Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill: Stage 2
This afternoon we will consider the next stages of the bill. We have had a slight delay, because we are a few members short, but we need to make progress.
After section 12
We had completed section 12. The next amendment is amendment 111, which is grouped with amendments 106 and 107. Is any member prepared to move it?
Although I do not want to speak to the amendment, I shall move it, to allow the committee's views to be heard on the subject.
I move amendment 111.
No members have made any comments, so I assume that the minister does not wish to reply.
I am unclear procedurally whether Karen Gillon wishes to push the amendment at this point.
I do not want to put it to a vote. I moved it to allow members to express an opinion if they wanted to do so.
Nobody wants to comment on the amendment or to put it to a vote.
Amendment 111, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 41—Functions of the Council
We now come to amendment 78.
This amendment seeks to give the General Teaching Council an additional function, to accredit courses of continuing professional development for teachers. It is, to some extent, a probing amendment. I will be interested to hear the minister's views. It is fair to acknowledge that the Executive has already made it clear that it wants to make CPD the accepted norm for teachers and it is working towards the establishment of an active register, something to which I give my full support.
The ministerial strategy committee has been set up to examine this in more detail under the minister's convenership. The bill also gives the GTC a limited role, at this stage, in CPD. I understand that the Executive has given a commitment to review the position in five years' time.
I have lodged this amendment because I fear that the Executive is seeking to move too slowly in this regard. The GTC already approves courses for initial teacher education so there is a certain logic to the argument that, as we move towards CPD being the norm for teachers, it should also fall to the teachers' professional body to accredit CPD courses. I am slightly fearful that the delay of five years means that the Executive is seeking to move too slowly.
The view of the GTC is that, as things stand at the moment, it has the expertise and experience to undertake the accreditation of CPD courses now. I look forward to the minister's comments. My fear—and I know that it is shared by the GTC—is that if we wait five years until we review the situation, it will be some time after that, assuming that the view of whatever Executive is in power at that stage is to proceed to allow the GTC to accredit courses, before that becomes a reality. I am not convinced that we could not move more quickly towards that end objective.
I am hopeful of hearing assurances from the minister this afternoon that we could move more quickly, even if what the Executive is saying is that, in five years' time, we could be in the position where the GTC would be the accrediting body. That would be much more satisfactory than what is envisaged at the moment.
I move amendment 78.
I trust that it is okay, under parliamentary rules, for me to take my jacket off. I will assume so, unless you rule me out of order.
I thank Nicola Sturgeon for making clear the context in which she has put down this amendment. I hope that I will be able to give her the reassurances that she seeks.
She has indicated that the effect of the amendment would be to require the GTC to accredit courses of continuing professional development for teachers. I will make it clear that we have not ruled out such a role for the GTC. We see the GTC's role potentially expanding in a number of respects over time. This is one of the areas in which we imagine it would expand significantly.
The other point I will make is about the five years that Nicola Sturgeon mentioned. We have made it clear that the primary reason that we have taken power in this bill to confer additional functions on the GTC by order is to be able to allow the GTC to take on powers in the future in the area of teachers' continuing professional development, if it is desirable. We do not see the five-year limit as necessarily applying to this matter. That recommendation came from the consultants report. In relation to CPD, it is not in our mind that we would only consider that matter after five years.
We are suggesting that it is not advisable to be specific at this moment about what the task for the GTC should be in relation to CPD. We therefore suggest that it is not appropriate at this time—and I stress at this time—to place this in the bill. There was no consensus in the consultation, among all the consultees who responded, about what the GTC's precise role should be in relation to continuing professional development. There was a lack of clarity in a number of the responses.
As I indicated, we are committed to strengthening the skills, subject knowledge and professionalism of teachers throughout their careers. As Nicola Sturgeon also indicated, a strategy committee is being established for CPD, which I will chair. I hope that it will meet later this month. We hope to make announcements about the precise membership very soon. The membership will comprise teachers, head teachers and a number of outstanding individuals from education and business, who can bring expertise on CPD to bear on the needs of schools.
That committee's task will be to oversee the development of the framework and to draw up a strategy for CPD in the school sector. The precise role of the GTC in CPD and how it would relate to the possible establishment of a staff college—the arguments for which we have already rehearsed in another place—will be a matter for consideration by that strategy committee, on which the GTC will also be represented.
I would not rule out piloting arrangements involving the GTC at a fairly early point, if that is what the strategy committee wishes to do. Against that background, it is our view that it is not wise, at this stage, to put a duty on the GTC to accredit courses of staff development, especially when it is not clear precisely what the implications might be. For example, would the GTC look at providers or at courses? Which courses would it accredit? Would it be all courses, however short and whoever provides the courses? What about validation of provision other than courses? What about the role of universities and so on? We want to develop ideas on all those matters in the working group. That is why we want to have a slightly longer time horizon to agree on those matters, by consent, among all the parties, before we make use of the powers that we are seeking in the bill to allow the GTC to develop its role in this matter.
I make it clear that the five years that Nicola Sturgeon talked about is not in our mind. If we can move more quickly than that, we will certainly do so. On that basis, I hope that Nicola Sturgeon will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
I appreciate the minister's comments. I was keen to have a rehearsal of the arguments on this issue, principally to establish that we were not necessarily looking at a five-year time scale before the position would be reviewed. Subject to one or two comments that I will make about section 41 of the bill later on this afternoon, I am happy at this stage to accept the minister's comments and not to push this amendment to a vote.
Amendment 78, by agreement, withdrawn.
We now come to amendment 2, which is grouped with amendment 90.
I am keen to hear the minister's comments. I do not take issue with the fact that the GTC's role might develop and evolve over the years; indeed, I argued for that a few minutes ago. However, given that the functions of the GTC are laid out in primary legislation, I question the effect of this section of the bill, which allows ministers to add functions at a later stage. I know that the GTC has raised the question as well. I suggest that it would be better to have any new functions added by primary legislation as well.
I move amendment 2.
The purpose behind amendment 90 is to ensure that if the ministers decide to use this power, they must consult with the GTC. The bill lacks a requirement for consultation with the GTC, although perhaps one is implied. There needs to be direct consultation with the GTC before functions are added. I hope that the minister sees fit to accept the amendment.
I back up Karen Gillon's words, which make eminent sense. The amendment is not threatening, but ensures a belt-and-braces approach. It would be a good move for the minister to accept it.
On amendment 2, it is important to remember that, although we have an opportunity to create primary legislation for education and we will have further opportunities—far more than existed under previous constitutional arrangements—it is not an everyday event. The bill seeks to set out a change in the provisions for the GTC and enhance its powers.
Equally, we recognise that we cannot anticipate every event in the course of primary legislation and that there are reasons why it might be appropriate for ministers to have powers to add functions over time. In an earlier debate, I gave examples of continuing professional development. That was the prime motivating factor for the inclusion of this clause. This afternoon, for example, we will discuss the role of the GTC in matters of incompetence. The power in the bill could be used to give the GTC executive functions in the areas of professional development and so on, in addition to its advisory role in continuing professional development, which has already been made explicit in the bill.
The powers set out in section 41(3) allow us to act quickly without waiting for primary legislation and the opportunities that that would present in the light of the committee's deliberations. I remind the committee that safeguards are built into the provision. An order made under the provision would be subject to negative resolution procedure and therefore the provision does not give ministers an absolute power. In that context, we feel that the provision is reasonable.
Amendment 90, from Karen Gillon, offers an additional check as it would require Scottish ministers to consult with the GTC before any new functions were allocated. I welcome that and I accept that the proposal ensures that there is no doubt that the Executive intends to work with the GTC on the matter of its role and functions. In that context, her amendment is helpful. I encourage the committee to accept amendment 90 and reject amendment 2.
I am happy not to press amendment 2 on the basis that the minister accepts Karen Gillon's amendment.
Amendment 2, by agreement, withdrawn.
Amendment 90 moved—[Karen Gillon]—and agreed to.
The next amendment is amendment 3.
I cannot speak for Brian Monteith, whose amendment this is, but I am supporting the amendment in order to ascertain the intention of this section. The section is vaguely worded and imprecise. Because of that, teachers are concerned that the section might be used—if not by this Executive, by future Executives—in a way that is against the spirit of the section. I want to ascertain the kind of information that the GTC could be ordered to supply, in what circumstances and to whom.
I move amendment 3.
I am grateful for Nicola Sturgeon's display of trust of this Executive.
My tongue was in my cheek.
I am grateful for the opportunity to explain the matter, as it is simple. The section is not in any way overprescriptive. We included the provision because the new General Teaching Council for England will be required, under statute, to refuse registration to a person whose name has been removed from the register of the GTC for Scotland or who has been refused registration on grounds of misconduct or criminal conviction.
The provision does not limit the GTC's ability to provide information at its own hand and we hope that the supply of relevant information will happen as a matter of course. However, it seems reasonable to take this fallback power, given the need for the GTC in England to have information about eligibility for registration in Scotland in order to fulfil its statutory duties. There are safeguards built in to the provision: again, an order made under it would be subject to negative resolution procedure. I hope that that information will allow the amendment to be withdrawn.
I will not press this amendment to a vote. Given the minister's explanation, I must say that the provision could be more tightly worded as the provision is relevant to only one situation. There might be scope at stage 3 for an amendment that could tighten up the legislation and ease some of the fears in this suspicious and cynical world. I accept that the provision is subject to negative resolution. That gives this committee and the Parliament a say before the power is used.
Amendment 3, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 41, as amended, agreed to.
Section 42—Constitution of the Council
This is where it gets interesting. Amendment 4 is grouped with amendments 91, 92, 93, 94, 5, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 112, 101, 102 and 103. I would ask Brian Monteith to speak to the amendments, but he still is not with us. Nicola?
I should reassure the committee that I will not be making a habit of doing Brian Monteith's job for him. One can only speculate about what has detained Brian. No doubt we will read about it in his diary in The Herald next week.
I am happy to move amendment 4. It is fair to say that the section of the bill that the amendments relate to has caused a great deal of consternation in the GTC and the teaching profession. There is a feeling that section 42 is an attack on teachers and their professional body, in that it tries to dilute the influence of the profession on its professional body. That body is funded by teachers and they look to it to maintain standards in education and to regulate the teaching profession.
I have heard nothing that has persuaded me that we need to reduce the number of teachers who are represented on the council, thereby reducing the teaching majority to one. That would be a bit mean-minded—a majority of one would be almost as bad as no majority at all. The GTC has pointed out that all it would take for the teaching majority on the council to be wiped out would be for one teacher member not to be present.
The provisions are against what I hope is the spirit of the bill. They are viewed as an attack on the role of teachers in their own professional body, and I think that there are grounds for believing that view.
I move amendment 4.
Nicola Sturgeon is right: there has been considerable discussion, over the piece, about the teaching majority in the GTC. The committee took evidence on that and recognised the new public duty responsibility that the bill will place on teachers and the need for that duty to be part of the GTC's function. However, it is important that we send a signal to teachers that this is not about diminishing their role or attacking them, and should certainly not be seen as that.
Amendment 91 would increase the majority to two. A majority of one could be wiped out easily if someone were ill, or for some other reason. A move to a majority of two would give some safeguard—not as much as some people would like, but a move in the right direction. If the teaching profession's majority ever needed to be used against the wider group that forms the rest of the GTC, that would be a sad day for Scottish education. By increasing the majority to two, we would provide some safeguard, but I hope that the majority would not need to be used. Increasing the majority would be a signal to teachers, rather than an encouragement for one side to vote against the other in future deliberations.
I support that. I, too, am concerned about the majority of one, because I do not think that it would be workable. I support a majority of two, but I hope that it would not need to be used every time.
Amendments 101 and 103 concern part-time working. Sessional teachers such as music teachers, many of whom are women, would be excluded. The amendments are an attempt to define the time as one fifth of full time rather than half, and to recognise that a number of teachers who do sessional work do not work the same hours as full-time teachers.
I endorse what Karen Gillon said, but I also want to reinforce the worries that Nicola Sturgeon expressed. I do not like the idea that teachers should feel that their majority has been cut to the bone. I am quite happy to support Karen's amendment to increase the majority to two, but I think that there is an argument for another one yet. We might come back to that.
Like Karen Gillon and, I think, everyone else here, I hope that the GTC does not often work in a way that is thought of as taking sides—teachers against the rest. I do not think that it does, in practice, and I hope not, but cutting the majority to the bone does not look good. I am glad that we have an opportunity to extend that majority a wee bit, and I will be thinking about whether we need to extend it a wee bit further.
I am perfectly happy with Karen Gillon's amendment. As Ian Jenkins just hinted, it should not be down to majorities but to matters of principle, or rules—essential tests—that would be applied to the whole mechanism.
I could have lived quite happily with a majority of one. It is not just the case that someone on the teaching side could be away; someone could be missing from the non-teaching representatives. If we can send out the right signals by upping the majority to two, I am happy with that. I hope that the minister accepts the amendment.
We are on section 42, Brian, if you want to speak to your amendments.
Thank you. I apologise for my delay in getting here.
With my amendments, I wanted to give the minister a variety of options—not that he could not dream them up for himself. In a sense, some of the amendments may seem quite contradictory; in fact, some of them clearly are. That is because they present a number of options, some of which have been argued to me by representatives of the various bodies that are involved in the GTC.
The basis of the amendments is to maintain the teacher majority in a substantial form, and to do that in one of two ways: first, to remove a number of positions and replace them with others and, secondly, to more or less revert to the current position. I have no strong views on how the majority should be maintained, but I thought it would be helpful to have a choice, so that we could detect whether the minister ruled out both options or was attracted to a particular route in changing the composition of the GTC.
I am grateful for Brian Monteith's ever-helpful approach to such matters.
This is a complex group of amendments. I will try to deal with the impact of each amendment, but first I have two general points. Nicola Sturgeon said that section 42 was being interpreted in some quarters as an attack on teachers. I want to make it absolutely clear, from the Executive's point of view, that that is not in any sense, shape or form what we seek to do. We have no desire to do that. If we had wanted to attack teachers, perhaps even the majority of one would not have been included in the bill.
The majority of one is included in the bill for the clear purpose of signalling that we want teachers to be in the majority on the GTC. However, the other major point of context is that we must always remember that the GTC, under the proposals in the bill, is being given additional powers. I flagged up earlier in today's meeting that we envisage further powers and duties flowing to the GTC over time. Most important, there is a new public interest duty on the GTC. That is a solemn duty, which has to be taken very seriously indeed.
In that context, we want to try to ensure an appropriate balance between teaching and the other interests that require to be brought to bear around such matters. That underpins what we have proposed, which in no way should be seen as a desire to attack or undermine the role of teachers—rather the reverse. We have high ambitions for enhancing the professional status of teachers across a whole range of things.
I will move amendment 102 later, but first I want to speak to other amendments in the group, which all concern the constitution of the GTC. We believe firmly that it is time, after 35 years, to look closely at the GTC's constitution to ensure that it enables the GTC to play its part in improving the quality of teaching in the 21st century. Our proposals for the GTC give it more power and influence, with the potential, as I said earlier, for even more power to follow.
The GTC carries increasing public responsibility for standards with its new public interest duty, as I have explained. We want to ensure balance and the representation of relevant interests in the GTC membership. The GTC's constitution must also change if it is to carry out extended duties in a way that reflects its new public interest role. The council exists to regulate the teaching profession, enhance teachers' professionalism and promote the standing of the profession, and we are committed to registered teachers having a majority of places on the council.
The teaching profession exists to serve a wider public interest, and it is right that those interests are adequately represented on the council. Around 75 per cent of the respondents who commented on the proposals for the appointment of nominated members either supported them or would like to see more representation from non-teacher interests, or a wider range of interests, on the GTC. In my view, many of the proposed amendments would not strike the right balance between teacher members and those representing the wider public interest.
Brian Monteith's amendments—amendments 4 and 5—would retain the elected teacher membership at 30 and increase the overall membership of the council to 54. During consultation there was little or no support for increasing the council from its present size of 49: some would say that even that is too big. The amendments would also remove the proposed head teacher membership categories. I shall return to that shortly.
Amendments 92 to 94, also lodged by Brian Monteith, seek to revise proposals for members appointed or nominated to the GTC. In amendment 92, Brian Monteith suggests that three head teachers should be appointed to the GTC, although he does not say how that should be achieved. For that reason, the amendment would probably not be wholly effective and it would remove from the GTC appointed representatives of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. I agree with him that the role of the head teacher is critical, but the appointment of head teachers in place of directors of education does not seem to be the way to recognise that.
With amendment 93, Brian Monteith seeks to remove the provision for the Association of Directors of Social Work to appoint a member. Again I find that rather surprising, given the links between education and social work that we have discussed at previous meetings of this committee. It is totally at odds with the view, held by many, that closer links between the professions are in children's best interests.
Mr Monteith proposes in amendment 94 that the number of ministerial appointments on the council should remain at four, rather than six as we are proposing. The number of nominees has increased from four to six because we have taken account of the interests that require to be represented on the council. I stress that the nominated members do not sit as representatives of the Executive, and of course they are appointed in accordance with the code of practice of the commissioner for public appointments—the Nolan or Neill committee procedures as they tend to be know. At least one nominee will represent each of the following: parents, business and special education needs. Again, in the consultation exercise there was no consensus among those consulted on any other way of having parents and business represented on the GTC.
Amendments 96 to 98 and amendment 100 address the elected teacher membership. In amendments 96 and 98, Brian Monteith proposes the removal of the two head teacher categories in the elected membership. Consultation supported the division of the elected teacher representation into separate constituencies, and the constituencies for head teachers were seen as particularly important. While the present arrangements have produced a reasonable distribution across the different grades of teachers, that distribution cannot be assured. We must remember that we are creating a law that must endure over a number of years, so we are seeking to guarantee that certain categories are represented by the way in which we construct the constitution. We believe that it is particularly important to have dedicated places for head teachers in view of their key role in leading and managing schools.
Amendments 97 and 100 would increase the number of elected schoolteachers, other than head teachers, from 14 to 22, and the overall number of elected teacher members from 25 to 26. The effect of the amendments, whether Brian Monteith intended it or not, is to prohibit head teachers from seeking elected membership of the GTC.
For the reasons that I have outlined, I cannot accept amendments 4, 5, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98 and 100, and I call on Brian Monteith not to press them.
Karen Gillon's amendments—amendments 91, 95 and 112—propose an increased number of teachers on the GTC so that the overall number of elected teacher members would increase from 25 to 26. As I have already explained, the Executive thinks that the proposal that there should be 25 elected registered teachers on the council strikes the right balance between elected teacher members and representatives of the wider interest, given the increased public responsibilities that I have referred to. Among other things, we want to ensure that the allegation can never be levelled at the GTC that it is dominated by teachers—and teachers from one teaching organisation in particular. That would not serve the GTC well. However, I have listened carefully to what Karen Gillon has said and to what Jamie Stone has said in support of her.
We have been looking to strike an appropriate balance in the GTC membership. It was never our intention to send teachers a message that their role on the GTC was being downgraded in any way and I wish to make clear that their role is not being downgraded, as I hope I made clear earlier. Karen Gillon's intention is to send a clear signal that the teacher role still remains crucial. We support that. Karen also referred to the fact that we need to protect the public interest duty and the future reputation of the GTC as a balanced organisation. If we can help to send the signal that Karen Gillon has called for, which to some extent Nicola Sturgeon and Brian Monteith also called for—although I should say that I am not significantly altering the public interest balance that I have referred to and which we hold to be crucial in this equation—we would be happy to do so, so I urge acceptance of Karen Gillon's amendments.
Amendments 101 and 103 have been lodged by Cathy Peattie. She has explained why she lodged them and she has spoken to me several times outwith the committee. The Executive's policy is that elected members should be active teachers. That underlies what we are trying to achieve, but I agree that the previous thresholds may have ruled out many part-time teachers from standing, even though they could make a valuable contribution to the GTC. I am therefore pleased to signal that the Executive would be happy to accept amendments 101 and 103.
Finally, amendment 102 would make the GTC's electoral scheme provide that only head teachers are able to vote for head teacher candidates in GTC elections. If we are to embed, as we want to, the role of head teachers in GTC membership, rather than rely on chance to ensure that they are properly represented, we should ensure that the appropriate voting arrangements are in place. Our view is that it is sensible for head teachers to vote for other head teachers in their sector. As peers, they are most likely to know the candidates and take most interest in ensuring that the best representation exists. It is important to note that the amendment does not alter the basic principle that it is for the GTC to produce its election scheme itself.
I do not have much to say. I heard the minister's comments and his assurances that this part of the bill is not intended as an attack on teachers. Nevertheless, it is inescapable that that is the way in which it has been received by the teaching profession. I am glad that the minister has shown some signs of recognising that in signalling his acceptance of Karen Gillon's amendments. However, I wish to push amendment 4 to a vote. I heard the minister's comments on the public interest and reforming the GTC, but the case has not been made for reducing the teacher majority that currently exists. The objectives that the minister has for the GTC can be realised without reducing the number of teachers who are represented on it.
The question is, that amendment 4 be agreed to. Are we all agreed?
No.
There will be a division.
For
Fiona McLeod (West of Scotland) (SNP)
Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP)
Against
Karen Gillon (Clydesdale) (Lab)
Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab)
Mr Kenneth Macintosh (Eastwood) (Lab)
Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab)
Cathy Peattie (Falkirk East) (Lab)
Mr Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Abstentions
Ian Jenkins (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD)
The result of the division is: For 3, Against 6, Abstentions 1.
Amendment 4 disagreed to.
Amendment 91 moved—[Karen Gillon]—and agreed to.
Is amendment 92 being moved?
I wanted to make a few brief comments in response to the minister. Have we moved beyond that stage?
The debate has already taken place, Brian.
In that case, I will not move the amendment.
Amendments 92 to 94 and 5 not moved.
Amendment 95 moved—[Karen Gillon]—and agreed to.
Amendments 96 to 98 and 100 not moved.
Amendment 112 moved—[Karen Gillon]—and agreed to.
Amendment 101 moved—[Cathy Peattie]—and agreed to.
Amendment 102 moved—[Peter Peacock]—and agreed to.
Amendment 103 moved—[Cathy Peattie]—and agreed to.
Amendment 6.
Not moved.
Sorry—I had just kept going. We now come to amendment 6, which is on its own.
Sorry—I thought that we had covered that amendment.
You did say "not moved" but I will let you off.
Like a broken record.
Do you want to speak to and move amendment 6, Brian?
We have debated it, have we not?
No.
It has been selected for debate on its own.
I lodged this probing amendment to tease out the minister's view on the starting date of the changes detailed in subsection (5). I want to know whether he has any intention of pressing for 31 October 2001. Does he agree that, having just elected a council, it might be more proper to expect that council to take on the role of instituting and preparing for the changes brought about by the bill? Would that not be preferable to the council having to demit office in less than two years—no sooner than it is established?
I move amendment 6.
I oppose the amendment. If we set up a new system and a new council, we should encourage the council to take up its duties and provide adequate training beforehand. If the bill is to be viewed as the way forward for Scottish education, it is appropriate to proceed with the new council and its new make-up in place, with adequate support and training for it to take up its role.
There is no sinister motive behind subsection (5). As I have already said, and as we have debated today and at stage 1, the proposals set out in the bill represent a substantial package of measures to increase the powers of the GTC and to strengthen its public interest role. The revised constitution, which was the subject of extensive consultation, is integral, and it seems perfectly reasonable to enact the provisions at as early a date as practicable, to get on with the new job and to allow the GTC to get on with its job as soon as possible.
We are entirely confident that the GTC will have ample time to revise its electoral scheme and to run an election. A significant part of the GTC's concern over this matter—I know this as I met some of its representatives last week, and the matter was raised with me—relates to the cost of the election falling at an earlier point than planned, and earlier than the GTC's building-up of its budget for that election. The cost therefore falls directly on individual teachers. I recognise that point of concern.
I have asked the GTC to write to me formally so that I can give the matter formal consideration. We are determined to progress to the new setting as quickly as we can and to allow the GTC to develop its new role as quickly as we can. That is the simple purpose underlying subsection (5); we do not think that that it is unreasonable and I hope that Brian Monteith, in that spirit, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
I am pleased that the minister is listening to the GTC on these matters. Teachers are paying for this; I hope that if they write to the ministers in nice terms, he will be nice back.
Thank you for that.
I am interested to hear the minister's views. I am content with the fact that he is in correspondence with and is meeting the General Teaching Council. I hope that the discussion on the budget cost of the election will be taken on board. I ask to withdraw amendment 6, although I look forward to a future announcement that might prevent my lodging a similar amendment at stage 3.
Amendment 6, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 42, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 43 and 44 agreed to.
Section 45—Provision of information to Council
We now come to amendment 104, which is grouped with amendments 7, 8, 9, 48, 10 and 11.
Amendments 104 and 48 seek to do two things: first, to begin to define clearly the respective roles of employer and professional body and, secondly, to draw better the distinction between a teacher's competence to be a member of the teaching profession and their fitness for a particular job.
Neither amendment 104 nor amendment 48 seeks to take away from the role, power or responsibility of local authorities as the employers of teachers. Neither amendment is intended to impinge on local authorities: they do not take anything away.
My concern is that the GTC's only role as regards the competence of teachers comes when a local authority takes action to dismiss a teacher. That is the only circumstance in which the professional organisation can become involved in questions of competence. There are two problems with that. First, it is my view that the General Teaching Council should have a role in competence cases that is independent of that of local authorities. At the moment, it can get involved only if a local authority decides to act in a particular way.
The GTC's having a role independent of local authorities would mean that if a local authority decided not to take any action against a teacher, but there was concern on the part of parents, fellow teachers or a head teacher that there was a problem with the competence of a teacher, the matter would be referable to the GTC, which would be able to investigate the complaints.
That is the thinking behind amendment 48. It would allow complaints or concerns about a teacher's competence to be taken directly to the GTC without first having to wait for the local authority to take action.
The second point, which amendment 104 relates to, is that the GTC should—in my view—have the power to become involved in competence cases at a much earlier stage than is possible at the moment. There is an argument for saying that—as is the case for misconduct cases—the GTC should be able to become involved when there are concerns about a teacher's competence before a local authority dismisses a teacher. Amendment 104 would allow that earlier intervention. It may not spell that out precisely, but it envisages a support role for the GTC for teachers and local authorities to try to resolve situations before the stage of disciplinary action leading to dismissal.
The other thing that amendment 104 does—or begins to do—is draw a distinction between competence and fitness for a job. It is clearly the role of an employer to determine whether a teacher is fit for a particular job. The professional body should determine competence to remain a member of a profession. It is right that the GTC should be able at an early stage to make a preliminary determination of competence—although, as I said at the start, amendment 104 would not tie the hands of a local authority. There is nothing in the amendment that would oblige a local authority to accept the findings of the General Teaching Council at that stage.
The aim of both amendments is to begin properly to distinguish the respective roles of the GTC and the local authority. Crucially, amendment 48 would allow direct referrals to the GTC from persons other than local authorities, which means that the GTC would have a role independent of local authorities.
I move amendment 104.
I echo much of what Nicola Sturgeon has said and support the basis of her argument. I would be happy to support amendment 104. Nicola's amendment and the series of amendments that I have lodged are two different ways of achieving the same thing. I am suggesting, particularly in amendment 10, the establishment of a complaints sub-committee that would act as a filter, receiving complaints about teachers' professional conduct in the classroom from parents of children at state schools or schools where registered teachers work, and from head teachers and colleagues. To reflect the concern about teaching standards, I think it important that we make the process as open as possible. It would be no different from the processes that are in place for lawyers, accountants, architects and so on. This committee has heard a great deal of evidence on that subject.
The purpose of the complaints sub-committee would be to weed out vexatious and trivial complaints before forwarding cases to the disciplinary sub-committee, if it believed that there were grounds for doing that. Again, this is about extending the complaints process beyond the employer. Local authorities already employ accountants and lawyers, and they have no objection—at least, we have heard no objection voiced—to the Law Society and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland presiding over professional conduct procedures against lawyers and accountants.
I do not regard teachers as a very different case and I do not see how such a procedure would interfere with the proper role of a local authority or independent school. If there are technical problems with my amendment, I would be happy not to move it and to seek a similar proposal from the minister. However, if the minister is not minded to do that, I would like to hear from him why he believes there is a difference between lawyers and accountants and teachers.
It is not for me to steal the minister's thunder, but there is a big difference between lawyers and accountants and teachers. Most teachers, apart from those in the independent sector, are employed by local authorities. Last week I made no apologies for coming from the local authority perspective on this. With all due respect, Nicola Sturgeon is being disingenuous. She said that she does not wish to undermine the role of local authorities, but everything else she said indicates that her amendments would do that. People do not need two brain cells to see how the detail of amendments 104 and 48 would undermine directors of education.
It is more important even than that. Schools belong to local authorities and they must belong locally. That is why there are councillors. For that reason, I could not in a million years support either of Nicola Sturgeon's amendments or Mr Monteith's amendments. I urge the committee not to compare the teaching profession with architects and lawyers, as they are very different. Most lawyers work for legal firms and most architects work for firms of architects, although it happens that some work for local authorities. However, we are comparing apples and pears. I owe Brian Monteith that for his column last week.
I agree with Jamie. There is no way that I could support these amendments. There is an issue of accountability. Local authorities employ teachers and manage schools, and they are elected by local people to do that. When there is a problem, it is up to local authorities and the trade unions that represent the teachers to find a way forward.
I came into this debate with an open mind; I was open to persuasion and remain so. However, I have not yet been persuaded of the case for these amendments. When we took evidence, I tried to tease out some of these issues. I was not convinced that the GTC had the mechanisms in place to take on this role, but I wanted to see whether there was something that we could do.
I looked carefully at amendment 104 to see whether there was any way in which it could balance out the local authority's role as an employer with the professional role of the GTC. In a former life, I was a trade union lay activist. The amendment is a gift to the teachers. Under this amendment, if the GTC said that a teacher was competent, they could not be sacked, as the case would never get past an industrial tribunal. The employer would have great difficulty sacking a teacher if they found them to be incompetent. We need to consider that further.
There is a role for the GTC in determining competence and we must continue to investigate that, but I do not think that the forms of words that have been proposed so far are correct. We need a balanced arrangement that allows the local authority to continue to act as the employer. The public see a distinct difference between teachers and lawyers. Teachers educate people's children and therefore have a special role and a responsibility to parents and the wider community. They are held in high regard, which is not true of all lawyers and accountants. I do not think that we want the teaching profession to go down that road.
We need to look into whether the GTC should consider issues of competence as part of the public duty aspect of its responsibilities—whether it has a duty to examine how local authorities are carrying out their functions and to ensure that, if parents make complaints, they are investigated properly and adequately. Sometimes, parents are concerned that an investigation of their complaint has not taken place. They might be happy with the outcome if they were convinced that a proper investigation had been conducted.
I, too, have a problem with amendment 104. The relationship between the actions of the local authority and those of the GTC is finely balanced and I do not think that amendment 104 strikes the right balance. I accept the point that Karen Gillon has just made about the evidence that we received from the GTC. We may need to examine the GTC's role in dealing with complaints, but from its evidence it was apparent that it had not considered in sufficient detail how its role might change. As a result, the representatives of the GTC were unable to answer questions that were put by a number of members. There may be room to review this, but I do not think that the amendments that are currently before us would improve on what is suggested in the bill.
I echo the points that you and Karen Gillon made, convener. The evidence that we have heard so far is that amendment 104 would mean that the GTC could supersede local authority decisions. That is, in effect, what would happen if the GTC were to be notified, as the amendment says,
"before holding a disciplinary hearing".
I was sympathetic to Nicola's argument that the GTC's role and competence should be extended. However, I do not think that this amendment is the one to do that. It will get in the way, at least of local authorities. Moreover, I have strong reservations about the disciplinary procedures of the Law Society of Scotland and the British Medical Association, so I am not sure that their procedures should necessarily be held up as good examples for the teachers to follow.
Nicola Sturgeon is well able to look after herself. However, her amendment, for which I have already voiced support, is an attempt to avoid some of the problems—which a number of members have mentioned—with having a procedure for dealing with incompetence prior to an authority getting into difficulty.
Members should remember—it was clear in the evidence—the considerable experience of the GTC in dealing with misconduct of teachers. The GTC can already keep teachers on the register who have been dismissed for misconduct by local authorities. There are examples of teachers having been dismissed and the GTC subsequently ruling that their misconduct did not require them to be removed from the register, much to the embarrassment of the employer.
Jamie Stone said that the comparison was like apples and pears. Local authorities are employers. They employ lawyers, accountants and architects—professionals—just as they employ teachers. It is interesting that, in the discussions that I have had so far, I have found no opposition from the trade union movement to my amendments. Indeed, I have found support from members of trade unions.
That is the point that I made.
The idea that the GTC is inexperienced and unable to deal with the matter, that it does not have the resources and that it would be out on a limb is wrong. It has the resources and the experience and would enjoy trade union support, as it offers a more impartial way of dealing with what is, as we all know, a rather small problem in the profession—incompetence.
An independent body that has teacher involvement, is funded by teachers and has a teacher majority—a point emphasised today—rather than an employer majority, strengthens, in many ways, the employee's hand. I believe that the amendments are helpful to the teaching profession rather than distressing.
I am sympathetic to many of the comments that have been made. Although I started out by saying that amendments 48 and 104 are linked, which they are, they can also be treated separately for the purposes of this discussion.
Amendment 48 proposes something very specific: to give the GTC—or, more accurately, parents and other teachers—the same powers for cases of incompetence as it has for misconduct cases. All the amendment says is that it is illogical and indefensible that someone who has a genuine concern about a teacher cannot take that concern to the GTC unless a local authority has already taken action to dismiss that teacher. That situation is hard to defend before a parent or group of parents who have real concerns about a teacher, in a case where a local authority, for whatever reason, refuses to take any action. There is nothing the parent or parents can do. It is ridiculous that they have no right of recourse to the teachers' professional body. That situation does not arise in cases of misconduct. The amendment has much to commend it.
The fact that local authorities employ lawyers and so on is a reasonable point. I do not suggest that we should seek to copy the procedures of the Law Society of Scotland or the General Medical Council exactly; I am not arguing that for a moment. However, if a member of the public has a gripe about a lawyer who is employed by a local authority, he or she can go to the Law Society and have the case investigated, regardless of whether the local authority employer decides to take any form of disciplinary action against that lawyer. As a matter of principle, I see no reason why the same situation should not exist for teachers. I do not think that anybody has anything to fear from that.
At one of the meetings at stage 1, Karen Gillon raised a valid point about vexatious complaints. I concede that the wording of amendment 48 may not be specific enough, but perhaps it could be tightened up at stage 3. However, all professional bodies that take complaints directly from the public have procedures to filter out vindictive, malicious or vexatious complaints. Similar procedures would apply if the model were to be put in place for the teaching professions. I readily accept that. I ask the Executive to give serious consideration to amendment 48, which has a lot to commend it. The situation as it stands is difficult to defend.
Amendment 104 is slightly different; it is more of a probing amendment. It may be that it is not in an appropriate form and that it would cause more problems than it would solve. However, again I am trying to establish a principle. Depending on what the minister has to say, I may be happy to withdraw amendment 104 on the basis that we work towards something more acceptable at stage 3.
I repeat that I am not for a minute trying to suggest that local authorities as employers should not have absolute power over hiring and firing, subject to disciplinary procedures and employment legislation. It is up to an employer to decide whether a teacher, like any other employee, is fit to do the job that they are employed to do. I am trying to suggest—whether this amendment would mean this or not is another matter—that it is not for an employer to determine a person's competence to be a member of a profession; that is for the professional body to decide. There must be a separation between someone's fitness for a job and their competence to be a member of the profession.
I am happy to talk to the Executive to see whether we can come up with an amendment that would do that better. The amendment represents an important point of principle—it is important to allow the GTC to be involved in competence cases at an earlier stage. The objective should be to take preventive measures, rather than simply waiting until a teacher has been dismissed, at which point the GTC's hands are tied in terms of providing support.
I am sympathetic to amendment 48. I will be interested to hear the Executive's arguments for supporting the amendment or not. There is a case for including it. The wording is perhaps not as tight as the Executive or we would want, but the minister may want to explore the issue further.
Brian Monteith misunderstood my comments. I was not for a minute suggesting that the teaching unions would be displeased with amendment 104—rather the opposite. My concern about competence relates to people in promoted posts. Often, the issue for an employer is a person's competence in a promoted post, not their competence as a teacher. How we work through that is not clear in either of the amendments. In other professions, such as community education, in which I worked in my previous life, there were ways of dealing with someone who had been placed in a promoted post if it became clear that management responsibilities were not their forte. Discussions were held between the trade unions and the employer to facilitate the move backwards. It was not just a case of saying, "Sorry, you are not competent in this job and therefore we are sacking you." My concern with promoted posts in teaching is that the issue may become a person's competence as a classroom teacher, rather than their competence for a post.
That is one of the issues that we still have to tease out. There are clear issues about competence as a classroom teacher, but management and secretarial responsibilities are now attached to a number of promoted posts. As we have discussed at great length, such responsibilities might not be everybody's forte, although the people concerned might be excellent classroom teachers. The wording of the amendment might prevent someone from being removed from a post if they are deemed competent as a teacher. I would be interested to hear the minister's comments on amendment 48.
I do not know whether Karen Gillon intended it, but what she said about promoted posts illustrates my argument perfectly. If a teacher in a promoted post is not up to that job, that is clearly a matter for the employer. Competence and fitness for a job are clearly in the province of the employer. The question of competence to be a member of a profession is a wider issue and should be determined not by an employer but by a professional body.
I reiterate that I am not defending amendment 104 as it stands. I would like to hear the minister's comments and see whether we can find any common ground.
Nicola and Karen are both talking a good game and I find myself not knowing quite what to think. I suspect that we should not go with amendment 48 now. We have taken things too quickly and we need more time to work on the matter together. Competence in teaching is not simple. Karen Gillon mentioned the secretarial aspects of promoted posts, but ordinary teachers have such responsibilities too. This is a difficult and fraught area and I am not happy about the complaints that are flying around. Like Karen, I sympathise with amendment 48, but I am not sure that it is right yet.
These are complex issues and I would like to take some time to deal with them properly. I welcome the spirit in which Nicola Sturgeon and Brian Monteith have dealt with the amendments that they propose. There are legitimate arguments around this area of concern and there are many different views. Because it is a complex issue, we must be careful that what we leave in statute will not confuse things further. I shall explain why I think that the amendments as they stand may do just that. We must do more than just begin to define the relationship in the bill, as the statute will have real force and power. As I develop my argument, I shall show that there are further arguments that must be considered in relation to these matters.
Before I go into detail, I draw a distinction between the point that Nicola and Brian made about misconduct and the timing of interventions by the General Teaching Council. We must remember that misconduct can involve child protection matters. I have personal experience of such matters, so I understand fully what that means. Misconduct cases can deal with people who are no longer employees and may have left the profession some time ago. Such people are therefore not in the school in question. There are reasons why it is important to have procedures that allow certain misconduct cases to be dealt with differently from competence cases. I shall leave that point for the committee to reflect on.
The amendments deal with the powers of the GTC to investigate complaints about, or become involved in cases of, teacher incompetence at a stage prior to action by the employer. It is important to stress that. Amendments 7 to 11 and 48 propose that, if a parent or colleague alleges incompetence and there is reasonable evidence to support the allegation, the GTC should investigate. If such an investigation finds that a teacher no longer meets the standard of competence required to remain in the profession, the GTC could then consider removing the teacher from the register. The amendments also deal with the point that Nicola stressed about trying to bring the GTC into the proceedings earlier than would otherwise have been the case.
The bill contains substantial new provisions that will enable the GTC, for the first time, to remove from the teaching profession for reasons of professional incompetence those teachers whom they find to be in that position. That addresses the point that Nicola made earlier. The GTC has a definite role, although she argues that it should be involved at a different stage of the process. We are absolutely clear that it is for employers to manage the teaching force and, for the most part, the employer will be the local authority.
The new role for the GTC, in which it would consider taking action following notification from a teacher's employer, reflects that position. It is a position and an emphasis that is consistent with other provisions in the bill that seek to ensure that education authorities take responsibility for all aspects of school improvement. It is for them, as employers, to assess the competence of teachers in posts and to address rigorously any suggestion of incompetence or underperformance in those posts. By contrast, the GTC's functions are concerned with the fitness to enter and remain in the teaching profession, not with performance in a particular post. Karen Gillon illustrated that point with her example about promoted posts.
Our proposals, which clearly identify the distinct responsibilities and roles of the employer and the professional body, commanded wide support in the consultation exercise. We must take great care that those distinct responsibilities are not confused or diluted.
Unfortunately, amendment 104 adds to the confusion and does not clarify the relationships and roles. It takes no account of the need for employers to consider fitness to remain in a particular post, and it is not clear how an investigation by the GTC would impact on action being taken by an employer. For example, is it intended that disciplinary action by the GTC, whose only sanction is deregistration, should take place instead of that being carried out by an employer? Or is it perhaps proposed that the two processes should duplicate each other? In either situation, how would that impact on the responsibility of an employer to ensure that children are being taught by competent teachers? There are profound implications arising from amendment 104, and we believe that it does not help the situation, however well intentioned it is.
I am concerned that representations from parents about poor teaching in schools should be fully, rigorously and swiftly addressed. However, such action must be the responsibility of the employer. I want to ensure that employers address those issues consistently, applying not only common procedures but also a shared view of the standards. We are putting in place the framework that will allow them to achieve that.
Following the report last year by Her Majesty's inspectors of schools on existing disciplinary procedures for teachers, we invited the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service to work with local authorities, the GTC, teaching unions and professional associations to develop new procedures that are effective and fair and will command the confidence of all parties. Those procedures will be based on our intention to introduce legislation in due course to ensure that the dismissal of a teacher is the responsibility of the director of education, with the right of appeal to the council's appeal committee.
A standard for full registration of teachers is being developed through a project jointly funded by the Executive and the GTC. Although that standard is directed primarily at strengthening newly qualified teachers' induction to the profession and at introducing greater rigour and consistency to assessments of performance during probation, there is no doubt that it will also come to be seen as a national capability standard for all teachers. It will therefore be central to the consideration by employers and the GTC of incompetence and it will link directly with the procedures that are being developed by ACAS in the working group that I mentioned.
The GTC will have a fundamental and continuing role in presenting and explaining that standard throughout the education service, so that it can operate effectively as a national standard. That is fully in line with the GTC's new public interest duty under the bill and its continuing role as guardian of professional standards.
As I have outlined, the roles of the authorities and the GTC are distinct. However, they depend on each other and, to have maximum impact on rectifying the inadequacies in the present system, they must operate together. We see the GTC as having an evolving and developing role.
I have been listening carefully to arguments on competence, at stage 1 and today. I have also taken note of the deliberations of the committee and meetings with the GTC and other groups. I want to assure the committee and other groups interested in the debate that I see potential for developing the role of the GTC in relation to our clearly stated principle that the employer must first determine competence issues. It is inevitable that the GTC will receive representations from parents and others, and it is essential that all parents have confidence that their concerns are being properly addressed.
The GTC, in reflecting its public interest role, must also be confident that those representations are properly addressed by the employers. I flagged up that issue at a meeting with the GTC last week and I intend to speak to COSLA about what might be possible in exploring those areas. I believe that it will be possible to construct a new dynamic between the employers—in their primary role in competence matters concerning employees—and the GTC, with its public interest role.
I intend to ask COSLA and the GTC to discuss those matters soon and to relate their discussions to the work of ACAS. The GTC has rules that govern its present investigating and disciplinary procedures and we have said that we expect it to produce a code of practice and criteria to be used in reaching decisions on the removal, under the council's new powers, of a teacher from the register for misconduct, incompetence or ill health. The code will be drawn up in consultation with teachers, their employers and other interested parties and will provide an opportunity to explore how the GTC can complement the role of employer in handling the representations to which Nicola Sturgeon and other committee members referred.
A number of members—and others in the debate—have referred to the fact that what is being proposed and argued for at the GTC is fundamentally at odds with the regulation of other professionals. Doctors, dentists and lawyers are frequently cited as appropriate comparisons. As members have said today, such an assertion bears examination.
There are more than 50,000 teachers in Scotland. That is significantly more than the 8,500 practising lawyers. There are fewer than 2,000 dentists in Scotland and slightly more than 4,000 general practitioners. I do not have statistics on the number of accountants. The number of teachers dwarfs the numbers employed in those other professions that are often compared to teaching. A significant number of people in those other professions are self-employed—they do not have the sort of employee-employer relationships that teachers experience.
Teachers—unlike members of the other professions, who meet individual clients when necessary—are engaged with children and their parents for a prolonged period of at least 11 years. That is why the potential for complaints against teachers—irrespective of how poorly justified they are—is substantially greater than the potential for complaints against those other professions. I do not believe that those who have advocated a prior role for the GTC over employers have begun to appreciate the task that is involved. The proposals in the amendments would not only give rise to significant additional work, but be dangerous and interventionist and confuse the role of the employer.
For all the reasons that I have given, I cannot accept the amendments, despite my signal that I can see a way of developing a role regarding competence for the GTC in a way that would act to stiffen the resolve of the employers and give confidence to the public. The bill as it stands properly sets out the discrete statutory roles of the employer and the GTC. It is clear that employers and the GTC can be effective only if they complement each other; that requires close consultation between the GTC and local authorities. That can be done properly only when the standard to which I referred at the start of my remarks and the procedures that surround that standard are available to us. The ACAS working group is due to report in June and the development of the standards for full registration will be available for consultation at approximately the same time.
Although the Executive is clear that the GTC has an interest in complaints about incompetence, the detail of that will, in our view, need to be explored throughout a longer time frame than the passage of the bill will allow. I hope that I have reassured members that the Executive intends to see the debate move forward over time and, in that spirit, I urge Brian Monteith and Nicola Sturgeon to withdraw their amendments.
I will be brief. It was useful to hear the minister cite statistics—the fact that there are so many more teachers than there are lawyers, accountants or dentists emphasises the need for us to get this right. Teachers have a greater impact on many more lives than any other profession does.
The minister made many comments specifically on negotiations and discussions between COSLA and the GTC about their relationship in terms of competence. Those comments have convinced me that I should withdraw amendment 104—I will be happy not to press it to a vote.
I have heard nothing to convince me that there is an overwhelming reason why we should not begin to move towards a situation such as is envisaged by amendment 48. Listening to the minister, I was struck once or twice by the thought that there is not a huge gulf between our positions. I detected some defensiveness—that is, perhaps, more to do with the minister's background than anything else.
Amendment 48 was not designed as an attack on local authorities or on their role as employers. The minister rightly said that local authorities—as employers—and the GTC have discrete roles. The role of the local authority is to determine an individual's competence or fitness for a particular job and Karen Gillon illustrated that perfectly. The role of the GTC is to determine a person's fitness to enter or remain in the profession. I have no problem with that distinction. My problem is with the fact that the GTC is wholly dependent on local authorities properly carrying out their functions before it can do its job properly. That is an indefensible situation. Although I recognise and respect the roles of each, both should be able to exercise their functions independently of each other when necessary, although eight or nine times out of 10 that would not be necessary. They should be able to do that as much to operate a system of checks and balances as for any other reason.
I do not see why a parent or a teacher should not have the right to go directly to the GTC if a local authority is not properly fulfilling its functions. In most cases, I hope that such a situation would not arise, but in the real world such things will, inevitably, happen. I see no reason why the Executive should not agree to amendment 48, which I intend to press to a vote.
I would like clarification from the minister on amendment 48. I am heartened by what Peter Peacock said about the role of ACAS in trying to bridge the gap that exists. My worry about amendment 48 relates to the potential situation in which a parent is unable to convince anybody anywhere—head teachers or others—that there are grounds for taking a complaint forward. There might be complaints that are difficult to deal with. The words "trivial or vexatious nature" appear in the amendment and it is often difficult to work such things out.
I would be interested to hear whether the ACAS discussions will include discussion of how and whether somebody is able to make a complaint about incompetence. Can such a matter be taken forward only at the local authority disciplinary stage?
Nicola's previous contribution was supposed to wind up the debate, but I see that a number of members are indicating that they wish to speak. We are close to reaching agreement on the matter, so I will allow the debate to continue until we do.
My points pertain to the amendments in my name. I am happy to make the points now or later.
Now, please.
I have been interested by what the minister has said and I was rather taken aback by the fact that he is satisfied—I am not taking advantage of his words here—with the procedures for and the record of dealing with cases of incompetence. I recall lodging a question requesting statistics on the number of teachers who have been dismissed by local authorities for incompetence; I was told that no central records are kept. Every exploration that I have made at a local level to establish the number of teachers who have been dismissed for incompetence has drawn a blank.
I wonder why, when so much is being put in statute, this matter is not. It will, instead, be the subject of further arrangements, discussions and meetings with other bodies, such as ACAS. It is an important matter that should be dealt with in statute.
In expanding the GTC's role, one must be concerned with ensuring that the GTC can monitor professionals after a complaint is brought against them. The arguments round the table have ranged from expressions of great faith in teachers to the view that the fact that there is a large number of teachers means that there will be a large number of complaints. Those are contradictory arguments—I am not accusing the minister of advancing them, but members will appreciate my point that there are contradictions in the arguments against my amendments.
I shall not press my amendments at this stage, but will wait to hear more of the discussions that the minister is having. However, I am minded to return with them later, as, from the evidence that I have received anecdotally—I have been disappointed that COSLA and Association of Directors of Education in Scotland representatives seem to make a habit of staying away from the many GTC meetings that I have attended—I am sure that the minister can achieve a resolution. There is no gulf between the minister and the GTC, but history tells us that there is a gulf between the local authority employers and the GTC, which it may take more than ACAS to bridge.
Nicola, did you want to add something?
Karen Gillon said that she was concerned about parents who have not managed to satisfy anybody that a valid complaint has been made, but who have suddenly found that they can approach the GTC. If a parent has been unable to satisfy anybody that they have a valid complaint, it is unlikely, if it is a vexatious or malicious complaint, that they will be able to satisfy the GTC. As long as proper procedures are in place to filter out such complaints, they should not be a problem. Notwithstanding the large number of teachers in Scotland, I think that this procedure would lead to few legitimate complaints that would require to be investigated.
The minister said earlier that he was worried about the GTC's ability to cope, although the GTC feels confident that it could cope with a role such as this and is enthusiastic about it. The GTC's view should be given some weight. The proposal is designed to be supportive of teachers as well as to give parents and colleague teachers rights to take action in certain circumstances.
There are very few teachers in Scotland who could be called incompetent, but even a few such teachers would drag down the rest of the profession. To strengthen the GTC's ability to deal with the few who should not be in the profession would strengthen the profession overall. I reiterate the fact that this proposal is not designed as a threat to anybody, but to strengthen the hand of the GTC for the benefit of the profession overall.
We are agreed on the same issues. The question is over the method that should be used. I wonder whether we make too much of the separation of the local authority and the GTC. I envisage a situation in which, when considering dismissing someone, the local authority asks a GTC representative to attend the tribunal to discuss the matter. They could take evidence together, in partnership; there should not be opposition. Perhaps that is simplifying the matter. However, given the minister's assurances about discussing the issue properly, and given the fact that this committee can revisit the issue, there is hope that a solution can be found. I agree with Nicola Sturgeon that the procedures should be fair and that they should do the teaching profession credit, as it is self-regulating to a degree. The methodology just needs to be worked at a wee bit.
Minister, do you want to respond to those comments?
Yes. The nature of the discussion reveals the nature of the difficulty over this issue. There is no clear consensus on the way in which this matter ought to be handled, either now or in the medium or longer term. We must be extremely cautious at this stage about what we put in the legislation, as that will be binding for all parties. The impact on all parties must be absolutely clear, and it would be unwise to decide on anything if we were not clear about the outcomes. That is the difficulty that we have with some of the detailed amendments, and in trying to underpin the principle that I have stated of ensuring that the employers are responsible for competence while exploring ways in which we can involve the GTC more effectively.
If I gave Brian Monteith the impression that we are satisfied with the present arrangements, I gave the wrong impression. We are not satisfied with the present arrangements. That is why we have set up the ACAS committee—to consider ways in which to improve the disciplinary procedures. We have also made it clear that that matter should ultimately be the responsibility of a director of education, and that there should be appropriate appeals mechanisms for the employees who are concerned. We want progress to be made on this issue.
Nicola Sturgeon asked how we can improve the system to ensure that it acts properly when a complaint is investigated. That is territory in which further exploratory work is needed. Parents will approach the GTC, whether or not there is a formal procedure, and should expect to receive a coherent answer that reinforces their desire to have their complaint addressed adequately. We can explore the role that the GTC could have in relation to the way in which a local authority develops its procedures, to ensure that that is done properly over the lifetime of a complaint. I do not want to pronounce on this matter, as I genuinely want further debate to take place on those difficult issues.
The other point that Nicola Sturgeon made was about the right to approach the GTC. I expect that people will approach the GTC with complaints, as common sense would dictate that, on occasion, that would be the right action to take. There must be proper answers about the way in which their complaints will be dealt with, which is an area that I want to consider further.
Karen Gillon raised a point about ACAS. I was not sure whether she was talking about ACAS having a long-term role in relation to these matters, or whether ACAS would have a role in the further debate that I have mentioned.
Yes, in the debate.
There is a locus here. The ACAS group is examining disciplinary procedures, and it would be sensible for any further discussions between the GTC and the employers to relate to what is happening in that ACAS group. I would have to think further about the precise mechanism for that, as we are only beginning to flesh out these matters as a result of this committee's debates.
I signal to the committee, with genuine intent, that there is scope to consider those issues further. I shall not give the assurance that anything concrete will have happened by stage 3, as I would be misleading the committee to suggest that. However, I would be happy to set out the Executive's thinking on the points that I have made more clearly at the appropriate time before we reach stage 3, so that members will know the areas that we want to address.
We genuinely want to find a way to use the public interest duty of the GTC to help to strengthen the procedures of the GTC and employers, while maintaining the distinction between their roles. That requires a lot more work, and we would rather allow that work to be carried out outwith the constraints of this bill than impose a constraint in the bill, the outcome of which none of us is very sure about.
Nicola, you will have the final say.
There is perhaps more common ground on this issue than this debate has shown. The minister said that it would be common sense for people to take their complaints to the GTC, which is true. There must be more clarity about what the procedure will be when that happens. That is what is lacking. There is also an illogicality in the role of the GTC.
Having listened carefully to the minister's comments, I am prepared to withdraw amendment 104 at this stage, on the understanding that he will provide us with a memorandum, in good time to lodge amendments at stage 3, which will outline the state of play and the Executive's thinking. I am not yet convinced that we should not include in this bill measures that would head us in the right direction. However, in the interests of consensus, I shall hold fire at this stage.
Amendment 104, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 45 agreed to.
Section 46—Professional Conduct Committee and Investigating and Disciplinary Sub-committees
Amendments 7 to 9, 48, 10 and 11 not moved.
Section 46 agreed to.
Sections 47 to 49 agreed to.
Section 50—Power of Scottish Ministers to require Council to establish committees
I call Brian Monteith to speak to and move amendment 12.
This very simple amendment calls for the deletion of section 50, which grants power to ministers of the Executive to require the GTC to establish committees. I am still unconvinced that the Executive requires such a statutory power. A minister simply needs to write to the council to invite it to establish a committee and, lo and behold, the committee is established.
I wonder whether such a power goes beyond the boundaries of recognising the GTC as a professional body which is paid for, elected and run by its own membership. If that is the case, it should have a distinctly independent mind when establishing committees that investigate various aspects of the professionalism of teachers. At this stage, I am interested more in hearing the minister expand his views before deciding whether to put the amendment to a vote. This issue strikes at the very heart of the independence of the GTC, which is already generally compliant with the minister's wishes on the issue of committees.
I move amendment 12.
Our thinking on these matters is rooted in our commitment to the public interest duty embodied in the GTC's new powers. As Brian Monteith has indicated, his amendment would remove section 50, which enables ministers to stipulate, through regulations, that a particular committee should be established and what its membership should be. It should be noted that the force of the legislation relates more to committee membership, which will then affect the particular committee to be established; however, it is not our intention to specify particular committees.
Furthermore, we do not intend to empower ministers to identify named individuals as members of committees, but to allow them to ensure, if necessary, that a committee has adequate representation of the relevant interests on the GTC. Safeguards are built into the provision, because any order made under it would be subject to negative resolution procedure.
However, I should explain in more detail why it was necessary to introduce the provision in section 50. There are currently no appointed or nominated members of the GTC on the conveners committee, which is the policy-making heart of the GTC. A review of the GTC by consultants recommended changes to the council's current committee structure, including subsuming the work of the conveners committee into a new policy and strategy committee. The revisions to committee structure and membership should fully reflect the council's wider role in contributing to the quality of teaching and learning, and its duty to have regard to the public interest. The GTC—and now Brian Monteith—have made much of this provision being in conflict with the principle of self-regulation.
In the bill, we have striven to make clear that the GTC regulates the teaching profession in Scotland in the public interest; indeed, it could be argued that such regulation is very generous as committees dealing with alleged misconduct cases and, if the bill's provisions are enacted, cases of serious professional incompetence and ill-health must have a registered teacher majority. That said, the GTC will no doubt be alert to the need to protect its independence and reputation by in future ensuring that its policy and strategy committee reflects its full range of interests and not just one constituency within those interests.
I hope that the GTC will address this issue. We will take action only if it does not do so. In that context, the provision in section 50 is more of a reserve power, which we hope will never be used. We think that this is an appropriate provision as it ultimately protects the public interest and means that ministers will be accountable to Parliament. In the light of that, I invite Brian Monteith to withdraw his amendment.
The minister has clarified several points. Will he further clarify whether this power would allow him, or any other minister, to appoint someone who is not a member of the GTC to a sub-committee of the council, or would it merely allow him to ascertain the balance within the council itself?
Furthermore, is he satisfied that this section falls under other relevant sections which seek to provide a teacher majority on the committee? In other words, could this power allow him or other ministers to change the balance of representation on a committee so that there is no such teacher majority? If we let this section go through unamended, I might introduce future amendments on that matter.
On your first question, we have no power to appoint committee members in the way that you have described. As for your second point, we would not have the power to override the requirement for a teacher majority.
In the light of those comments, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment 12, by agreement, withdrawn.
Section 50 agreed to.
Section 51—Abolition of Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee for School Education
We now come to amendment 105, which is grouped with amendment 109.
I want to outline my reasons for lodging these amendments, which seek to delete the section that removes the statutory basis of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Council.
First, on the principle of continuation of the SJNC, the minister will no doubt tell us that this dreadful institution has failed teachers and the education system and that we cannot move forward one inch until we get rid of it. However, if the Executive is committed to taking account of the views of teachers and their representatives, it cannot brush aside the fact that the SJNC has the support of many teachers as well as the main teaching unions.
Furthermore, it is not true that the SJNC has had only a detrimental effect on education in Scotland; it has had a positive impact on several areas such as class sizes. For many years, agreements reached through the SJNC have meant that we had a maximum class size in Scotland when our counterparts elsewhere had not.
The minister will no doubt claim that it is the SJNC's fault that teachers' pay is now so far behind other professionals' pay—for example, new graduate teachers get paid much less than graduates in jobs in other professions. Although that argument might or might be valid, it should be said that it is central Government's fault that teachers' pay is so far behind comparable professions. This Government and the previous Government have underfunded local authorities, which has meant that they, through the SJNC, have been unable to reward teachers properly.
My two other points are more about timing and the inclusion of this proposal in this bill. First, as the committee pointed out in its stage 1 report, there was a lack of consultation before this section was included in the bill. While there was extensive consultation on other aspects of the bill, that surrounding this section was virtually non-existent. What consultation there was consisted of a letter to a few organisations, giving them a matter of days to respond. If my memory serves me correctly, the consultation was simply on the technical provisions, rather than on the principle of what was being proposed. The lack of consultation is patently obvious and suggests that this would have been better dealt with at a later stage, when people had had more opportunity to make their views known. The minister will no doubt say that everybody was aware of the Executive's intentions in this regard, but there is a difference between being aware of somebody's intention and being able to express views on a proposal and to expect that those views will be taken into account.
My final point relates to the coincidence of the bill and the deliberations of the McCrone committee. In a sense, we are being asked to approve the removal of the statutory basis of the SJNC without having any idea of what is to replace it, as the replacement is a matter for the McCrone committee. The minister and Sam Galbraith have made statements in the past about retaining collective national pay bargaining. There is no reason to doubt them, but we do not yet know what McCrone will propose as a replacement for the SJNC and what the Executive will decide to put in place. Unless the time scale is changed, McCrone does not report until the end of this month. The committee does not know how long it will be after the report is published before the Executive issues a response to McCrone. Potentially, we are creating a vacuum, in that one form of negotiating body is being removed before its replacement has been put in place.
For those reasons, I think that it is the wrong time to make this proposal. I am not sure whether I would support it even if it were proposed at a later stage, because of the matter of principle. Notwithstanding the matter of principle, it would be wiser to wait and to consider the McCrone recommendations before moving to remove the statutory basis.
I move amendment 105.
I agree with much of what Nicola Sturgeon says. I have said before that I would support the abolition of the SJNC because I felt that it had been a bad deal for teachers' salaries and so on. However, I recognise the kind of protection that it gave us on class sizes and other conditions. There is another element in the pipeline that Nicola has not mentioned: the consultation on the schools code, which is raising these issues again.
I would not want to say that the SJNC has been all bad, but it has been clumsy. Year after year, teachers waited for ages to get their salary increases because of the Byzantine way in which the negotiations were conducted. The so-called millennium package that was brought out at the end of last year was a shambles. Any organisation that introduced that and expected the teachers to accept it does not deserve shelf life.
I will support the proposal, although I have the same reservations as Nicola Sturgeon about creating a vacuum. We need to trust ministers; I hope that that trust is well placed.
On that happy note, I would be content to leave.
We are firmly convinced that we need to move forward on this, so I fear that the consensus that Nicola Sturgeon referred to earlier will break down at this point. To pick up Nicola's point about consultation, it was no secret that our intentions had been made clear well in advance of the conclusion of the millennium review procedure that if it were unable to deliver, we would have to consider the arrangements for future negotiations. That information was in the public domain.
The timing followed the opportunity to see what would happen with the millennium review—it was only after that broke down that the announcement was made. We believe that there is still the opportunity, through this committee and other mechanisms, for people to make their views known.
We have listened to that in relation to future procedures, as a result of the committee's own deliberations on how consultation ought to be carried out. We felt that there was a need to act and we have acted. We do not believe that anybody has been constrained in the process of making their point of view known.
As Nicola Sturgeon indicated, section 51 removes the statutory basis of the SJNC, while leaving in place the existing agreements. We firmly believe that this is necessary because, as Nicola anticipated I would say, the SJNC has failed to deliver what was needed by teachers and therefore by pupils, and by the wider community, which depends upon Scottish schools.
That is not an isolated view held by the Executive. Although Nicola said that one of the teacher organisation trade unions is strongly committed to the SJNC, I think that this committee has heard in evidence that that is not a universal view among all the teaching organisations.
Half the employers' side of the SJNC believes that the SJNC has had its day and that it is time to find a new mechanism that will better serve teachers but, equally, that will better serve the rest of Scottish society, which depends so much on what happens in schools. Scottish society requires our schools to have a contented work force and to deliver what the community wants. The Parliament has debated that matter in principle and has supported the Executive's view on the SJNC.
We believe that the SJNC has failed teachers and therefore that it has failed pupils in the wider community. The breakdown of negotiations over the millennium review last year, after previous failures within the SJNC, demonstrated to us that the SJNC in its present form is incapable of modernising the terms and conditions of teachers and giving us a teaching force that is able to deliver the improvements to education that we need.
I want to make it crystal-clear that, in this section of the bill, there is nothing that rules out other forms of collective bargaining continuing in future. As Nicola Sturgeon rightly pointed out, we have established a committee, under Professor McCrone, to make recommendations on teachers' pay and conditions and on the future arrangements for settling those issues. That committee is expected to report before the end of this month.
We are committed to wide consultation on whatever is contained in the McCrone committee's report. All the parties, as well as the Executive, will need to consider carefully how to proceed. We are preparing our thoughts on that and will ensure that no vacuum is left of the sort that Nicola described. We are convinced that this is a necessary move, and I strongly recommend that amendment 105 and the consequential amendment be rejected.
Labour members support the Executive's position on the abolition of the SJNC. However, we want to put on record our strongly held view that at no point do we wish to see teachers' pay being subject to local pay negotiations. We do not support that in any shape or form.
I have nothing to add. The arguments have been rehearsed.
To pick up the point about local pay bargaining, I think I am correct in saying that Sam Galbraith answered a parliamentary question on this and that it is not the direction that we seek to pursue.
The question is, that amendment 105 be agreed to. Are we agreed?
No.
It goes to a vote.
For
Fiona McLeod (West of Scotland) (SNP)
Nicola Sturgeon (Glasgow) (SNP)
Against
Karen Gillon (Clydesdale) (Lab)
Ian Jenkins (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) (LD)
Lewis Macdonald (Aberdeen Central) (Lab)
Mr Kenneth Macintosh (Eastwood) (Lab)
Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Mrs Mary Mulligan (Linlithgow) (Lab)
Cathy Peattie (Falkirk East) (Lab)
Mr Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The result of the division is: For 2, Against 8, Abstentions 0.
Amendment 105 disagreed to.
Section 51 agreed to.
I thank members for their co-operation. We will meet again next Tuesday, and I remind members that it is our intention to take amendments on all the remaining sections. Those amendments should be lodged by Friday.
Meeting closed at 16:04.