Education Committee, 03 Sep 2003

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Official Report 183KB pdf

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Petition

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Early-years Education and Child Care (PE523)

We resume the public part of our meeting. We have finished taking evidence from Audit Scotland.

Item 3 is on petition PE523, on early-years learning, which was submitted by Ms Carol Ball on behalf of UNISON Scotland's nursery nurses working group. The petition, which has been referred to us by the Public Petitions Committee, is fairly ancient now—it is a hangover from the previous Parliament. A fair amount of work was done on it by that committee. The issue today is for us not to deal with the petition as such, but to decide the approach that we will take towards it. We can accept the referral and agree the action that we will take, we can refer the petition back to the Public Petitions Committee and say that we do not have time to deal with it, or we can say that the petition has no merit. That is the range of options that are open to us.

I am conscious of our work programme. We have to concentrate on the draft Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill. In the first instance, I am minded to ask the Executive for an update on where it stands on the petition. The petition goes back to June 2002, and I think that the Executive's response was in October 2002. There has been the election and the new programme for government since then.

Do members feel that the proper way to proceed is to write to the Executive? I am also conscious that in the background there is an industrial dispute on some of the issues that lie behind the petition, the entrails of which we do not want to get into. I anticipate that the committee will wish to examine early-years learning in due course, but time constraints might make that difficult at the moment. Do members have any thoughts on that? Are members happy for us to write to the Executive in the first instance?

There are issues for us to consider, but given our work programme we will not have the opportunity to address them for some time. It is debateable whether the petition would be our priority right now anyway. However, I would like to receive an update from the Executive.

I would also like to receive an update from the Department of Trade and Industry on sector skills councils. The abolition of the national training organisations was supposed to be followed by the setting up of sector skills councils. I am surprised that a decision has not yet been reached on the Early Years National Training Organisation and the National Training Organisation for Sport, Recreation and Allied Occupations. I would like some information on why a decision has not been reached, and whether a sector skills council is being set up. If so, we have less to worry about. Although the Scottish Executive feeds into the process, I believe that the decision will be taken by the UK Government, so we would have to ask it where the process is at.

Yes. We want to take as holistic a view as we can.

I would like us to accept the referral and consider further the issues.

The issue is whether we do that now or wait for the response from the Executive before taking a final view. We are not saying that the petition is worthless—quite the opposite, because there is much merit to it—but we should probably defer a decision on what to do until we have heard from the Executive. Is that reasonable?

Will that take long? The petition has been around for a long time.

It has, but I do not think that it will take long to get an Executive response. What is the usual time scale? Is it two or three weeks, or is it longer than that? We would certainly get a response in this early autumn period. Are you happy with that, Fiona?

Yes. I am keen that we do something with the petition, because at one of our previous meetings we identified that we wanted to examine early child care and the period leading to primary school. We may be able to use the petition as a way of investigating that area. Bearing in mind our work load, we may wish a reporter to monitor the situation. However, in the first instance we must hear from the Executive. I take the same view as Rosemary Byrne; I would like us to do something with the petition because that would inform future work, in particular if we want to examine the three to 18 curriculum, for example.

That is crucial. Members may recall that Ian Jenkins produced a report for the Education, Culture and Sport committee, with a view to investigating the matter. There is general sympathy for the committee to do that, but it is a question of fitting it into a suitable slot in our work programme so that we can do it properly and at a time that is most effective. With the addition of Ken Macintosh's suggestion that we write to the DTI, do members agree to ask the Executive for information? Do we have to accept the petition formally? What do we do with the petition in formal terms?

I suggest that at this stage you are agreeing to accept the referral and agreeing on the action that the committee will take. In the light of any response from the Executive, the committee would then decide whether to consider the petition further or to refer it back to the Public Petitions Committee.

Would that be acceptable to members?

Members indicated agreement.