Education and Culture Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Official Report 450KB pdf

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Music Participation (Children and Young People)

Our first item this morning is an evidence-taking session on the participation of children and young people in music. We will be focusing on the youth music initiative and on charging for school music tuition.

This is part of a series of one-off evidence-taking sessions on cultural issues that the committee is holding in advance of a question-and-answer session with Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs. Later this morning, we will take evidence on differences in levels of cultural participation across Scotland.

I welcome to the committee Mark Traynor, who is the convener of the Educational Institute of Scotland’s instrumental music teachers network; Fiona Dalgetty, the chief executive of Fèis Rois—I hope everyone heard that pronunciation—and Francis Cummings, the director of Sistema Scotland’s big noise project in Raploch.

I invite members to ask questions.

The committee has been presented with a raft of evidence on the issues before us, which have been in the news over the past 10 days or so. Do you have any thoughts on why there is such a wide range of positions across the local authorities, with some making no charge for additional instrumental tuition and some making charges that range from £95 to £340? What are the reasons for those huge differences?

Budget constraints are causing huge issues for local authorities across Scotland. Authorities clearly see an opportunity to generate income that will subsidise instrumental music services, which we in the EIS feel is inappropriate in the Scottish education system. The real problem is that the budgetary pressure that local authorities are under is causing them huge difficulties in balancing their books, and they obviously see instrumental music as an easy target.

Do you detect that there are specific formulas by which local authorities set the charges? Do the charges relate just to costs? How do the local authorities decide what the costs should be?

We are not aware of how the policy is implemented or how the figures are decided on.

What categories of youngsters are exempt from the charges?

The national picture is varied. There is no national structure for instrumental music. The exempted categories vary across the country but can include those in receipt of free school meals, income support or clothing grants. There is no set formula in place.

It varies across local authorities.

Yes.

Mr Traynor, you and some of your EIS colleagues have expressed grave reservations about the fact that Scottish Qualifications Authority tuition can be very expensive for families with more than one child learning an expensive instrument. Are the fees compromising the way youngsters choose subjects and, indeed, putting some of them off?

Although we have no evidence for that, I imagine that that will be a very important factor in pupils’ subject choice. We are becoming alarmed by the fact that five authorities have removed exemptions for SQA examinations—indeed, Aberdeenshire Council has announced that it will remove exemptions from 2013-14 onwards—and by the growing trend of charging parents and pupils for curriculum-based subjects.

Has any reason been given for why those exemptions have been removed and why charges are now being made?

I can only assume that, again, it is another way of generating income to subsidise the instrumental service.

First of all, I should declare an interest. I was involved with the fèis movement from the early 1980s up until five or six years ago.

I read in the weekend’s press reports a quite sensational headline about profits. I wonder whether you can confirm something that I picked up from the information in our papers. Did EIS’s freedom of information request relate to net income after deducting legal and—if I remember correctly—administration costs, but not teaching costs?

Not teaching, no.

On the one hand, the figures look like profits but, given that there is no commonality among a lot of the provision in schools, we are not comparing like with like.

The EIS sees instrumental music tuition as being for all and believes that no costs should be involved. Looking at the matter from that angle, we think that profits are being generated. In education, we do not take into account teachers’ salaries in the classroom and therefore we do not think that this aspect should be included in considering an educational right of our young people. We think that the income generated by charging parents is being seen as a possible profit revenue.

There must be a huge difference in provision from one school to the next, irrespective of how—or, indeed, whether—an authority charges. As a result, we are not necessarily comparing like with like when we compare authorities that have a policy of charging and those that do not.

That is the difficulty in there not being a national framework. At the moment, resources are stretched, which means that, from school to school and authority to authority, there will be differences in the number of staff involved.

I am interested in SQA music courses. In most situations—probably 99 per cent of the time—children would choose their standard grade subject in second year. As a result, the fact that they were studying for an SQA course would be established and local authorities would provide exemptions from charging. Might there be complications with the variations in curriculum for excellence, given that some schools might have a two plus two plus two model and others a three plus three model? Might some students be charged for a longer time until they determine whether they will sit that exam?

We have seen some evidence that authorities are removing exemptions further up or down the scale. Those taking the three plus three approach are removing the exemption from third year. Previously, the pupil would have chosen their subject at the end of second year, which would have meant an exemption for the third and fourth year of SQA examinations. Once again, the cost is being passed on to parents.

Given that the focus of much of this evidence session will be on that issue, I just point out that, if any of the other witnesses have anything to add, they should feel free to do so—although they are not compelled to.

Just to be clear, is there any evidence that the youth music initiative money, which has specific objectives attached, is being used to subsidise the curriculum in schools?

From the EIS perspective, the YMI is to be applauded but, as our members are not directly involved in it, we do not have a lot of information on it. In general, I believe that YMI money might have been used to subsidise core services, although we do not have any actual evidence of that.

Speaking from my knowledge of YMI in Highland, I know that the situation that Clare Adamson describes is definitely not the case there. Highland Council has a relationship with Fèisean nan Gàidheal, our umbrella organisation, and Fèis Rois. The council subcontracts a large part of the YMI, and we deliver it for the primary 5 and 6 target group in 108 primaries.

My question follows on from the points that Liz Smith and Jean Urquhart made. The thing that surprised me most in the recent coverage was the issue about charging for SQA courses. I understand that the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities was invited to this meeting but has refused to come. I regret that, because I would have asked it this question, but instead I will ask it of the witnesses who are here. In what way is it legal for councils to charge for core curriculum certificated courses? Is the situation in any way ambiguous? If a council was to charge for higher English, there would be an outcry, but a number of councils now charge for other SQA certificated courses.

The EIS cannot comment on the legalities of the decisions that local authorities make, but I have to agree that, if the same formula was applied to English, maths or sciences, there would be uproar among the public.

I add just as a comment that, through my casework this week, I have found out that a similar situation has arisen with home economics. There is wide variation in the charges that are applied by schools in the same local authority area.

I echo Marco Biagi’s comment on COSLA. The witnesses have been asked a number of questions that would be more appropriately directed to COSLA. Likewise, I share many of the reservations that have been expressed in relation to charging those who are undertaking SQA qualifications.

In Orkney, which has been identified as one of the councils that is not charging, there has been a live debate in the past 12 months about whether to deviate from that approach and introduce charging. Although SQA certificated students were excluded from that, the interesting thing is that one reason why the issue was pushed off the agenda was that, however the council calibrated it, the sums that would have been raised were small in comparison with the overall costs of tuition in Orkney, which is the smallest council area in the country.

My question follows on from Jean Urquhart’s question. Given the sums that are being raised, the use of the word “profit” is not at all clear to me. How would the EIS define profit? Is it anything that is raised, or is it only a proportion of what is raised excluding salaries and so on?

The question that we asked local authorities in the FOI request was how much net revenue they generate through charging. We have presented in our written submission the figures that we received back. We believe that the figures are detrimental to instrumental music and access for all. As I said, the EIS’s stance is that we believe that instrumental music should be free to all, and we see the money as profit that local authorities are making to plough back into their budgets to shore up and subsidise their instrumental service budgets.

I have seen the FOI request. Following on from that, have you made any attempt to assess how the figures were arrived at?

No.

We certainly know that in Orkney, because it was such a controversial issue, the council was at pains to set out clearly where it felt that the fees could be introduced, where they absolutely should not be introduced and what the fees would be in comparison with the costs it bore. Is that not the experience in other council areas?

10:15

It is not something that we have pursued. It is something that we would ask Parliament to look at, perhaps in a review of instrumental services throughout Scotland. Given that there is such disparity in exemptions and charging, we need a clearer picture of the situation nationwide before we can start to make any assumptions or assertions about the direction in which we want to take instrumental music.

I appreciate that most of that is probably for the councils.

I realise that your FOI request related to the current situation, but can any of the panel enlighten us as to the historical situation regarding charging for musical tuition? Was there a point in the past when it was all free?

I grew up in Scotland and started my musical career in my local authority, and at that point it was all free. I was also a junior student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland—the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, as it was then—which was also free. Historically, there was a time when all instrumental tuition was free.

You would need to go back a considerable way—

You make me feel old.

I remember that when I was at school—20-odd years ago—musical tuition was free, but you would need to go back a considerable way to find free instrumental tuition. Although the information on it is not available, which takes us back to the issue of transparency of instrumental music services, the charges that authorities levy on parents are slowly starting to creep up. As budgetary constraints start to kick in, councils see the charges as a way of generating income to subsidise the service, but the EIS does not agree with that.

A key part of the youth music initiative is school-based music making. The aim was to ensure that schoolchildren access at least one year’s free music tuition by the time that they reach primary 6. Has that outcome been achieved?

I can speak only for the areas in which Fèis Rois works but, to my knowledge, it has.

Highland Council has chosen to deliver that provision in three areas. It offers the Kodály method, which is delivered by the local authority instructors, to children in primaries 3 and 4, and the fèis movement delivers to children in primaries 5 and 6. For 12 weeks a year, every pupil in primary 5 gets two blocks of six weeks of tuition.

The schools choose from Gaelic song, Scots song and tin whistle group music making, and that is all linked with the level 2 outcomes and experiences for the curriculum for excellence for the expressive arts as well as some of the cross-cutting themes. Where possible, the music is also linked with the class topic. For example, if the class is studying the Jacobites, we will look at Jacobite songs, take them to the battlefield and link that in with the music. Our professional musicians and tutors who go into schools work closely with the class teachers. We are also about to deliver in Dumfries and Galloway.

Some local authorities are using the same model and are bringing in a cultural partner—maybe a foundation organisation of Creative Scotland—to work with them to achieve that target.

Do we have any knowledge about whether there is uniformity in approach? I hear what you say about the area with which you are familiar, but there are 32 local authorities. Are there 32 different approaches, or is there a uniform approach to achieving that single outcome?

Each local authority takes its own, quite different approach. Before I went to work at Fèis Rois, I lived in Edinburgh and worked for the City of Edinburgh Council, whose approach was different. It delivered the whole YMI target within the council, using its own staff, and did not work in partnership as much as Highland Council does. The approach is different from authority to authority.

There is £8 million going into this initiative, with some Scottish Government formula determining the distribution of the funds. I presume that councils must make a bid to get their share of the money based on that formula, and I assume that they have some sort of common approach to achieve that outcome. There must be something that is common in their approach.

You would need to speak to Creative Scotland about that. I know that authorities submit proposals and must show evidence that they have met their target for the previous year—that every child has had their year of free music before P6. Creative Scotland asks authorities to meet targets each year before it approves the next year of funding.

The approaches differ because different authorities choose different styles of music. Highland Council emphasises traditional music. When I worked in Edinburgh, a lot of vocal work took place. If there is a rich history of brass bands in the community, an authority might have more brass tuition. I understand that approaches vary among authorities.

I ask my next questions out of curiosity. By the time that they reach primary 6, every child should have had one year of free tuition. Is that aimed at a critical point? Is that better in P4 or P5? I understand what you said about the area with which you are familiar, but do you know whether there are accepted practices for that?

Primary 5 is the usual time for the provision, but some people are doing work in the early years and are starting earlier. Highland Council invests from primary 3 onwards, but the general age group is primary 5.

I think that primary 1s would struggle with a tuba.

Ms McAlpine talked about free provision. Although tuition might be free, one barrier to taking up an instrument is accessing an instrument. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, where tuition is free, do you have any idea whether families who cannot afford to purchase instruments have good access to them?

The national picture varies, especially among authorities that offer free tuition. My authority—West Lothian Council—does not charge for tuition. Generally, access to instruments is available at primary school. When children move to high school, parents are obliged to rent or buy an instrument.

I know from travelling around primary schools that, given the number of children who want to be involved in music, we could probably employ double or three times the number of instrumental teachers that we have. However, we must work within the resources that are in place.

That brings us neatly to the next question.

The first answer concerned budget constraints on local authorities, which are having an impact on a number of areas, of which music tuition is one. The overall number of teachers in Scotland has reduced significantly in the past few years. Has the number of music teachers and instrument tutors reduced? Are there enough teachers and tutors for the provision that we want?

We would love to have more tutors but, unfortunately, what you say is correct. As budgets have become tighter in the past few years, fixed-term or temporary contracts for staff have not been renewed, to allow councils to balance their budgets.

A reduction has taken place. Services are becoming more and more stretched in fulfilling their obligation to allow access to instrumental music tuition throughout authorities.

During the festival of politics at the Parliament, I attended an event at which I saw a presentation from the Sistema Scotland project. I understand that running that project costs about £1,700 per participant. What plans does Sistema Scotland have to roll out other projects across Scotland? Do the main barriers to delivering another project relate to finances or capacity?

The figure that I have is about £1,500, which is in the region of the figure that you mentioned. On the face of it, that might appear to be expensive, but we work with the whole community and not just with school-age children. We work with pre-school children, and an arm of our work in Stirling is with mothers, carers and babies. We are also engaging in adult education. From that perspective, we are looking to develop a lifelong model. What we are hoping to achieve is social change.

When we look at that figure, we should also consider other costs. One of my colleagues did an exercise to trace a problem family and worked out that, over seven years, that particular family cost £1.7 million—that was in other interventions.

The cost sounds expensive on the face of it, but we would like to look at it in the context of the whole community and the whole package.

We very much hope that we can roll out our project. We see Stirling very much as a pilot project and we would like to roll it out in other areas. We are in negotiations with other local authorities at various levels. Our recent concert in Stirling generated a lot of interest, and understandably so. It is something that we are very proud of.

Money is always an issue, but I hope that we can look beyond just the financial implications of a project such as ours and see the social benefits and the benefits to the whole community.

It is an absolutely wonderful project. I do not think that anyone who saw or heard the concert could think otherwise. In fact, I have my video recorder set to tape the documentary about it on Thursday night, when I believe that it will be rebroadcast.

What I find interesting is the transformational change in the community. I understand that you are now in the fourth year of a five-year project, so many of the young people who came to you as primary school students are now going to high school. Are you tracking their achievements in high school and the outcomes for the children to see whether the project has led to a change in their academic careers as well?

Yes. It is difficult to produce data at this stage, because the project is in its relative infancy. Of course, we have the Scottish Government report, which was done after three years. We are working with schools and we are looking to develop a model for tracking children so that we have some evidence at the end of the process that there has been an element of transformation and that the project has impacted on their education, on social wellbeing and on their families. As I said, however, the project is only four years old, so it is early days.

Is the project a direct lift from the project that is run in Venezuela, or are there are significant differences?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, from the perspective that we are seeking to immerse the children in music, which is very much what they do in Venezuela. The philosophy of the Venezuelan project is that being a member of the orchestra, being a member of a community and having an identity within that community are transformational. From that perspective, we lifted our philosophical basis from what happens in Venezuela. The Venezuelans have been very supportive. We have had a lot of input and a lot of mentoring from them, and a lot of encouragement as well.

I have been to Venezuela and seen the methods and modes of delivery there. Our teaching styles differ slightly as we operate in a different culture. Our children are used to learning and relating to adults and teachers in a different way from the children in Venezuela, so we have to take account of that. We are also keen to work with other agencies.

We have adopted some methodology that the Venezuelans do not necessarily use, but our Venezuelan mentors have been supportive and have encouraged us—and me, specifically from a musical perspective—to come up with a model that is relevant to Scotland and not to try to produce a carbon copy of what they do in Venezuela, particularly in relation to methodology.

10:30

Is the project funded directly from central Government finance and as part of a national programme?

Do you mean in Venezuela?

Yes.

Yes, it is. Maestro Abreu has managed to negotiate that through various different regimes. There are 500,000 children in the project in Venezuela. It is enormous.

Nobody doubts the impact of Sistema Scotland. Whether or not we can nail it down precisely, it is clearly having an impact. The intensity of the learning and the breadth of the wider social impacts that you are able to achieve are impressive indeed.

Has the wider delivery of music tuition in Stirling been impacted by having Sistema Scotland on its doorstep? Has the project had a knock-on effect because it attracts so much interest and because of its funding streams?

We have sought, and worked hard, to be as supportive of the local authority instrumental service as we can. We share resources with the service and have sent a number of our children to its events, as part of our aim is to integrate the children from the Raploch into the wider educational community. We have also run a number of training events to which we have invited the local authority.

We want be as supportive as we can be. We are not setting up in competition. Our aims are slightly different. We aim for musical excellence, but we are not out to be an alternative to the local authority, so we are supportive of it and see its staff as colleagues and partners.

I agree entirely with Clare Adamson that what you have achieved is fantastic, but we obviously want to try to allow that to happen in as many places as we possibly can. Mr Traynor mentioned opportunities for every pupil. If charges are introduced in some limited form—in his comments at the weekend, he said that he did not envisage there being any quick change in that regard—would there be any scope for cultural trusts or local businesses to be involved in helping to deliver some musical opportunities?

The EIS position is that instrumental music, as part of education, is funded centrally by local authorities and Government and has an important role to play in young people’s lives. The evidence for its educational benefits has been demonstrated throughout the world and here in the United Kingdom—by Professor Sue Hallam, for instance. That is for central Government and local authorities to fund; it should not be funded privately.

Sistema Scotland’s position is that it enhances that provision. It is right that it should work in partnership with tuition in schools. What Sistema Scotland has achieved is to be applauded and welcomed, but we need to ensure that every pupil in Scotland has access to instrumental tuition and the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, regardless of cost and geographical location.

So you are asking for a sea change in local authority priorities.

Yes.

Mr Cummings, do you apply for youth music initiative funding for Sistema Scotland?

I do not think so. I am almost 100 per cent sure that we have not applied to that initiative for funding.

According to your website, you do not receive any public money.

No. We have not had any public money until now. We have a professional fundraiser who takes care of that aspect, so I am not entirely sure. I do not want to be dishonest—to the best of my knowledge, we have not applied for youth music initiative funding.

I was just interested.

On the same theme, can Mr Traynor tell me whether his members are involved in the music delivery that is being charged for? Does that tuition take place during school time?

Yes. Much has been bandied about in the press about extracurricular activities, but instrumental lessons are delivered during the school day by instrumental staff. Those staff can prepare and deliver up to 60 per cent of an SQA candidate’s music exam.

Given the issue of charging, and given the projects that exist around the country, are there any young people who are seeking musical educational opportunities but are not being provided with them? Is there unmet demand out there?

The youth music initiative has been fantastic in meeting demand. The pathways to music project through Young Scot is a great way for young people in Scotland to access music.

Another initiative—which the youth music initiative funds—is the music plus scheme, which is run through the Scottish Music Centre in Glasgow. The YMI is very effective, and in my experience it has provided opportunities for young people who did not previously access music-making opportunities.

Our organisation has been doing a lot of work in Highland with a joint education and social work service in Inverness called the bridge. Those young people had very little—if any—arts provision at the bridge centre, but they have now written and recorded their own album of songs and held a CD launch.

We have been working in partnership with Live Music Now and Drake Music Scotland to address the needs of young people with additional support needs who were previously not accessing music making. We have two pupils at Drummond school in Inverness who are learning to play the fiddle.

Those routes have all been possible because of the YMI.

From EIS members’ perspective, as soon as any form of charging is introduced, a group will be excluded. We are finding with exemptions for free meals, for example, that it is the middle tranche—those who are just on the borderline—who are having to decide as families whether they can afford to pay those amounts each year or whether they have to focus on something else and prioritise.

We have no formal position on the YMI as our members are not really involved in it. We applaud and welcome it, and it has been groundbreaking. However, instrumental teachers are concerned about the longer-term strategy. Young people have their one year of free tuition, but where do they go then?

The difficulty is that if they live in a charging authority area, parents have to make choices. They might say, “My son or my daughter loved that; it was a fantastic opportunity and a great experience, and something that they would like to continue, but we cannot afford it”. Local authority instrumental services are at times finding it difficult to absorb the numbers that are involved in the YMI projects.

With regard to the pathway that Mark Traynor spoke about, in my experience at Fèis Rois, working in partnership with Fèisean nan Gàidheal and Highland Council, that model works well. We offer 12-week blocks of tuition in schools, and young people who have become really interested and want to continue can then access tuition either through the music service or through the series of after-school classes that Fèis Rois runs.

There is a ladder of progression: a young person can come to one of our music centres after school, and they might then come to one of the week-long residential courses that we run. Eventually, they might become part of our training programme for 16 to 25-year olds on the ceilidh trail, and it comes full circle 25 years later when many of them come back and teach for us. I do not know whether that is replicated in many—or any—other local authorities, but that partnership works well in Highland.

From an EIS perspective, we are looking for fairness across the board, and at present that is clearly not the case among authorities. There is a huge range in charging, from zero up to £340. It has been said that there is a postcode lottery in that regard, and effectively there is. One authority can be charging while the authority next door is not, and access and opportunities are then reduced considerably.

Is there any evidence that living in, say, a rural or remote area affects cultural participation with regard to physically accessing musical tuition?

The EIS cannot bring any evidence to the table on that matter. If, however, you wanted to surmise, I would imagine that geographical distances, especially in the Highland authority area, would cause huge problems. We know, for example, of pupils who travel from as far as Wick to Inverness and Fort William to be involved in the area groups that get together every year. All that means additional costs and expenses for local authorities. Although we do not have any evidence, I imagine that that has a direct impact on pupils’ access to enjoying instrumental music.

Although it works nationally, Fèis Rois has been looking at different strategies to deal with the vast geography of Ross-shire, which is where we are based and where much of our after-school provision takes place. Children from Scoraig, for example, will not be able to get to one of our after-school music centres so in the holidays we run one-week residential courses that those young people can access. In between times, young people and their teachers can access on our website the free-to-download online learning resources that we have been developing.

I suppose that an important part of Sistema Scotland’s philosophy is that the orchestra should reflect and be part of an existing community where the children are not dispersed.

Yes. It is all about the children belonging to the group and having a group identity. I suppose that it is like belonging to a gang—without, I hope, the criminal element. That is certainly important for children.

I cannot really answer your question about rural areas but there are large urban areas where, although music in schools might exist on paper, children are not necessarily accessing it. Cost is, of course, very important and we certainly support free instrumental lessons. However, as far as access is concerned, there are wider issues to take into account. I want to be careful about numbers—I am not entirely sure of them—but I think that there was only one child in the Raploch who played a stringed instrument. For whatever reason, the children on the estate were not accessing local instrumental services. That might be a question for another day, but we certainly feel passionately about the issue.

Is there a cost to those who participate in the Fèis Rois residential courses?

Yes. The courses are subsidised by various grants that we have managed to bring in from Highland Council and Creative Scotland, and our umbrella body receives funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise that it passes down to us. The real cost is about £350 per young person, but the charge for a residential place is £250. We also offer subsidised places and invite families to have conversations with us; we certainly try to treat people very much as individuals and look at things on a case-by-case basis.

My question is for Mr Traynor. We have heard about the very diverse methods of delivery of tuition and the very different reasons behind them; Sistema Scotland, for example, has a quite different background and set of outcomes to the fèis movement. We acknowledge your findings with regard to the differences in—and, if you like, the unfairness of—provision, with some people being denied tuition while others get it. I appreciate that finance is key to this issue.

10:45

I wonder whether your members have a feel for what a service should look like. Fèis Rois started because no traditional music was being taught in schools less than 30 years ago. Not only that, but no grants were available from the Scottish Arts Council for traditional music: “traditional” was seen a bit as being a dirty word.

Without a Catholic priest in Barra having started with a few families, would there be a Celtic Connections? I am not being flippant in asking that. More than 50 per cent of the first Celtic Connections concert came from a voluntary organisation that was delivering a service that was otherwise being denied people. In the great scheme of things, if we were doing some real blue sky thinking, would all such organisations have a place and a role in Scotland?

I do not know the figures. How many organisations are there in the fèis movement and how many children or young people are involved?

Approximately 40,000 young people in Scotland take part in fèisean, but Fèis Rois is the only one that has paid staff. Another 42 community fèisean are run by parents, teachers and volunteers in the community who deliver the residential model and some follow-on classes throughout the year.

Does that programme fit in or will it always be separate?

In an ideal world, there would be diversification. It is important that young people have the opportunity to embrace all cultures in music. YMI highlighted the point that very little Scottish traditional music was going on in the central belt, so the YMI money has opened that up for young people to experience. There is a place for everyone. Sistema Scotland has a definite role to play in the social context; other organisations can bring cultural and musical aspects to education.

We have a difficulty and we need to be careful because, as funding becomes ever tighter, groups that are all pulling in the same direction will be fighting for financial support to achieve the same goals. We who are sitting here today represent three different groups, but we have the same objectives. We need to be clear about that.

From the EIS perspective, instrumental music has historically been the responsibility of local government, which we want to continue. However, I see no reason why working in partnership or working together as one group within a local authority could not be achieved.

I might not be thinking this through properly, but I would have thought that all of your groups have different objectives; I do not think that they are the same. The objective of the fèis movement—for people to know and understand Gaelic and traditional music—is not the same as the social context in which Sistema Scotland works. I presume that academics and professional teachers are looking to teach quite differently and to attain different goals. Your objectives might complement one another, but I do not know that they are all the same.

I just want to clarify that all the teachers at Sistema are qualified musicians. As well as social transformation, we have a rigorous curriculum, which is why I was appointed to oversee the curriculum and ensure that what we deliver musically is of the highest order. Yes—we are a social transformation project and that is our primary aim, but the delivering of musical excellence and the best possible pedagogic models that we have adopted are important in that transformation.

I am sorry: it felt as though Jean Urquhart was saying that we do not take the content of what we deliver as seriously as some others do, but I assure you that we do.

One of the good strategic things that has come out of the youth music initiative is the funding that is available to establish music forums in every local authority area, with the aim of bringing everybody together. Fèis Rois was recently involved in establishing the Highland youth music forum, which has representatives from various groups. Norman Bolton, the instrumental music service manager in Highland, is on the forum, along with us and people who are involved in samba and jazz and so on. We are working together strategically. The young people who come to Fèis Rois see all music the same way. Some young people who come to our residential event in October are classical violinists who love traditional music and who also listen to Radio 1. We have to bear that in mind when we are looking at the bigger picture.

We have talked a lot about the budget pressures that local authorities are under. It is clear that council tax revenues do not provide the level of free music tuition that we want. Some councils charge for music tuition. Do you consider that to be a cultural tax?

I consider charging parents to be an additional tax. Although we talk about free instrumental tuition, we must be clear that it is not free, because the parents pay taxes, including council tax. Therefore, they are having to pay once again for something to which they feel they already contribute.

I echo Mr Cummings’s comments on the urban-rural dynamic. I represent a constituency that does not have the geographic scale of Highland or even Ross-shire, but it is geographically challenging when people have to get on a ferry or plane to access lessons. Nevertheless, Orkney and Shetland are blessed with a fine musical tradition. Part of the controversy on charging is, clearly, that Orkney and Shetland have taken a different approach in that context.

I appreciate that this question is probably more for COSLA or individual councils, but is there anything to suggest that the revenues that are raised through charging are being ring fenced for, or redirected into, expanding the range of instruments and types of music that are available to children and young people? Perhaps the money is even being used to encourage those who have been resistant to taking up a musical instrument. I appreciate that I am asking you to come up with a justification for something to which you are implacably opposed, but I am fishing around here.

You are right that that is a question for COSLA. If we looked into that, we would probably see that the money is not being invested in instruments, but is being used to shore up and subsidise the staff who are involved in running the service. That is my summary of the situation.

From the list of councils that are charging, is there any correlation between the councils that charge at the upper end and resistance to cuts in staffing or local provision? Alternatively, are councils that are not charging, or that are charging at the lower end, having to introduce cuts in numbers of teachers or available instruments?

To my knowledge, authorities have not increased staffing levels, so I surmise that the money that is being raised is being used to support what is already in place. As I said, that is a specific question for COSLA.

My understanding is that, because of the traditional music interest in Highland, the council has this year appointed two new instructors in piping and pipe-band drumming, and has invested in those instruments.

That is interesting.

Mr Cummings touched on issues in parts of the country with getting people involved, because of the nature of music provision. I acknowledge the benefits of the YMI at primary school level.

In physical education, there has been quite a substantial shift in how the subject is taught, in what is offered and in the language that is used to appeal to young people. Has that happened in music in the same way? If not, should that be considered in the context of the teaching of music in secondary school, so that it appeals broadly to what I think a member of the next panel has referred to as the “Britain’s Got Talent” generation?

Again, I would say that the difficulty is to do with resources in local authorities. There has been a considerable shift in the importance of PE and the emphasis that is placed on it, which would be extremely difficult to emulate in music, given the constraints of current staffing levels.

I am referring, in particular, to the kind of experiences that are offered rather than to the political focus. If someone had suggested fifteen years ago that dance would be incorporated in PE, they would have been laughed at—indeed, they were, as that was when it was suggested. Now, dance is considered to be an extremely effective way of bringing young people into physical activity. Is there a parallel there for music? Is that what Sistema does?

What Sistema offers is quite different from what is delivered in a typical secondary school classroom. The same is probably true of what most instrument teachers do. We seek to give young people a highly specific set of skills, which are to do with playing an instrument and all that that involves. Understandably, the secondary school curriculum is much broader than that.

I have been a secondary school teacher, and I think that there has been a broadening of the curriculum. Teachers work hard to make their subjects accessible and culturally relevant to the music that young people listen to. Some would say that things might have gone too far the other way; I do not know. Being culturally relevant, engaging children in technology and exploring the role of technology is something that we look to do at Sistema, because that is the language of the children whom we teach. I suppose that more could probably be done, but that idea is at the forefront of many musical educators’ thinking.

My question is directed at Mr Traynor. I remember, as a parent of children at school, getting a letter from Highland Council saying that music tuition would need to be paid for. I confess—if that is the right word—that I wrote back and asked why music, rather than maths, had been selected as a subject in which tuition had to be paid for.

The current situation is not new. Do you perceive it to be much worse than it was previously, or have your members been challenging the philosophy of charging for music for the past 20 years?

Charging has continued to increase. This year, 11 local authorities have announced increases that are well above the rate of inflation. Creativity is embedded at the heart of curriculum for excellence, so music has a vital role to play. If we remove it from young people’s education, curriculum for excellence will not work. Access continues to be restricted. To use a phrase of an old tutor of mine, we are returning to a phase of “Who pays plays”, which is not the culture that we are trying to encourage in Scottish education.

I hope that I speak for the rest of the committee when I say that there is tremendous support for music of all types and traditions around the table and across Scotland in general. I thank you and your members for their efforts in working with our young people in particular.

It is clear that provision across the country is inconsistent, patchy and unequal, and I know that members will want to take that up with the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs when she comes before us. Are there any other issues that you would like us to raise on that occasion? If you want to write to us with your suggestions, we would be happy to receive them.

Some joined-up thinking is necessary. The patchy nature of delivery and the content of that delivery could be greatly improved. I speak not as the director of music for Sistema but as a professional musician and teacher when I say that that could be examined and improved on. Such improvement would enrich lives—especially children’s lives—and would result in much greater cost efficiency. Most musicians and teachers would welcome that.

The EIS would look for a national policy on instrumental tuition. We would welcome a review to gather more information; we need a lot more information before we can move forward. We would like to see a national policy and more joined-up thinking among all the parties that are involved in music. Although we might look at things from different angles, ultimately our goal is the same: to allow our young people to access music and, through music, Scottish culture.

Thank you very much.

We will also write to COSLA to ask it to submit some written evidence on the issue.

I suspend the meeting for a few minutes while we have a change of witnesses.

11:01 Meeting suspended.

11:05 On resuming—