand-offish approach, with people feeling that inspections are imposed on them, that the process is top-down and so on.

The advisory council proposals that are in the bill are very welcome. They can be strengthened, not in an exhaustive way, but by our being a bit more specific about the kind of people we wish to see as part of that advisory group.

I will touch briefly on Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments. I would welcome it if she could explain her thinking a little. As I understand it, the amendments would replace the word “advisory” with the word “governing”. However, the council would still not have any governing powers over the chief inspector. I am worried about the ambiguity that that might cause, so I would welcome it if Pam Duncan-Glancy could talk about that.

Amendment 326 mirrors an amendment that I lodged relating to the board of qualifications Scotland, and I am happy to support it.

I do not think that I will support amendment 172, which is in the name of Miles Briggs. I voted for a representative of parents and carers to be on the qualifications Scotland strategic advisory council. I am less convinced of the need in the case of the chief inspector’s advisory council, but I am open to the case that Mr Briggs will make.

I move amendment 77.