Education Committee, 09 Jun 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Official Report 223KB pdf

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School Closures

This agenda item is headed school closures, but the issue at hand is more specifically to do with rural school closures. The clerk has prepared a paper for us and we must decide whether we want to do anything further in relation to the issue, having heard the minister and had some argument about what is to happen. Does the committee want to ask that anything further be done on the rural schools issue?

The minister said that he would produce guidance in due course. It might be useful for the convener to request of the minister a draft copy of the guidance before it is issued so that the committee can comment. I am not certain that he will agree to that, but he might.

The minister is usually quite amenable to that sort of request. We can certainly ask.

Rhona Brankin—who is unable to be here today because she has a hospital appointment—was quite keen that there be further consultation. Obviously, she has a strong constituency interest in the matter; she asked specifically for evidence to be taken from Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, Audit Scotland and either Ross Finnie or Allan Wilson on how they view education in the context of sustainable development, rural communities and so on. Her view was that we should take oral evidence. How do other committee members feel about that?

The issue was first raised four years ago and the only reason why the Scottish Executive has made progress after such a long time is that constituency issues have arisen in Midlothian, the Borders and so on. We have a responsibility to get an end result.

I was comforted by some of what the minister said about his intentions but, unlike Lord James, I do not think that the minister said that he was going to produce guidance; I think he said that he would communicate with local authorities. Indeed, paragraph 4 of the paper that the clerks have prepared says that the minister

"would revert to the Committee at a later date to indicate the status of the material that would be issued."

We should take a view as to what we think that status should be and we should reflect the view of our predecessor committee that the material should have the status of guidance.

Because there are current constituency issues in Midlothian and the Borders, we have a responsibility to ensure that we inform that situation and let the Scottish Executive know that we are interested in issues such as those which Rhona Brankin raised previously, such as sustainability and other cross-cutting policy issues. It would be useful to take up Elaine Murray's suggestion, although I accept that there might be issues of time.

Whether we do it now or after the submission of further evidence, we should take a view on the status of the material and ask to see a copy of it in its draft form.

From what has been said so far, it seems that we agree that we should ask the minister to clarify the status of the material and to let us see it before it is published. Does the committee agree that we should do that?

Members indicated agreement.

We should take further evidence in September.

I am sympathetic to Rhona Brankin's constituency interest and to the points that Fiona Hyslop has made about the need for action. The Executive is also clearly aware of the need for action, although the wording that is highlighted in the clerks' paper is vague. I am relaxed about that, because the minister clearly intends to take action. We are almost half way through June already and the material is coming out in September, so we can wait until after it has been produced and take a view.

Rather than pre-empt what the minister is going to do, which we do not have enough time to do anyway, perhaps the convener should write as he has suggested and ask what form the guidance will take. We can then at least consider that correspondence when we reconvene after the summer recess. We should wait until the minister has produced the material, then decide whether we wish to take further evidence. It may be that we take up Rhona Brankin's suggestion of taking further oral evidence. I am not against that, but there is no point in doing it at the moment.

I am sympathetic to that. I am not especially in favour of our taking further evidence, but there might be merit in writing to HMIE and Audit Scotland to ask them to give us a feel for some of the points that we want to take forward, which concern how decisions are made and to what extent they are financially driven. If members agree, we can put the matter back on our agenda in September when we receive a reply from the minister—perhaps it will come sooner—and information from HMIE and Audit Scotland, when we can resume consideration and decide whether we want to do anything further. In itself, the issue is fairly narrow, and we should not let our work programme be dominated by it, important though it is in certain areas. I say that as a member for Glasgow region, which covers only about 20 farms.

The matter will come back, because the communication is meant to happen in the summer. If we do not take the view that we want a code of guidance, but decide that we are happy to allow the information to have whatever status the minister wants, we will—in effect—be rolling back from the position that the previous Education, Culture and Sport Committee took in 2000. We should not be prepared to do that, but should maintain the previous committee's position, which was to ask for a code of practice from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or a code of guidance from the minister.

I will clarify whether that is what committee members want. I meant to imply in what I said about the letter that, if it is the committee's view that we should have guidance, there is no reason why we cannot say that to the minister. However, it may be that other committee members do not hold that view. I am conscious that what Brian Wilson said has been quoted as the be-all and end-all on the issue, but it was a by-blow in a speech and I suspect that it was not well-known to certain local authorities.

Exactly. That is why we need guidance.

I do not have a strong view about whether we need guidance or a code of practice. What matters to me is what works. The way in which the Education Department conducts its business and in which the Executive influences local authorities is interesting; they do that by guidance and letter, occasionally in speeches and sometimes through budgetary controls. I am not hung up on whether we need a circular or guidance as long as what we have is effective.

I have two issues. First, we are trying to establish what the evidence shows us. The second issue is what the best form is for that to be communicated to local authorities.

To be frank, as the Executive has waited four years to issue guidance or material, it is better that it be right rather than quick. I am not interested in our taking more evidence after the Executive has issued its circular, when we will have zero impact on its content, and I do not think that we should rush the Executive into issuing the circular today or tomorrow. The appropriate thing for us to do is to write to the minister saying that we intend to seek written or oral evidence from two or three specific interested parties to try to form a policy view of what the evidence shows us. That would give the minister the choice of waiting until that evidence is in the public domain through people making written submissions to us or giving us further oral evidence. He would have the choice of waiting to be the beneficiary of that evidence or of pressing ahead.

On the second issue, it is for the minister to decide on the form through which he communicates the information to directly elected local authorities. Our job as a legislature is to provide the best evidence base that we can on the issue, and I do not think that we have completely exhausted that point. We should not get sidetracked into trying to tell the Executive the precise form in which it should communicate, but we should simply say to the minister that there are one or two evidence issues that should be in the public domain, and that he might want to wait and issue his circular until after that. He might want to press ahead, if it is urgent.

I do not accept totally the proposition that it is not our business how the minister communicates. How that is done is important, especially if there are doubts about whether the previous format has worked.

Two strands to our approach appear to be emerging. First, we should write to HMIE and Audit Scotland. We have already had input from the Environment and Rural Affairs Department and there was not much to be had from that direction, to be frank. Those letters could be written in consultation with Rhona Brankin in particular, but other members can say what they want from that process.

Secondly, I will write to the minister, as we have pretty much agreed I should, to inquire about the status of the material. The only remaining issue is whether the committee has a decided view on the format in which that guidance or material should be issued. There is a division of views on that. Do members want to press those views?

The minister should be given the opportunity to reply. He may be perfectly happy to send us draft guidance—he was quite clear that he intended to issue guidance—and if he is content to do that, I do not see why we should not have the benefit of it.

The most important point is to that we have input from, and the continued interest of, the minister. Perhaps we should raise with him the question of whether the stronger form of guidance would be appropriate. Rather than say that the committee thinks that it would, we could say that it is an issue that the minister should consider. Does that meet with consensus in the committee?

The issue is not so much the form in which the guidance or material is issued, but that the content should be explicit, because that is where difficulties arise with awareness of ministerial desires and directions. We would want the minister's intention to be clearly expressed.

I echo that. I am conscious that the Executive will not be the body that decides to close schools. The point about guidance is that it will establish a set of principles that local authorities should follow, but I am concerned that guidance might not be the best way to do that. If it is, that is absolutely fine.

From experience—

I do not want to go round in circles on the matter, because we are coming to an element of consensus on it. We will circulate a draft letter to committee members for their agreement. If we raise the issue of guidance without our being as pronounced about it as one or two committee members want, that will put it on the agenda, but everybody agrees that the content is the important thing. Is that fair?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you very much for that. We now move into private session for our last item, which is consideration of the draft stage 1 report on the School Education (Ministerial Powers and Independent Schools) (Scotland) Bill.

Meeting continued in private until 12:45.