Chamber and committees

No, not at all. Stephen Boyle wants to come in.

I will look that up.

I will move on to a different area, on which I may sound more confrontational than I mean to. I accept that the position varies significantly from authority to authority, but the 32 councils across Scotland collectively have far more money in their reserves than the Scottish Government is legally allowed to keep in reserve at any time, never mind what it has at the moment.

Councils are facing acute costs at the moment. Paul Manning mentioned the energy costs for council facilities in the coming months. If a council has reserves, can it use them to meet its increased energy costs? I accept that that is a short-term solution and not a long-term one, but I am interested to know how councils are planning to use their reserves, where they have them.

I will stick with tax and go back to John Mason’s line of questioning on council tax. As he said, Charlotte Barbour’s submission mentions the process that is in the Bute house agreement between my party and the Government on reform of council tax. The objective of that process is to replace council tax, but the committee is looking at the coming financial year, and we will not replace council tax in time for 2023-24.

Interim changes could be made to the current system—for example, the factor for calculating the rates could be changed, or reliefs could be altered or removed entirely or new reliefs brought in. Does the institute have any views on what changes could be made to council tax as it currently exists?

Susan Murray, your submission mentions housing as a key priority, and it specifically mentions targeted action on second homes. Does the additional dwelling supplement factor into that? Does the David Hume Institute think that more can be done there?

Yes.

That is no problem. The mental health awareness award is excellent, so I am glad that that came up and is on the record.

The study guides that were produced this spring have been mentioned a number of times. I am sure that you are aware of young people’s criticisms of many of those guides. They felt that the advice was patronising. For example, the guide to the advanced higher modern studies paper encouraged young people to make sure that they answered the question that was asked in the exam and the guides to the higher physics and chemistry papers reminded them that it is always a good idea to spell words correctly. The guide to higher geography told them to read the question. Do you accept that some of the content of those study guides was patronising and was not of particularly high value to a 17-year-old?

In that case, the issue here is an initial communication failure. Can I check how young people were involved in the development of the revision material? You have young people on the national qualifications group and you have a learner panel. How were they involved in the construction of the material? Did they at any point flag up that it was perhaps a bit patronising to say that it is a good idea to spell words correctly?

I understand that, for example, the specifics of an exam paper obviously cannot be shared in advance, but there is nothing compromising about sharing in advance that the paper is going to encourage young people to spell words correctly.

I will pursue that point about reflection. I have sat on the education committee for six years, and, five years ago, the committee produced a major report on the SQA under Fiona Robertson’s predecessor. A consistent point of criticism of the organisation has been that there is a perceived defensiveness around external feedback, advice, criticism and so on. We went through that when Cameron Garrett, who was the first member of the Scottish Youth Parliament on the national qualifications group, was critical of how young people were treated through that process. Sophie Reid, who succeeded him, is now being critical of a lack of communication and a breakdown of trust.

I am going to pre-empt your answer somewhat and presume that you will say that there has been improvement over recent years. However, if we accept that premise, why do you think that nobody else sees that improvement?