Chamber and committees

Around a dozen specific issues have been raised with me, and I am happy to ask those teachers whether they are happy to have them passed on to the working issues group. If they are, I should have those issues with you by the end of the week.

Thanks very much for that.

I have probably taken up enough time, convener. I would be keen to come back in later, regarding the costs of Covid, but I am sure that other members will want to contribute before you come back to me.

I will stick with the previous line of questioning about teacher recruitment and numbers.

The £145 million that was announced as part of the budget, which the cabinet secretary mentioned in her opening statement, is the largest single increase for teacher recruitment since 2007. However, I want to drill down into the detail of that. Subsequent to the publication of the budget, that number was subject to some negotiation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—as is normal, because local authorities will deploy the fund. My understanding is that that £145 million, as well as being broken down by 32 local authorities, is broken down into what are essentially five funding streams, which are listed as funding for teachers, primary teaching staff, secondary teaching staff, special schools and teacher pay.

Will the cabinet secretary, in the first instance, explain what the distinction is between funding for teachers and the three streams of primary, secondary and special schools? It appears that funding for teachers is the largest single amount. For example, Aberdeen City Council is first on the list and there is £2.6 million for it in funding for teachers, but there is then £800,000 for primary teaching staff, £900,000 for secondary teaching staff and £240,000 for special schools. What are those three additional columns for if they are separate from that stream of funding for teachers?

I have a final question on the issue. You have just been in discussion with the convener about the Government’s commitment to reducing teacher contact time. What is the relationship between the additional funding for teacher recruitment and the objective of reducing class contact time and getting a more balanced workload for the existing teaching workforce?

Yes, I think that we are a deeply asymmetric unitary state.

I will leave it there, convener.

I will move on to my other question on borrowing—I direct it to David Phillips, as he mentioned this issue earlier in referring to the report that your institutions recently published on discretionary resource spending borrowing powers. The report recommended that the Scottish Government should be given some limited powers for discretionary borrowing, and said that the rationale for those powers being limited is an equity issue, as there is no England-only borrowing regime.

Can you expand a little on that rationale? The UK Government is de facto the English Government when it comes to areas such as health and local government, and it has an unfettered ability to borrow and spend in those areas if it wishes to do so. What is the rationale for granting the Scottish Government a discretionary borrowing power but having it limited for the purposes of equity within the union?

Thank you—that is useful. The whole exercise is highly politicised, of course, but given those confines, the report is a relatively technical part of informing what will be a much more politicised review.

David Eiser mentioned forecast error borrowing. Before we get into a debate about how we decide on the limit for that—whether it should be a cash percentage or whatever—which I presume will come with the review, should we ask what the rationale is for having a limit on forecast error borrowing at all? It is less about a divergence in policy choice and more about correcting for a divergence in technical exercises; it is about correcting for error rather than for a divergence in choice. What purpose does a limit serve when the issue is simply to do with forecast error corrections?

Thank you, convener. I have one question on the process, and then a couple on policy if we have time to get through them.

First, on the process itself, there has been a bit of confusion in the public discourse on the independent report and the review. I say “public discourse”; it is not as though a huge number of people have been engaging in this conversation beyond those of us who are participating in this meeting, but some have. Some folk are mixing up their terms when they reference the independent report rather than the review.

The report itself will not make recommendations. To an extent, it is simply an evidence-gathering exercise. I would be interested to hear the witnesses’ thoughts on exactly what they think the most desirable outcome is for the independent report. What purpose is it trying to serve, given that it is not its purpose to make recommendations?

I direct that to David Bell in the first instance.

Is a breakdown of where the money is coming from available anywhere, or could it be provided to the committee?

On a completely different issue, I note that, for the first time, the public sector pay policy includes a commitment to piloting a four-day working week, which I know will be welcomed by a number of unions. On the face of it, there is no immediate significant financial impact from the principle of the four-day working week or reducing the number of hours worked in a week for a similar level of pay, but how are you accounting for the pilot projects in the coming year’s pay policy?