Chamber and committees

Would Seamus Searson or Tara Lillis like to comment on scenario planning and whether that took place?

I would like to return to the questions around moderation and the issue that Oliver Mundell raised about the use of historical data. I completely understand the need for a level of moderation to ensure that an A grade in one school is equal to an A grade in another, but moderation that includes the use of historical data—school-level performance data—seems to do the opposite. We have had an attainment gap in Scotland for a long time—a socioeconomic attainment gap, as well as one between those with and those without additional support needs. Surely, any moderation system that uses historical data automatically puts more of a question mark over higher levels of achievement by young people from a deprived background compared with such levels of achievement by pupils from a more affluent background. If a class of higher pupils in Drumchapel had got straight As, that would have been viewed with more suspicion than a class of higher pupils from Newton Mearns or Clarkston having done so. How did you deploy a moderation system that included the use of historical data without simply having far more conversations with teachers at your schools in areas with higher levels of deprivation?

Would you like to come in, Audrey? I keep firing more questions at Tony, but I realise that I have not given you a chance to respond.

That sounds wearily like the exact same conversations that we were having this time last year.

I will move to a question on the moderation system. Seamus Searson, you listed the various levels of moderation that provisional grades had to go through before they were approved, and you spoke about the workload issue that that created. I am interested in the feedback that you have all had from your members about how much moderation changed grades from what a teacher might have initially been minded to give. Did that moderation process result in much in the way of grades changing, and was there a particular level at which that was most common? Did grades typically change on the basis of the conversations that were taking place at the faculty level within a school, or was it on the basis of conversations at a local authority level? Did the RIC-level moderation influence grade changes? Was there much change as a result of that process?

Tara Lillis, what was your members’ experience of this? Did you get similar feedback, or was there a different experience?

Thank you. I am sure that we will want to revisit that issue.

My next question goes back to Michelle Thomson’s initial line of questioning about the top-line measurements of “improving”, “maintaining” and “worsening”. I accept completely that that is the top line of what is a very detailed process and that there is much more granular data at every level beneath that. However, I am concerned that it might be a touch too simplified even for a top line.

For example, the active travel measurement is classified as “improving”, although it is very far from hitting the targets that the Scottish Government has set: 4 per cent of journeys are now made by cycling, whereas the 2020 target was for 10 per cent. Is there a danger that the “improving” classification simplifies some of the measurements slightly too much, in that a whole range of them could be improving only glacially, and not be on a trajectory towards the targets that have been set?

Thank you for that answer. I have no doubt that ministers are going into this in a far greater level of detail than just that top-line measurement. However, to go back to John Mason’s line of questioning, if we are trying to get wider buy-in from the public, the various levels of the state and the third sector, is there not a question about whether that measurement is a useful presentation for those who are engaging only at a surface level?

Given that both processes feed into the same framework, how do we prevent them becoming siloed?

My final question is on the role of transport in the NPF. The one obvious transport indicator is the active travel one that we have just mentioned. Transport is tangentially related to a couple of others: greenhouse gas emissions and public satisfaction with public services, for which public transport is mentioned. However, it seems to be the one major area of Government responsibility that is not directly addressed. Health education, environment and economy are all categories under which groups of outcomes are measured. Transport is not one of those categories. It has that one specific indicator on active travel but in everything else it is just tangentially related to an indicator.

Given the importance of transport for our net zero ambitions, in particular, and the challenges in reducing emissions from transport compared with all other sectors, do you have any concern that the NPF is perhaps not taking transport into account to the extent that is needed in order to reach those wider outcomes?

I have a question on the two upcoming processes that will affect the performance framework, one of which is the review of national outcomes. The Government has also confirmed that the proposed wellbeing and sustainable development bill will have some effect on the NPF. Can you explain how those two processes will interact? Will it be sequential, so that drafting of the bill will take place only after the review of national outcomes, or will the processes overlap and interact?