Education Committee, 01 Oct 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Official Report 203KB pdf

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Proposed Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill

Item 3 relates to the paper on the taking of evidence when the proposed Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill is introduced. The committee and members of the public will be aware that we have done some pre-legislative work on the bill. We will advertise for written evidence in due course and will choose witnesses from whom we should take oral evidence.

We might be able to avoid wasting time if we invite a number of the obvious interests to give oral evidence in the period immediately after the publication of the bill. Suggestions are before the committee as to the witnesses from whom we might hear on the three dates in November that are listed in the paper. The suggested witnesses include representatives from the Executive, service providers and professional and voluntary groups.

I suspect that the matter should be relatively straightforward. Does anybody disagree with any of the proposals? It is not a final list of witnesses; it is a kick-off list of witnesses.

I believe that George McBride is the person who deals with the area for the Educational Institute of Scotland. He has been involved in the area for many years and, if the committee agrees, I would like to hear his views.

We had it in mind that the Scottish Trades Union Congress might give us some guidance on the proper people to ask, given the plethora of unions involved.

George McBride has been involved in the matter for many years at a Scottish level.

The clerks have noted that.

I understand why the first three evidence-taking sessions have to feature the usual suspects—the people who talk rather than the people who do. It is true that the programme of committee visits enables us to go out to talk to people in the field, but I think that, in our later meetings, we should bring in some of the people who provide the service to talk to the committee. The slight risk involved in our going out to see them is that the evidence is not captured in quite as meaningful a way. Even though some of the evidence may be written down, it is not on the record for the committee in the same way. In the back-end evidence-taking sessions, I would like us to consider that, in addition to mainstreaming children with special needs, provision is increasingly geared towards providing additional support for learning, mainly around the behavioural agenda. Different practices are emerging in different schools and institutions to deal with that. In one of our evidence-taking sessions I would like us to investigate best practice in respect of the way in which support for behavioural issues is being offered.

That is a valid point, but we should probably make that decision when we agree who should give oral evidence at the meetings after the more general kick-off sessions.

I see that there will be up to seven evidence sessions, and I am just putting down a marker for the clerks as to how they should deal with the subsequent three sessions.

Absolutely. Our intention is to avoid wasting time between the publication of the bill and our receiving the written evidence. We want to get on and take evidence from people who clearly have views on the bill and whose evidence will be fairly well prepared.

I have no difficulty with the list of suggested witnesses, other than their number. I am aware that during the previous session, committees sometimes held fairly unwieldy meetings. It appears that there are too many people giving evidence at the meetings on 12 November and 19 November.

It is proposed that there will be panels of witnesses at those meetings.

I have sat in on many such evidence sessions, and I have to say that there is very little chance of our getting something meaningful out of the meeting on 19 November, given the proposal to take evidence from eight different groups. That will not work. They are all important witnesses, but we must divide up the evidence sessions in a way that works. I am not saying that we should not have witnesses from those organisations, but the dynamic of the committee is important.

By that time, we will have received written evidence from those organisations in preparation for the committee's meetings. We intend to have two panels at each meeting. I am not sure whether I agree that that is not workable, as I have seen that done reasonably well in other committees.

It is a question of experience. As a clerk, I have seen meetings that witnesses attended in panels and meetings at which witnesses gave evidence one after another. Panels can work, but a danger arises if a panel is too big. The panels could be limited to three witnesses each, but that is up to the committee.

It is not necessarily intended that we will hear from the organisations that are listed in the briefing paper. They are just examples of organisations that fall under those headings.

The committee must be conscious that it will have to spend a great deal of time on stage 1, which will mean meetings that start at half past 9 and continue until 12 or 12:30, which allows for panels with only three witnesses. We could have three one-hour sessions or two sessions of one hour and a half. I support the recommendation in the briefing paper, which is manageable.

I echo Wendy Alexander's point. When we reach the last three or four meetings, the witnesses must be people who deal with the subject from day to day. We must start to trawl for them now.

Can we ensure that, on 5 November, the Executive officials brief us on the financial memorandum, which we have identified as crucial? We might want to return to that, but we must hear from them about it.

I do not want to go into issues that we might discuss later. Can we concentrate on the present issue? Would Ken Macintosh be satisfied with restricting the number of witnesses on panels to three? Would that be fine?

We should have one witness per organisation.

Yes. The intention is not to have more than one witness from each organisation. Do we approve the paper and give the clerks a steer on organising witnesses for the November meetings?

Members indicated agreement.