Chamber and committees

This financial year’s budget included a £20 million Covid premium. Given that no Covid consequentials have come to the Scottish Government this year, it has been exceptionally difficult to make further progress or to provide specific Covid premiums.

In my opening remarks, I pointed to the fact that we have seen the biggest investment in teacher recruitment for many years, in recognition of the challenges that education was facing and was about to face. That is why we have made the massive investment that we have made in teacher recruitment. We knew that this was going to be a challenging time.

The key strength of providing specific funding for specific purposes is that that ensures that all the money that is provided for a certain purpose goes to that purpose. I point to the example of the expansion to 1,140 hours of early learning and childcare. Such projects have very much been a shared priority of the Scottish Government and local government. Such funding has allowed the Scottish Government to move forward with the commitment to provide that early learning and childcare via local authorities.

I appreciate that ring fencing funding reduces local authority discretion in some areas, but it is worth noting that, although ring-fenced funding is for increased investment in services such as schools and nurseries, 93 per cent of the funding that we will provide is not formally ring fenced. We recognise that local authorities have called for less ring-fenced funding, and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy has committed to reviewing all ring-fenced funding as part of the resource spending review. We will continue our constructive engagement with local government on education areas that are ring fenced.

There is no specific allocation within the overall Scottish Government budget for teacher pay. As Mr Greer rightly points out, the budget for teacher recruitment is, in effect, for teachers’ pay. That is what it is spent on. The committee will be aware that we are still going through the process of seeking an agreement on teachers’ pay for this financial year. The committee will also be aware that an offer was made by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which is currently with the trade union members for discussion and decision.

With the committee’s forbearance, I will not say too much about the current teacher’s pay situation, because we are clearly in the middle of the process. That process has gone on for an exceptionally long time, and I appreciate that teachers are very frustrated about how long it is taking. We need to come to agreement on teachers’ pay, but it needs to work its way through the SNCT, as per the usual process.

The Scottish Government stands by to make any changes that it can to allow that process to move forward, but the Government has already put in additional funding to the overall local government settlement, which assisted with the wider local government workforce planning and is a demonstration of how we have played our part in moving things forward. The process must now run its course through the SNCT.

Yes.

Just to be clear, the intention, as I understand it, was that the report would be out before Fiona Robertson’s appearance at the committee, but the commission required a change in date. That decision was made by the commission. It could not be changed by the SQA.

I understand that the Deputy First Minister will make a statement to Parliament, so I refer the committee to that statement and the chance to ask questions about the matter then, as I have not had the opportunity to analyse what has been made public while I have been at committee.

The evidence on face coverings is considered by our sub-group that looks at all the mitigation measures that are part of our Covid strategy. That evidence is regularly reviewed; the sub-group met yesterday and I await its updated suggestions, which we will discuss at the Covid-19 education recovery group. The sub-group considers the four harms approach, as we do in relation to all aspects of the direct impact of Covid, indirect health issues and issues around health and wellbeing. It is the sub-group’s role to provide advice on that basis and I am sure that I will receive advice from it that we will discuss tomorrow at CERG.

It is important that we have the correct data. That enables teachers to make informed judgements about how well pupils are progressing and headteachers to assess what is happening in their schools. That data is also useful to local authorities. It is important that the Government has the information to enable it to see whether there is any concern about the variation in outcomes for children. It is important that we gather data so that we can ensure that every child, regardless of where they are in Scotland, has the right opportunities and that there is not variation in outcomes.

To be clear, we collect evidence about curriculum for excellence levels. We do not publish the results of the standardised assessments. Those are two very different things. What matters is the data that is being collected, what it is used for and how useful it is to different parts of the system. There is nothing in the OECD report to say that we should not collect data nationally. The challenge that the OECD has given us is to consider whether we are collecting the right data and doing the right things with it. There is a distinction between the standardised assessments and the data that we collect at a national level and how we use that.

I genuinely do not think that anyone who has followed what I have done since I came into this portfolio would suggest that I have given up on reform. It has been a busy time for reform in the education system.

Previous drafts of the education paper that was published yesterday were shared among members of the education recovery group on numerous occasions. We have shared the document widely with our stakeholders as we have gone through the process.

If Oliver Mundell has proposals for different policies, I would be more than happy to meet him about those, as I said at the start of my tenure as education secretary. We are about to begin the budget process. If he does not like what is in the material that came out yesterday, I look forward to seeing the proposals that the Conservatives will make on the issue.

The document that was published yesterday was a collation of what the Government is doing. Funnily enough, the Government did not start thinking about recovery in education over the past month; it has been at the forefront of our minds since before the election. That is exactly why we have put in place a lot of the measures that we have. The Government was elected on a manifesto that was designed to assist Scotland through recovery from the pandemic, which makes it unsurprising that the recovery programme that we had in our manifesto plays loud and strong.

We have ensured that we have in place policies that turn their full attention to recovery. For example, the Scottish attainment challenge is not new but, of course, it has been examined to ensure that it takes all the lessons from the pandemic so that, when I make more announcements on the Scottish attainment challenge refresh, I will not be announcing the same types of policy and funding streams as in the past, because we are moving on.

Of course we are using the different policy levers that we have had for some time and turning their attention to the pandemic. I do not think that the committee would expect anything less.

The SQA cannot ask for the date to be brought forward if the commission says that a delay is needed. That was the reason behind that.

When it comes to the terms of reference of the review, and the feelings of the unions and staff, I fully appreciate that, given my announcement that the SQA would be replaced, this is a time of great concern for staff. They are exceptionally passionate about their jobs and they are good at their jobs. As we go through the review process, there is clearly a concern about how they can be heard.

Different stakeholders made a number of points when we looked at the draft terms of reference in order for Ken Muir to take up his position. Again, as with all these processes, not all the suggestions of changes to terms of reference can be made. However, I hope that, since Ken Muir came into post, the unions have seen that they will absolutely have an ability to have direct discussions with him. My understanding is that that has happened already, and I am sure that it will continue to happen, although it is for Ken Muir to decide on that process. All staff will be able to feed into the process of the review. It is not the case that senior management will have discussions with Ken Muir, while the staff will be kept separate or that there will be one voice of the SQA that will be assumed to represent all staff. All staff, unions and, as people would expect, senior management on the board will be able to have their say in the review process.