Chamber and committees

I thank Mr Kidd for his question. I have looked at some of the evidence that the committee has taken on school design, and I am pretty sympathetic to it. As a Fife MSP, I know that Fife Council has decided that it would like that approach to education to be taken in a number of large schools. Indeed, I attended one of those schools—Madras college—which is in Mr Rennie’s constituency, as is Bell Baxter high school. In my constituency—or just outside it—there is Levenmouth academy, which brought two schools together and also includes Fife College, while there is a big campus in Dunfermline that has two secondary schools and Fife College going into it. Some local authorities are taking that approach.

Ms Martin described those schools as “superschools”. That is not the description that we would use, but some schools in Scotland are too big. They are too big for children with additional support needs, but they are also too big for our pupils and our staff—full stop. In big schools, teachers do not get to know their children and young people. If you think about the geography of that little area of Scotland—Fife—and all those little towns and villages coming together in a huge school, you will see that children just get lost. When we look at the challenges associated with behaviour and attainment, we see that it all comes down to relationships and teachers knowing their kids. We need to get further advice on school design, and I have asked officials to work on that via the Scottish Futures Trust, to which I think the committee has written on the issue.

Of course, the work that we do with local authorities is primarily about giving them funding; after all, the buildings belong not to us but to them. In recent years, we have given local authorities substantial amounts of funding to help them to improve the quality of the school estate, but, as I think you heard from ADES, the design of that estate often comes from local authorities. In my experience, though, some architects are mindful of local needs. They engage with parents and carers—and quite often with young people, too, about the things that they would like to see in their school.

I want to add something else into the mix. I do not think that the committee has taken evidence on it, but I had a parliamentary question on it from one Kenny Gibson not so long ago. He raised with me the issue of open-plan classrooms, and I think it is worth considering how they can contribute to challenges for those with learning and additional support needs. I see open-plan classrooms in many of the visits that I undertake. They can sometimes work well, but it can often be extremely difficult for some young people to concentrate in those environments. We must be mindful of that when we are talking about the challenges in other parts of our education system.

I am very taken with the evidence that the committee has heard on school design. We will certainly take that back to our work with COSLA and the Scottish Futures Trust. In December, I announced funding for phase 3 of the learning estate investment programme, and we are working with the SFT on the next funding approach. I know that the committee has asked the SFT for a written update, and I look forward to engaging with members on that, because it is an important point.

I am fairly certain that Fife Council had an input in that process.

There is guidance, which comes from the Scottish Futures Trust, and it sets out a range of parameters for school building design. The trust works with local authorities on that. It takes the Passivhaus approach, so schools are meant to be far more environmentally friendly. In my experience, it is for the SFT to work with local authorities on design specifications.

Yes, it concerns me. Part of what is going on is about the way in which local authorities measure those members of staff. We have record numbers of pupil support assistants—the data published yesterday shows that increase—which is because of the ring-fenced fund that the Government provides. However, Mr Kerr is right to allude to the challenge in relation to staff who are specified as behaviour support staff. I think that some of that challenge is to do with the meaning of the job titles. It might well be that a number of pupil support assistants, of which we now have record numbers in our schools, are helping to support with challenges associated with behaviour, although they might not have that in their job title. From memory, the committee’s predecessor in the previous session of Parliament looked at that issue.

Undoubtedly, there has been movement, and the Government has recognised that, which is why we have protected the funding. It is worth saying that we have increased the number of pupil support assistants in the past year. However, the member makes an important point about specialists, which goes back to some of the points that Mr Rennie made about speech and language therapists. There will always be a role for specialists in our schools, and we need to better understand that.

Mr Greer might want to ask a supplementary question on this issue, as I know that he has a keen interest in it. There is something about how we accredit and recognise people who work in those roles, because it is a specialism. The catch-all term “pupil support assistant” sometimes covers lots of different things. As I alluded to in my response to the convener, 20-odd years ago, certainly in secondary schools, we had specific teams of staff who were tasked with responding to and supporting behaviour and other teams of staff who dealt with support for learning. Over the past 20 years, those two roles have almost come together.

Some would argue—educational academics would do so, as we heard at the behaviour summits—that that is because we now have a broader understanding of additional support needs and we accept that behaviour is part of the wider challenge. However, on the member’s point, we need to better understand where behaviour support is needed and where additional pupil support is needed. Those are two different things. It is for local authorities to identify where they need that support and what it should look like. I hope that the behaviour action plan, which will be published in the next few weeks, will help to give local authorities more drive to support better behaviour in their schools. Perhaps that will relate to the issues that Mr Kerr is talking about.

It would be pretty difficult for me, as cabinet secretary, to specify that they have to employ a certain number of behaviour support assistants, but we specify ring fencing around pupil support assistants.

That will vary by local authority. I do not know off the top of my head either, and nor do I have the information in front of me. However, I remember that, in the previous session of Parliament, when I was on the predecessor committee with Mr Greer and Mr Rennie, we looked at that issue in more detail and found that there was variance across the system.

I am happy to do so, although I am not sure whether we collect that information, as the salaries are a matter for local authorities. We can share with you what we have at national level, but the committee might wish to write to COSLA on the matter. I do not want to direct the committee, but that might be more appropriate than the Government collecting it.

On Mr Greer’s point—he is right that it follows on from Ruth Maguire’s question—the range of different plans on offer just now is extraordinarily confusing for parents, and for young people, too. However, it is, I suppose, worth rehearsing some facts. As Mr Greer knows, the number of CSPs has been reducing steadily over time while, at the same time, we have seen a real increase in IEPs. Indeed, that shift to IEPs across the board has happened quite organically.

Mr Greer makes an interesting point about GIRFEC. I think that the committee has been looking at United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child compliance in some of our work in this respect, and we will seek to update the committee on that in our action plan update. I am happy to take away the point about GIRFEC unless Laura Meikle has something to say about that today. Currently, there are real challenges with regard to the range of plans that a young person might have, and I think that we will need to set that out more clearly in the action plan with local authorities.

I can write to the committee, setting out a timescale in which we will strengthen the code of practice and setting out our actions—of course, that is part of the review update. If the committee is minded that legislative changes are required, I will consider that with officials.

The reality is that education is co-ordinating those services right now. That is certainly my experience of having been in school not that long ago, when it was—absolutely—education that co-ordinated those services. That can be really challenging for those who work in education, who are dealing with lots of other things in the day-to-day running of a school.

Should that be a task for education? No, that should be a shared and joint endeavour. Some of the Audit Scotland evidence that I alluded to at the start of the meeting is about having a funding approach that would bring partners together. We have quite a disparate approach to that now. Education is often leading the charge because education has the young person in school and is trying to build support around the young person and bring partners to the table. I know that that can be really challenging.

It is not clear that the responsibility should rest solely with education. I think that it should be a joint endeavour, particularly along with health, given the number of health professionals who are involved in providing support to young people with some of the most challenging additional support needs. We need a wraparound system that does not lean on schools to the extent that they are burdened not only with pulling together services but with giving front-line provision. If I may say so as a—granted, former—teacher, I think that that pressure is often felt more by education than by other services.