Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am grateful to Fiona Robertson and the SQA for the briefing that they gave to Opposition spokespeople on the eve of the review being published. Members of Parliament have made it very clear that we wanted more engagement from the SQA in recent years, so we got that.

On the convener’s point about variation, it is entirely legitimate to say that there is variation every year—of course there is. The variation on this subject this year was clearly an outlier—any higher maths student could tell you that that was an outlier. That is why there is concern here.

I welcome the TES column that was written by the principal assessor and the team leader. There is plenty in it that I agree with, but the point in their column that I really disagree with—this is at the core of my concern about the review and what is not in it—is that they say that it is not the responsibility of the SQA to look into why there was a drop in performance, and that, essentially, its job with the review was to quality assure its own processes. I am not going to dispute the outcomes of that review. However, if it is not the role of the chief examiner to look into why there was such a significant drop in performance, whose role is it?

If, for the purposes of this question, we accept the premise—others have already covered potential issues with the review itself—that the review found that there were no issues with either the exam or the marking, as has been pointed out already, the conclusion is that the fall in the rate was due to a drop in the performance of students. I feel that the review is only half a review, because it does not look into why there was a drop. If it is not the chief examiner’s job to look into that, whose job is it?

If I could just cut in, I said that the course review explains what the issues are in relation to the answers that came back. The core question is this: why did those answers come back? If we accept your premise that the cause of the issue was underperformance by pupils compared with previous years, then yes—your job is to explain the SQA’s processes, procedures and quality assurance, and you have done that. Surely your job as chief examiner is also to look into why there is unusual underperformance. This subject was clearly an outlier. If it is not the chief examiner’s job to look into why pupils underperformed to such an extent this year, whose job is it?

I will rephrase that, because that was my first question. Do you think that it is your job to understand why pupils underperformed? We can set aside the process issues with the SQA as an organisation. Is it your job, as the chief examiner, to understand why there was underperformance, if this year was such an outlier?

Excellent—thank you.

This has been touched on quite a few times already, but I want to come back to the case load issues that social workers have. Stephen Smellie, you mentioned in your opening comments that the reality is that a lot of social workers do a huge amount of overtime, and many families do not get to see their social worker from week to week or, sometimes, for even longer periods of time.

I will ask this question in two parts. Would anybody like to expand on the comments that Stephen made at the start about the reality for social workers who have a case load beyond their capacity, and consider what the present system should be doing formally about that?

Given the reality, which is that caseworkers are working overtime and families are not getting to see them, what policies and processes are in place for when a case load is far beyond capacity? Is there nominally—at least on paper—a process for dealing with that? If so, is that process not working? Is there an assumption that case loads are always manageable?

I will follow up on that point. The financial context, especially over the past three years, has been one in which there have been significant in-year cuts to budgets. Money that has been allocated at the start of the financial year has not been distributed. Willie Rennie mentioned the whole family wellbeing fund. I imagine that the answer to this question is relatively obvious, but it is important to get it on the record. What impact is the current public finance situation having, in particular on our ability to deliver effective preventative spend?

To follow up on the issue of expectation, is it an issue that budgets are often set in the knowledge, almost from day 1, that the money that has been allocated is never going to be distributed? Let us say that a promise is made that £10 million will be provided for project X, but, realistically, only £6 million is ever going to be available. Would it be more helpful to say from the start that it is going to be £6 million, not £10 million, or is there something helpful in encouraging the system to be ambitious? What would you require to make the kind of change that is needed? What would you do with £10 million if you had it?

Part of my frustration with a lot of this is that it appears that a huge amount of time is wasted and morale is drained when people expect to be given resources to deliver something and they are either not given them at all or they are given something far less and they have to rewrite a plan that they have spent time developing.

I will turn to a different topic, with a question that is primarily for Fraser McKinley—it is about the progress framework. On the Plan 24-30 website, the last line on the relevant page says that the framework will be available

“by the end of 2024.”

Is that still the expected timescale? Will we see it in the next fortnight?

I hope that this is just a yes or no question, convener. It is about communication with the profession. Am I right in understanding that there is no way for the SQA to communicate directly with everyone who teaches history in Scotland? You can communicate with schools and subject-specialist associations, and with your own markers, but there is, at present, no mailing list of every history teacher in Scotland.

That is really positive and helpful. I am sure that we all look forward to seeing that. The committee is well used to people coming to us to apologise for delays, so it is positive to hear that that is on track. We will probably want to follow that up in the new year, once we have had a chance to look at the framework.

Sticking with technology as an example of reform, I totally take on board Stephen Smellie’s point that the key solution is more funding for more staff, but let us be pessimistic for a moment and say that this afternoon’s budget announcement is not going to include a transformational additional settlement for local government that gets passed down to social work.

You have talked about a number of areas of potential reform that would make the system more productive and make it easier for social workers to cope with the workload. Are there any other areas of potential reform that have not been mentioned so far that you would like to raise with the committee?