Chamber and committees

You said that the capacity is there and that there are no issues with it. Just as you came into the meeting, I noticed that somebody in Kirkcaldy had tweeted:

“Turned away for my covid booster in Kirkcaldy this morning, seems the message still hasn’t filtered down, wouldn’t have been a big deal but the place was deserted.”

There is a mismatch between what the Government is saying in this place and what is happening out there.

On Tuesday night, I went along to the drop-in centre in Dunfermline, which was open from 5 till 8. I had queued for about 40 minutes and got to the front door of the vaccination centre at about 25 past, at which point the staff announced that there were another 50 people still waiting inside and that they were going to have to stop. I was lucky and got in, but about 40 people were turned away. That suggests that the capacity is not there.

More important is the fact that, as I was told once I had got into the vaccination centre, staff had had to put up with quite a bit of abuse, because of the massive queues. The staff were brilliant; it was clear that they had never lifted their heads for the whole evening. They said that it is fine for politicians to stand up in Edinburgh and tell people to go and get their boosters, but if they are not prepared for that and the staff are not in place, there will be a mismatch and people will struggle. Where are we with that?

For a committee that is looking at recovery, those are important issues that we will return to, and I am sure that the Education, Children and Young People Committee will also want to look at those issues. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I will ask Gary Greenhorn the same question. Earlier, Larry Flanagan mentioned a few specifics, such as that where additional funding is needed for ventilation, it should be clear that that will be made available. I think that it was also Larry who talked about the need to increase staffing levels. For the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, given where we are, what more should Government be doing to support local education authorities or schools directly?

Thank you. I will move on to Jim Thewliss. It is the same question, but I will pick up on that last point that was made. Given the massive pressure on staff in schools, and given the massive pressure generally in education, is there a case for saying that education budgets should be exempt from local authority cuts? Does it not seem contradictory that although we are talking about all the things that need to happen, education authorities will be carrying out an exercise right now to find out where they can cut even more from their budgets?

This question is for Margaret Wilson. From the point of view of parents and parents’ involvement, is there enough transparency around the budgets that the local education authority has and how that finance is distributed within schools? Is there enough parental engagement in those processes? More important, is there more that needs to be done to engage parents in that respect?

I want to pick up on a point that Larry Flanagan made earlier. You said that there are not enough teachers available in Scotland. I understand that, in Fife, for example, there were far more probationary teachers available than there were jobs allocated. When a councillor was asked about that, the answer was that we did not need as many probationary teachers as were available. Could you say a bit more about the availability of probationary teachers to skill up? Do we need to do more around skilling up?

In Fife, for example, there is an unacceptable number of classes of more than 25 pupils and—more important—more than 30 pupils. I was flabbergasted to hear a councillor say that we did not need as many probationary teachers as were available when we have such large class sizes. Is class size an issue, as it is in Fife, which I have the figures for? On the same subject, I have seen a massive drop in the number of pupils who are accessing science classes in S4 in Fife’s secondary schools, which will have a knock-on effect in S5 and S6. Teachers tell me that they will get moved out of those schools because there will not be enough kids taking those subjects.

When we came out of lockdown and schools started up again, there was anecdotal evidence of behaviour change, because youngsters had been locked down for a while. The point was made earlier that primary 7s coming into S1 had spent much of their primary 7 year at home. To get it on the record, could you say what the impact on front-line staff in schools has been? What pressures are they working under? Could you start, Larry?

Continuing on that theme, councils will now be putting together their budgets and no doubt bringing forward a programme of cuts. Are education directors being asked by finance directors to propose cuts within local authority education budgets?

Jim, would you like to come in on that question?

I will pick up from where Murdo Fraser left off. I have been surprised by the number of people contacting my office who had vaccinations while they were working abroad. Also, I talked to a lady the other day who has been told, sadly, that she cannot get the vaccine for medical reasons. She feels that this is probably her last Christmas and she wants to go out to places. Those are cases in which proof of a negative test would change the situation for people. I saw yesterday that Northern Ireland has agreed a much wider roll-out of the proof of vaccination certificate than the Government here has agreed to, and has included in it, as most of Europe has, proof of a negative test, which is what I want to come on to.

Although I did not hear you on the radio yesterday, I have been told that you seemed to suggest that both a negative test and a vaccination certificate would be required if there were a further roll-out. What is the Government’s thinking around this? What evidence is the Government looking at including for a negative test?