Chamber and committees

Okay. I will leave it there. I have some views on the issue.

First, I will focus on the broader suggestion that I think the committee heard last week in relation to falling pupil rolls and how we plan appropriately for the workforce of the future. We have already committed to a teacher audit in that space to look at planning for the future and how we ensure that we have the right number of teachers for the vacancies that we have. That audit must also take cognisance of the manifesto commitment to reducing class contact time, and we need to be mindful that delivering that will require more teachers in the system.

More broadly, I would query with local authorities the view that having fewer teachers in our schools would be good for our young people’s outcomes. I do not agree with that.

I do not detract from what has been said, because that sort of partnership working has undoubtedly been key to some of our work on closing the poverty-related attainment gap. However, the same is true of good-quality learning and teaching, and we really need to be mindful of not undermining the role of the teacher in closing that gap.

The previous cabinet secretary committed to protecting teacher numbers with an additional £145 million—and then last December’s teacher census showed that national teacher numbers had fallen. This December, the committee will be watching closely, as I will, to see what that additional £145 million of investment from the Government has delivered with regard to teacher numbers. I would be reluctant to move away from the current model, for reasons that might be obvious to the committee.

I am keen that we undertake work on that. I might bring Alison Taylor in on the point. We were discussing the issue recently.

Some evidence from elsewhere in the UK—from down south, actually—exists on the topic. It is helpful and shows that, if you invest in universality, it helps not only to close the gap but to raise attainment for all. I have personal experience of how stigmatising it can be for young people to access free school meals when they are in school. That is an important point in relation to universality for our primary school children, which I certainly support.

I will bring in Alison Taylor on how we intend to evaluate the policy, because the member raises an important point.

Could Mr Kerr explain what he means by “negative consequence”?

As Shirley-Anne Somerville set out last year, we would look at that on a case-by-case basis. I recognise that, right now, although we are talking about teacher numbers in the round, it is much easier to recruit teachers in Edinburgh than in the Highlands and Islands, for example. We need to be mindful of that and of subject variation, and we need to look at the issue on a case-by-case basis.

The education budget, like every budget in the Scottish Government, is not immune to the impacts of inflationary pressures. We need to be mindful of that.

We increased investment in the SAC programme from £750 million during the last parliamentary year to £1 billion during the course of this parliamentary year. In relation to the question that Pam Duncan-Glancy asked about four-year funding cycles, it is important to give headteachers certainty and to allow them to plan in relation to staffing. Knowing that there will be £520 million of pupil equity funding over four years gives them that certainty.

The additionality that we bring is also shown in the fact that, in Scotland, we spend more per pupil than any other part of the United Kingdom. Our spending per pupil was around £1,300—18 per cent—higher than in other parts of the UK.

We have also had to absorb some of the financial pressures that have surrounded the teachers’ pay deal. I think that the deal was the right thing to do, but I am mindful of its impact across the budget and on other parts of the Scottish Government.

We have the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the UK, and we have a good and strong story to tell about investment from the Government, but I acknowledge the impact that inflation has had in relation to erosion of spending power in the education and skills portfolio.

More broadly, across the Scottish Government there is less money to go round than there was previously. I am not going to make political points about that this morning, because it is important that we talk about the detail of educational outcomes, but we should be mindful that external factors relating to inflationary pressures are having an impact on funding for all cabinet secretaries and on how we have to cut the cake.

I will come back to the work on free school meals, because it is important, given that we are moving to universality in primary schools.

In relation to your first point, we know that we have been increasing our local government spend. Local authorities spent about £6.9 billion on education in Scotland. We need to be mindful of the responsibilities of local authorities in relation to education spend in addition to what is ring fenced from the Scottish Government. In comparison, the amount is relatively small. We have increased spending on education; there was a real-terms increase of 7.2 per cent in 2020-21.

It will be challenging to calculate PEF when free school meals become universal. That will involve us working with Social Security Scotland and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I will bring in Alison Taylor on that, because officials are currently working on the calculation, which will be challenging as we move forward and away from the measure that we currently use. We recognise that universality will necessitate use of a different measure.

If Mr Greer would like to write to Mr Dey—I am now issuing him homework—or to me directly, I will ensure that we get him a response on that issue. I would be keen to hear a bit more about the detail of that specific instance and about the picture nationally and how that is playing out, as I recognise the concerns.

We can selectively choose a year that we want to, I suppose; that would be the answer to Ms Duncan-Glancy’s question. My closest measure here is 2019, but even 2019 and the three years prior to that do not compare to 2023, because our young people have lived through a pandemic. I am not sure that I would accept the suggestion that their outcomes in relation to their academic attainment should be measured bluntly against that.

More generally, we need to be very careful in how we frame some of this, because our young people lived through a pandemic and were out of school for such a long time. We have just heard about issues with attendance. Some young people are not engaging. For many of them, getting them to engage in formal education will be very challenging.

I know that we will come on to talk about behaviour, but I see that as part of the wider challenge in relation to attainment. Do I think that we need to keep going in relation to closing the gap? Absolutely, but we also need to be mindful of that shift in the context. It is not just about Covid; it is also about the cost of living crisis and things getting much harder for families than they were previously—in the three years that Ms Duncan-Glancy spoke about, for example. Inflationary pressures were not where they are now at that time, and it is really important that we all take cognisance of that in relation to the targets that we have set.

We absolutely need to close the poverty-related attainment gap, but we need to be mindful of the new normal that the pandemic has created and that the economic conditions have necessitated in recent years. That is having an impact on our young people before they even enter the school gates, never mind when they are sitting their exams.