Chamber and committees

It is a partnership, but it is not a partnership of equals, because, ultimately, the UK Government decides how its money is spent. Regardless of whether it is spending £100 or £100 billion in Scotland, I am interested in your thoughts on the core point, which is that the vast majority of people in Scotland do not think that the UK Government should be the Government that spends money in devolved areas. If the spending is in reserved areas, it is a totally different issue. The core point is that a lot of the money that we are talking about is being spent in devolved areas. Regardless of whether the individual projects are welcome, the vast majority of people do not believe that the UK Government should be making those decisions. They would prefer the UK Government to give the money to the institutions that people in Scotland have decided should make such decisions—either the Scottish Government or local authorities. Why do you think that only a very small minority of people in Scotland believe that the UK Government should spend in devolved areas?

I will move on, because I am conscious of the time.

When John Mason made a point about the length of time for which funding is provided, you compared the situation with the Scottish Government’s annual budget. You mentioned having sympathy for the finance secretary, but I point out that the Scottish Government provides annual funding because your Government gives the Scottish Government an annual settlement. Your Government has the power to give multiyear settlements. If you wanted to advocate for that around the Cabinet table, I think that you would find cross-party support for your doing so.

Some local authorities that gave evidence to the committee said that the three-year funding model for the shared prosperity fund compares pretty poorly with the seven-year funding model for EU structural funds. In particular, they highlighted that the delays in releasing funds meant that, with a lot of projects, there was a two-year dash to deliver. If funding was released only at the end of December 2022, local authorities had only one quarter of that financial year left in which to spend the money, so there was, in essence, a two-year dash to spend it. Do you recognise the concerns that, particularly for multiyear capital projects, two years—or, in the case of the evidence that we received, two and a quarter years—is a very short window of time and that that might not result in best value for money because there is a push to get the money out the door before the deadline?

Cabinet secretary, I am interested in getting a sense of the direction of travel of the new bodies, specifically the new qualifications body and its governance arrangements. There has been a lot of criticism—I have been one of those making such criticisms—of the SQA’s governance structure. For example, there are three management consultants on the board but only one current teacher.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on the balance, in the governance arrangements, between appointing to the board individuals who have knowledge and experience of the area for which the public body in question is responsible—in this case, education—versus the need for corporate governance. Both are important, but I feel that we do not currently get the balance right.

What are your aspirations for the board and the governance arrangements for the new bodies?

The budget line for student support and tuition fees payment is down £23.4 million compared with what was allocated in the previous year’s budget. The explanation for that is that it is a combination of recognising the in-year savings that took place—the allocation for next year will more closely reflect actual spending during this current financial year—and some presumptions about anticipated demand. Can you give a little bit of detail about exactly where in the budget line the savings are coming from, particularly in relation to the effect they might have on student support?

Will local authorities have to apply proactively for that fund and give evidence of the level of debt that they have? I am asking because, when I began doing freedom of information research on that, it became clear that some larger local authorities, in particular, were actually masking their level of school meals debt. They were confirming only the debt data that they held centrally and were not bothering to ask all their schools about that. In some cases, the actual level of school meals debt is larger than what the local authorities have been telling us all. I am not sure whether you have different information.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has produced excellent advice and guidance on how schools should manage their school meals debt. Will local authorities that have not adopted that guidance—I think that there is quite a high overlap between authorities that have not written off the debt and those that have not adopted the guidance—be encouraged or even required to do so by the Government in order to access the money that you are making available?

Yes—he had printed out his spreadsheet and brought it with him. However, I cannot remember his name—sorry.

This is not a supplementary, convener. For the sake of the Official Report, I have found the name that I was looking for. It was Professor Jim Scott, from the University of Dundee, who gave the evidence that the cabinet secretary and I heard in the previous parliamentary session. He found that just over half of schools in Scotland were offering six courses in S4, that about a third were offering seven, that about one in 11 were offering eight and that three or four—presumably those doing a two-year higher—were offering five.

Learner voice, as well as teacher voice, is really important. There are other perspectives, such as those of parents and carers, that would also be valuable additions.

Cabinet secretary, you made a point about the model of staff secondment that Education Scotland used to use but has moved away from more recently. Do you see opportunities for that not only in the reformed Education Scotland but in the new qualifications body or in the inspectorate? There is not enough grit in the system at the moment. One criticism of the current inspection system is that many of those who inspect schools, professional as they are, have not themselves been in the classroom for quite some time. Is there a role for the secondment of classroom teachers, so that people who are constantly involved in our national education bodies have direct, personal and recent experience of the classroom?

You have pre-empted my final question, which was going to be about exactly that point. A teacher should not have to be an SQA marker to truly understand the grading system, but we have heard a lot of feedback about that and you have made exactly that point.

Convener, given the time, I am happy to finish there.