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The final item on our agenda is consideration of the work programme. I want to deal with the item, because we have discussed it before and we have to make some moves on it. However, I hope that our discussion will not take too long. A paper on the item has been circulated to members.
I am very keen for the committee to examine child protection. Over the past few years, the committee's work has been heavily weighted towards education. I think that it is time for the committee to examine the hugely important issue of child protection.
I find this extremely frustrating. After all, we spent time over the summer working out our future plans. We should stick to them.
I do not think that we reached any decisions on those plans. We simply had an initial shot at them.
That is open to interpretation. The curriculum was the long-term agenda item that we had agreed to take forward. As far as early-years nursery education is concerned, we should deal with the petition on that matter in the course of regular business. In that respect, we have waited for a response from the Executive for two or three months now.
I do not think that child protection is a short inquiry. Many issues are involved, so it would be a longer inquiry on anyone's terms.
Our job is not to replicate what the Government is doing. Wendy Alexander made the point a few weeks ago when we last discussed our work programme that our job is to find out exactly what the Executive is doing on the time frame for the implementation of McCrone. That is our scrutiny purpose. I do not want that to be part of a long-term inquiry; we can do something on it immediately, perhaps in January or February.
I am not talking about long-term inquiries but about the time that any inquiry will take.
I am confused, because I did not think that we had agreed our plan. I certainly do not remember agreeing child protection as the priority—not that I am saying that it should not be. We have an awful lot of legislation either before us or coming before us, which restricts us. I still feel that the curriculum is the area that is most important for us to deal with. It is difficult to know how to juggle short and long-term inquiries.
The Executive is dealing with the curriculum and will consult on it. We do not want to conduct work on that in parallel. As part of our scrutiny role we will consider what the Executive comes up with. The curriculum is important, but we will not be able to get to grips with it until late 2004 or early 2005.
It is difficult to find a balance between not conducting work in parallel and still being ahead of the game. We do not want to come in after the Executive has made up its mind what is happening. There are a number of issues to consider, but I am unclear as to how much time we have to deal with any of the major ones in depth. My understanding was that we were going to get a paper examining what we could do on the curriculum and one other issue, covering what room we have next year and what would be feasible in the time available. I know that that is a funny way of looking at the issue.
I do not think that we need a decision on the bigger inquiry at the moment. We certainly need to come to a quick decision on what we do early in the new year once we have finished stage 2 of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill so that witnesses can be geared up. We do not want to delay doing that too long. We will get the letter back from the Executive on school discipline in a week or two and that will probably be on the agenda for our first meeting in January. We might want to have a briefing on where the Executive is going with the curriculum before we decide on our longer-term inquiry. We could come to a view on what we do as a shorter inquiry. I suggest research. Rhona Brankin touched on the youth strategy. Without having the youth strategy, there is a bit of a hole in our ability to engage in that issue.
You are giving your interpretation of what we should do. You have mentioned research and youth organisations—evidence was helpful at the time. With respect, I do not think that we should keep repeating ourselves in trying to shift the agenda. It is clear that the longer-term inquiry should be on the curriculum and we will manage other issues, such as school discipline, continuously. The onus has to be on the committee to carry out its scrutiny role in relation to child protection and we should have a short, sharp look at where we are with McCrone—that does not need to be a long inquiry. It is imperative that we consider those two issues. We have to take a strategic view on the curriculum; the other issues are additions to the agenda and are surplus to what we considered at our away day in the summer.
I support the recommendations in the following order. First, we should hold a short inquiry on research, because it helps to identify sensible ways forward. Secondly, Rhona Brankin requested an inquiry into reforming child protection. A number of recommendations were made in the Caleb Ness inquiry—which was very distressing—and I am not certain that they are all being implemented. That need not be a long inquiry, but it is a high-profile issue of public concern, which our constituents would expect us to follow up. Thirdly, monitoring McCrone is of vital importance to teachers.
I seek to clarify members' thoughts on child protection. Although you are right that a number of issues are urgent, there are longer-term issues to do with social work, for example, which—as Rhona Brankin rightly said—the previous committee did not get into but which we are willing to examine. Is the issue the immediacy of the matters that arise out of the Caleb Ness case and associated concerns, or is it something more fundamental?
It is something more fundamental for me. I do not want to have an inquiry as a reaction to Caleb Ness, although that is a very important issue. The issues are those that you and Rhona Brankin raised, such as the shortage of social workers in certain areas.
I agree. We need to examine social work. Research is also important. Also, it is essential to have a quick look at McCrone, to see where we are.
How can we resolve the issue? There is support for a wide range of options. There is no support to examine early-years learning immediately. That is a big and important issue, but we do not wish to address it immediately, if I am correctly judging the feelings of members. Can we take that out of the immediate concerns and come back to it later?
That will reduce the scope. We are also agreed that school discipline is not a subject for an inquiry at the moment. We have on-going work in that area. I should have said in passing that I had a brief discussion about transition colleges with the convener of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. We might be able to work something up on that, but that will be for later and will not affect the work that we are currently discussing.
If we did some work on the curriculum, would that not cover that?
The issue is partly to do with the curriculum, but the discussion focused on colleges, 14-year-olds and other issues. We could consider that issue further but, given the timetable, it would be best to do that later this year or next year. We will leave it out at the moment. In addition, nobody has raised assessment and league tables as an issue. We seem to come back to the curriculum, McCrone, research, child protection and youth organisations.
Why does an inquiry on research have to be done immediately? It seems to have come out of the ether. I do not remember discussing it. Unless we can be sure that there is a particular focus or that we can influence something by holding the inquiry, I do not see what it would achieve.
We could get a paper on it.
Does the committee agree to pursue that issue in that fashion, and find out from the Executive where it stands on educational research and what support it is giving? We can feed that into later work.
We need a paper that identifies the issues for us—if there are any—and tells us whether the committee could be engaged in a positive way. It is more important that we perform other inquiries in which we have a scrutiny role, rather than get involved in an inquiry that may not do anything.
I am aware that the suggestion is mine, following discussions that I had with some organisations, but there was a degree of support in the committee for the issue, so I would not like to leave it. We can follow it through in the way that has been suggested, and raise it with the Executive, as we have done with other issues, to see what we get back and to give it a focus. That would deal with the research issue without getting into an inquiry.
I think that the Audit Committee is going to examine McCrone.
That may be worth doing. McCrone is important. I have picked up a number of issues from different organisations. I am not sure, however, if we are in a position to add value with a short report.
We could get an update on where everything is and whether things are working to time scales. That would be useful for us all.
We are beginning to iron out the issues. We will ask for information on research and McCrone. That leaves the curriculum, child protection and youth organisations. Youth organisations are important, but I envisaged dealing with them after the youth strategy is available. James, you supported youth organisations; how do you feel about that?
Child protection is more important.
In that case, we have decided that child protection and the curriculum are the central issues. Both of those will produce long, rather than short, reports. There is a lot in both of them. The committee probably agrees that child protection is the more urgent matter, because of the on-going scrutiny issue. Can we kick off on that? We can work up something on what we might consider and focus on. We can seek a briefing on the Executive's thinking on the curriculum, and have a formal or informal seminar at a later point to find out where the Executive is going. We can then discuss how to feed that into our work. Is that broadly acceptable?
Yes, if we can complement it with what we discussed in the summer. I suggested wording to Martin Verity on how we should be taking a more strategic position than the one we anticipate the Executive taking. We should draw on the work that was done by the previous committee and the national debate on education.
That is valid. I think we have agreement and enough for the clerks to move forward on. I appreciate that it has been a long meeting today, but it has been worth while.
Meeting closed at 13:11.