Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 04 Sep 2001

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 4, 2001

Official Report 114KB pdf

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Procedures Committee Inquiry

Before the recess, we discussed our response to the Procedures Committee inquiry into the application of the consultative steering group principles. Do members have any thoughts on how we can take that forward? What is the time scale for this item, Martin?

The deadline would have been yesterday but the committee agreed at its last meeting that it would deal with the item today. That will enable the clerks to submit the committee's comments to the Procedures Committee by Friday.

Shall we go through the paper item by item or do members want to raise particular issues?

We have been asked to make comments as individuals about the CSG principles, so the committee should not need to go through every question. By and large, the committee's views will be reflected in the views of others.

The committee could perhaps raise the issue of whether we have enough time. We feel that we need to have a meeting every week but the guidelines suggest that meetings should take place once a fortnight—the Parliament's schedule, in a sense, does not allow enough time. We could perhaps record that we have found it impossible to do our business using fortnightly meetings.

Like Ian Jenkins, I believe that individual contributions would be more appropriate. The committee should respond only if we can come to a consensus about an issue. Given that our views on the implementation of the CSG principles will probably be predicated on political differences, it will be better if we make individual contributions, which the Procedures Committee can evaluate. That would be better than spending time disagreeing and not having a result.

It might be useful for us to consider some of the elements that we have just considered in our draft report. For instance, the fact that such a high proportion of our meetings—28 of our past 40—were held either in private or partly in private might lead to some questions about whether the committee is truly open and accessible.

The number of times that we have met outwith Edinburgh could be considered fairly low. Perhaps we need to consider whether that makes the committee as accessible as it might be.

The paper asks whether the Parliament has been able to encourage the participation of schools and young people in its work. How often has the committee managed to do that?

Some elements of the questions may be particular to individual committees. We may be able to comment on those from our experience and statistics.

Perhaps those are not areas on which we would need consensus but simply matters that the committee has come across.

They would be statements of fact for analysis.

There is a danger that statements of fact would be interpreted differently by another committee. Of course we have had many meetings in private: that is because the committee has undertaken many reports and inquiries. Many of those inquiries have been large and we have required a considerable amount of time to deliberate the evidence. For good reason, such deliberation has been in private. Were we to have fewer inquiries next year, for instance, I would expect that there would be a lot less private business.

For us to present the facts is all very well but, if we are going to do that, we will probably have to include at least some explanation of those facts. We would then end up spending a great deal of time discussing the CSG principles rather than education matters.

The dilemma that faced the committee was that the nature of the issues that were being examined required us to take account of confidentiality and to recognise the sensitivity of how the information from the Scottish Qualifications Authority or for the Hampden inquiry was obtained. That does not reflect the broader range of inquiries that the committee will undertake over the next period.

There is an awkwardness in the paper—I say that as a member of the Procedures Committee. This committee has not discussed whether there is consensus—I concede what Brian Monteith said—on some of the broader issues, irrespective of our individual or party stance on the role of the CSG, the CSG principles and how we put those principles into practice.

Perhaps we should identify broad issues within the CSG principles that we can consider. I am not convinced that going round the country necessarily makes us more accountable to the public whom we serve. It assists in some matters, but sometimes how we handle and process information is more important than whether we are in the right place for a brief moment in time.

We might want to reflect on such issues. The critical issue for the Education, Culture and Sport Committee is Irene McGugan's point about the role of young people, who are the consumers of education. What are their rights and roles? How are they able to influence some of the decision making?

Are you suggesting that we consider the issues as a committee? Ian Jenkins, Brian Monteith and I suggested that we respond individually. Irene McGugan suggested that we state facts about, for example, meetings in private and meetings outwith Edinburgh.

Do members have a preference? Can we do both? We do not have a lot of time. Brian Monteith made the point that we would need to work through each principle and arrive at a firm consensus if the response is to be from the committee. I am looking for a steer from members.

It is like everything else. Some of the words used, whether by the CSG or not, are equivocal. Your definition of how we share power, of how we engage with citizens and of participation might differ from mine. Those are endless debates that probably need a major philosophical treatise.

We should respond individually because of the time that we have. On one or two issues, we should say in general terms that the committee would like to endeavour to move in the direction of the CSG principles. If we said that, it would be a reasonable response to the Procedures Committee's requests. I do not know whether other members feel that, but it is what I suggest.

That is what Irene McGugan said.

Yes, it would be a compromise.

Is that okay?

Members indicated agreement.

Let us work through the CSG principles. The first one is sharing of power. Are there any comments on that?

As Frank McAveety said, the CSG principles are difficult concepts to sum up in single sentences. The paper asks:

"Has the Parliament shared power effectively with civic society?"

What do we mean by "effectively"? I would say that it has been more effective in sharing power than the Westminster Parliament has, but it is not as effective as it should be or could be; we are moving in the right direction. If we spent 10 minutes or an hour more talking about it, we would not reach any different conclusions.

I think that we are agreeing that it will be difficult for us to agree on certain areas. Therefore, we should pick up on the issues that relate directly to the committee's work. Do members have any comments on the principle of accountability?

I have a view on how accountable it is possible to make the Executive in light of our SQA inquiry, although that may fall into a difficult area. We could not reach agreement about the role of the Executive and therefore we could not include anything about its role in the report other than what was the consensus view. As the report was so important, we did not want to produce a minority report about the role of the Executive, which we left to the side.

However, there is an issue about holding the Executive to account, given party-political differences. That is my personal view and I do not expect the committee to agree with it. That is the difficulty that I was trying to point out—I am flagging it up without inviting response and I am certainly not seeking the committee's endorsement of it.

Nevertheless, it is a step forward that ministers, civil servants and members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education have come to speak to the committee. Although we do not think that we went as far as we might have gone, we have still gone further than people were able to go before. We are on a course that is taking us in the direction of being able to make the Executive and civil servants more accountable. Some of us would like to go further, but I think that we are on track and that we are doing valuable work.

As for the financial systems and audit arrangements, I am not a financial expert and I never feel comfortable that I am effective when I deal with financial matters. However, the structures are in place and members are using them in the way that the CSG would have wanted.

As the committee reporter on the budget process, I recall that we found it difficult to scrutinise the budget, especially in relation to our consideration of mainstreaming and of the different budget headings. The committee agreed that the budget process was not as clear as it might be. Perhaps we should feed back that view.

As a partial outsider to the SQA inquiry—I became a member of the committee later—it strikes me that its main lesson was that the committee produced a report that identified the key areas, irrespective of where members wanted to apportion responsibility. The report was a perfect exemplar of an effective committee operation, whether or not there was broad consensus in relation to members' concerns about the SQA. The report's outcome was that ministers took up a series of recommendations. The report is a good model and perhaps we should draw attention to it, as it dealt with a difficult and unexpected issue in Scottish education.

On the financial systems, the core issue, which Cathy Peattie identified in her report to the committee, was that it can be incredibly difficult to break down where resources lie, who is responsible for them and how accountable ministers are, particularly if there is shared ministerial responsibility or if the Executive hands the money over to other bodies to deliver the outcomes. That issue came through the Finance Committee's review of the budget process and I am sure that the Education, Culture and Sport Committee made a submission about it.

The committee's role in respect of those issues was commendable. Without the report on the role of the SQA, our work would not have been as effective as it seems to have been.

Okay. What are the committee's views on the way in which we have satisfied the principle of accessibility, openness and responsiveness?

Our role as inquirers, legislators and scrutinisers of legislation would come under that heading. I hope that the members of civic Scotland who have come to speak to us and have taken part in our meetings have felt that we have facilitated their appropriate participation in the committee system and that, through taking witnesses' statements and undertaking visits, we have been accessible, open and responsive.

I admit that we have been most open and responsive to those who have been willing and able to come to us first and that we need to involve more people rather than approach the usual suspects every time. Nevertheless, the people who have knowledge and interest in, and commitment to, the subjects have been able to contact us to discuss things with us and to help to shape the legislation.

This is the principle on which we have done quite well. We have held an enormous number of evidence sessions and we have spoken to a great many people. That is largely attributable to the nature of the work that we have undertaken and the inquiries that we have conducted.

I mentioned earlier the fact that the participation of schools and young people in the committee system could be better; nevertheless, we have probably done more than any other committee to involve and engage with schools and young people—as we should have, as the education committee. The issue is the degree to which we feel comfortable about progress.

We have also been astute in our visits outside the Parliament. For instance, visiting Stornoway to consider Gaelic broadcasting seemed sensible. We should undertake more such visits.

We could also do more to use communications technology. Videoconferencing and other means would allow us to talk to and engage with people outside Edinburgh. We must think about ways in which we can do that.

It is important that we make progress on this principle. We have done so to an extent, but we must be innovative and do even better. It is the area that impacts most on people outside the Parliament and in which we can best engage with civic Scotland.

I agree with virtually everything that Irene McGugan has said. However, the issue of using new technology raises additional questions about whether people in all parts of Scotland have access to up-to-date technology and the resource implications of that. If we want to engage in videoconferencing—which I think is a good idea—with people in Scotland or, on bigger issues, from other educational authorities in Europe or beyond, we must recognise the cost element. Has anyone presented us with the cost implications of that or suggested whether it would provide value for money? It would be a bit rich of us to ask to use that technology before we had been presented with the cost implications.

It is difficult for people to come and listen to what is happening in the committee. If several groups wanted to attend a meeting, there would not be enough room. We struggle because of the size of our committee rooms—that can be a barrier, too.

Do members have any comments on the principle of providing equal opportunities? This year, there has been evidence of better mainstreaming in the committees' budgets.

I agree. However, it would be helpful for us to get feedback on where people are, either in terms of committees or in general terms of the role of self-assessment, monitoring and review.

We will include our suggestions with the committee's submission. If they have not done so already, members will also submit individual responses.

I have filled in so many questionnaires from the Procedures Committee that I cannot remember which ones I have returned and which ones I have not returned.

Or what you have said.

I suspect that I have not sent back any of them because I thought that I had sent them before.

We need a good auditing system.

Yes. That is what we need.