Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning. I will follow up on that theme. I will start with the learner and teacher interest committees. My understanding of the current proposed structure is that they will report to senior management. Is there not a stronger rationale for them to report directly to the board, given the experience that we have had with the learner panel at the SQA? In essence, the learner panel often bluntly provided feedback that SQA senior management did not want to hear, and the management made sure that that did not get any further. If the two committees were directly accountable to the board, there would be nothing stopping senior management from engaging with them and soliciting their opinions where required, but that would strengthen accountability and resolve the issue that we have seen with the current equivalent structures.

That is much appreciated.

The relevant sections of the bill specify that a majority of members of the committees have to be learners or teachers and practitioners, which sounds good until you realise that that means that up to 49 per cent of the committees can be staff of the organisation. The bill requires that staff cannot be a majority; therefore, just under half of the members can be staff.

This goes back to the question that was asked a moment ago, but surely those committees do not require qualifications Scotland staff to be on them at all. They are committees that are supported by qualifications Scotland staff and that QS staff can draw on for advice. I struggle to understand why there would be a requirement for any staff to sit as a member of those committees. I would totally get it if staff were to provide a secretarial function and appear before the committee to ask it questions or be asked questions, but I am confused as to why there would be any members of staff sitting on the committees as members.

Absolutely—thank you.

I have a final question. There is a section in the bill that requires consultation with the strategic advisory council. Would it not be more in the spirit of the wider reform agenda of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and so on, for that requirement for consultation to be broader than just consultation with the SAC? It would not have to be incredibly specific about how that should take place and list stakeholders, but there could be a broader requirement for the organisation to consult key stakeholders beyond the advisory council.

I appreciate that, and I recognise the point about section 7 and taking into account the interests—I cannot remember the exact phrase. On my first reading of the bill, I thought that the SQA could argue that it already takes those interests into account.

Grand—thank you. That is a useful clarification. That was my bad.

I appreciate that. My question is to the cabinet secretary. Would it not strengthen the bill if we were to specify that the committees were directly accountable to the board rather than to the organisation as a whole? If we do not specify that in legislation, it is an operational decision for the organisation to make. I would not trust our current qualifications agency to make such a decision. We all share the hope that the new body will have a better culture and will not make decisions similar to the SQA’s. If we put it into primary legislation that the two committees are directly accountable to the board, would that not strengthen accountability?

I do not propose listing everybody who should be consulted. My point is that the requirement is to consult only with the SAC. It would be helpful if qualifications Scotland was required to consult stakeholders in the system more widely. That does not mean consulting every stakeholder on every issue, but it would give the organisation a clear mechanism or impetus to at least be able to evidence that it has consulted regularly on key strategic issues with whoever the relevant stakeholders might be. As you recognise, that has been a challenge for the SQA.

I do not think that everybody who is sitting round this table would agree that it does, or that it does so effectively. I am therefore proposing that the provision is strengthened to be a bit more specific on the need to consult and engage, but not to be specific about who that would be with and the mechanisms that should be used.

I have a brief question on the charters. Sections 10 and 11, on creating the charters, require qualifications Scotland to

“consult such persons as it considers appropriate.”

The subsequent section, which is on review or revision of the charters, contains no requirement for consultation; qualifications Scotland would be empowered to do that unilaterally. Should the position in the earlier sections not be replicated so that there is a requirement for any review or revision of a charter—any new version of it—to be consulted on?

Thank you—that is much appreciated.