Seòmar agus comataidhean

What was the UK Government’s rationale for that approach to capital borrowing? I am not asking you to break any confidences, but it is useful for the committee to understand the extent to which there were competing public policy objectives and to know where the balance of power lies in the context of partisan politics.

Thanks for that. Now that—

Is there any shift in the Scottish Government’s strategic priorities for capital spend directly from the block grant, as opposed to what goes on regarding borrowing? In other words, what would the Government consider by way of capital projects that are appropriate for borrowing, as opposed to the funding coming straight from the direct capital grant? Is that position essentially unchanged following the agreement?

I will return to the convener’s line of questioning about the changes to capital borrowing limits and apologise if you covered this in your answer to the convener and I missed it. Given the point that was made about the extent to which capital inflation has gone far beyond not only the GDP deflator but also measures of consumer inflation, was there any discussion of backdating for a year or two, in order to apply even the GDP deflator, never mind the level that capital inflation is actually at?

That is really useful to know. It is helpful for us to understand that, from the UK Government’s perspective, the negotiation was not just about the well-trodden constitutional ground of where power lies; it was also about the UK Government’s policies in relation to debt and deficit and the contributions that are made to address them.

On the point that you have just made about the impact of capital borrowing on the resource budget, neither of those budgets is particularly positive for the Scottish Government over the next couple of years. What is the practical effect of the gradual increase in the capital borrowing limit on what the Parliament should expect to see? The expectation is that the capital budget will not offer a particularly rosy picture. Does that fundamentally alter anything? It has already been discussed that the current level is nowhere near where capital inflation is at, and we are already at a point at which we cannot do everything that, a couple of years ago, we thought that we would be able to do. What should the Parliament expect the effect to be on budgets over the remainder of the parliamentary term?

I accept that time pressures and workload are the major concerns, but the awareness point has also come up quite a few times—not just in relation to Education Scotland. In a lot of the reviews that have taken place recently, the feedback from classroom teachers is, “Well, nobody asked me for my input on that.” As far as the people who were running the reviews were concerned, they distributed all the material to local authorities and schools, but it had not filtered down. Is there an issue with the structures that our national bodies use to communicate directly with teachers? Does a structure for enough direct communication not exist? Does communication go through too many layers of filtering?

Quite a lot has been covered already with regard to how inspections could work, looking at the new inspectorate aspect of reform, and we have talked about the qualifications and assessments themselves. However, I am interested in the panel’s perspective on what the governance and structures for the new qualifications body could look like. What would address the issues that are regularly cited with regard to how the SQA operates as an organisation?

I will put essentially the same question on Education Scotland, which is being reformed rather than replaced. What organisational, structural and governance reforms would address some of the issues that you have been talking about?

I direct the Education Scotland question to Greg Dempster; I suppose that you have less locus on the new qualifications body. I would be interested in hearing from Peter Bain, in the first instance, on governance structures for the new national qualifications body.

Pauline Walker, I will direct the question to you, if you do not mind, although that is somewhat arbitrary. Communication has to be two way. A lot of criticism of Education Scotland has said that it produces huge amounts of resources that teachers did not ask for. Some are good and some are not, but they are fundamentally not what teachers were asking for. How do we create a structure in which the work of Education Scotland, however we rename it, is being directed by what teachers say they need? If we want bottom-up communication, what structure do we need to put in place for teachers to be the ones who direct the work of the body that is supposed to produce resources to support them?

I recognise that this is a somewhat different bit of work, so it is fine if you are not across the detail of it. Are the processes and structures that are being used for setting up the new qualifications body and reforming Education Scotland similar to what you think would be required to deliver on your recommendations? Looking at what is happening in that space, would you be concerned if that was the approach that we took to implementing what you have recommended?

James, you have said that you are somewhat heartened by the fact that the Government has not just rushed into a response to your recommendations. However, your overarching recommendation is that this should be seen as a coherent package rather than a pick ’n’ mix. How concerned would you be if the Government did not accept your recommendations in full? If the Government takes a more selective approach to what it wants to take forward, how could that be managed?