Chamber and committees

Parents and carers are also an important group. I do not think that there is a lot of mention of them in the bill, but we took some evidence that they want to be included as well.

I do not think that the committee, as a whole, has a view on that as yet—we have not really discussed it—but it came up quite strongly in evidence. For example, I am an accountant and if I were on a committee in order to represent accountants, I would need to somehow be answerable to those other accountants. That is the point that hit home to me.

I do not want to get too much into the charter, because colleagues will ask about it later.

Yes, and the commissioner said that a lot of young people are more comfortable in a grouping that is primarily made up of young people. I agree with that. I think that the bill will provide us with an opportunity to address the issue.

I will push that a little bit further. The point was also made to us that it is relatively easy to engage with good pupils—or whatever term we use. I visited a school recently and met some of the sixth year, who were clearly the crème de la crème, or whatever you want to call it—they were the most committed and enthusiastic pupils. Will there be a way for us, through the bill, to engage with pupils or young people who are disengaged?

Others will go into more detail about exactly how some of the interest committees will be made up, but there is obviously a bit of concern among not only parents but others about who will be on that committee.

Will the people on the committees act as representatives? For example, how would someone be appointed to the teacher and practitioner interest committee? One of the unions suggested that there might be a teacher on the committee, but that that teacher might not be very representative of, or particularly answerable to, other teachers. I think that the teacher unions would like to see those people being elected by union members or teachers generally, for example. Can you expand on how you see that working?

That is helpful.

A related issue is how children and young people can be involved. The point was made that the whole system can be very adult centred and, obviously, most of the people in the system will be adults, so how do children fit in? We had slightly conflicting evidence on that. I do not think that people want the learner interest committee to be taken over by children, but do you have thoughts about how children’s voices can be heard? For example, one child at a committee would find that quite difficult.

I know that you do not want to be too specific in the bill, and I broadly agree with that, but do you envisage there being another group, made up entirely of young people, that discusses some of the issues and feeds that into the learner interest committee? Is that a possibility?

Following on from that and Liam Kerr’s question, I note that Mr Kerr asked about on-going costs, but we were also told that the reform team that was set up to specifically look at the changes was stopped in March, because of a lack of funding. Does something need to happen in that space?

No—I do not know whether that was a good phrase.