Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 08 Dec 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, December 8, 1999

Official Report 255KB pdf

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Visits to Schools

The next item on the agenda is committee visits to schools.

I suggest that we communicate the information about our visits in written submissions. We could blether about visits for a long time. It might be more helpful to focus our thoughts in writing.

I am happy for members to do that. I assume that everyone has managed to attend at least one school. Is that correct?

Members indicated agreement.

I assume that the committee is writing to the head teachers and others to thank them for generously including us in their daily rounds.

Yes.

Can we club together to buy a new bucket for Darnley Primary to catch the rain that was coming through the roof?

That shows a lack of ambition, Mike. You should be clubbing together to buy a new roof, not just a bucket.

Mary, you are a much more practical person than I am.

It will be impossible to discuss the submissions before the holidays. I suggest that we discuss them at the first meeting after the holidays. [Members: "It's a recess."] It is Christmas, so it is definitely a holiday.

If we want to discuss submissions then, they will need to be with the clerk before the recess. That gives members next week to do them.

Can we discuss them at the second meeting after the recess?

Technology being what it is, can we not simply e-mail one another our submissions—short or long—and copy them to the clerk?

I am happy for members to do that.

That means that the submissions will not be recorded.

We will copy the submissions to the clerk and she can record them. We will put discussion of the submissions on the agenda for the first meeting after the recess. We will agree on a date for that meeting later.

My point is not about committee visits to schools, but neither is it about the national arts companies inquiry, which is the next agenda item, so I did not know at what other time it would be appropriate to raise it.

We have just received a submission from Rudolf Steiner schools. Does the committee agree that we should write to the General Teaching Council and to Her Majesty's inspectors of schools to ask whether they have considered the changes that may need to be made to the criteria if the Executive agrees to include Rudolf Steiner schools in the maintained sector? That would be preferable to inviting them here, as we have enough to do.

That is a reasonable point, which flags up a deficiency in the way in which we handle such matters. Perhaps the committee should take a few minutes to discuss whether it wants to receive further evidence after we have taken submissions. Cathy Peattie raised a similar point about Stirling Council's input into the situation at St Mary's Episcopal Primary School. We should ask Stirling Council to comment. Similarly, we should ask the GTC to respond to us in writing about the issue that you raise, Brian. I will bear that in mind for future deputations.

I have a few points about how we do our business. One is that we do not have a way of tracking the progress of business once we have made decisions. Two issues come to mind: Hampden and the tickets for the Scotland-England match. If we do not remember to put such matters on to the agenda a good day in advance, we do not deal with them. Could we have an agenda item for progress of business? It would be called "matters arising" if we had minutes, but we do not.

I know that you have discussed that matter with the clerk. We could have an item on the agenda for updates on outstanding business so that members know that issues have not been forgotten and that progress is on-going. If the committee needs a substantial update, there will be an item on the agenda.

I am conscious that, when the committee is in private session, we do not have a report of the debate and we do not minute our decisions. That can make it difficult to revisit matters. Is there some way in which we can at least minute the decisions that are made in private?

If the committee makes substantive decisions in private session, they will be recorded in the formal minute of proceedings. If you mean that you want a record of points made in the discussion, I can do a clerk's minute, which can be circulated to members.

That would be useful. The reason that I raise the matter is that I was trying to track our decision to take written rather than oral evidence from the Scottish Youth Theatre. The decision fell into a black hole because we discussed the matter in private. There is no record of when the decision was made. As a result, I was surprised last week when SYT was not here.

I take that point on board. We need to be quite clear about what the committee has decided to do. Members will get copies of the decisions taken.

The next item on the agenda is the inquiry on national arts companies, which we agreed at the beginning of the meeting to take in private.

Meeting continued in private until 12:25.