It is a requirement of the standing orders that we produce an annual report, the format of which is determined by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. I invite comments, but advise members that we must set out the report in the required format.
I mention a few minor details. Where the draft report refers to our pupil motivation inquiry, it does not mention the visit that was made to Cumbernauld. Although I am conscious that all our meetings were held in Edinburgh, we visited more schools than are mentioned in the draft report, which should be registered. The report currently reads as if we visited only schools that were taking part in the YMCA smart young people project. That is not the case; we also visited other schools, which we should highlight.
Are there any other factual points?
Paragraph 11 is on petitions. The clerks to the Public Petitions Committee interpreted that two petitions—one from Ken Venters, on behalf of the Carronhill action team, about special needs education, and the other from Alexander Longmuir, about rural school closures—were linked, but the Public Petitions Committee corrected them. We should make it clear in the report that the two petitions are separate and distinct.
Other than the reports that we were expecting, there have been none since I took over as convener in September. However, more might have emerged in the past year; we can check that.
It would be good if we could.
The parliamentary year is very odd—it runs from the beginning of May, which is the anniversary of when the first Parliament was elected.
That is nice.
Or rather, it is the anniversary of when the Parliament first met. Are people happy for me to sign off the annual report with those amendments?
Members indicated agreement.
That concludes today's business. Next week, we will take more oral evidence on the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill. We will also receive our six-monthly update on child protection issues.
What about the step-parents' consent question? It was not agreed during consideration of the Family Law (Scotland) Bill. Is it possible to ask the Scottish Parliament information centre or an adviser what happened to the provision? Are we precluded from considering the matter as part of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill?
It might be useful to get a note on how the matter was dealt with in the Family Law (Scotland) Bill.
Let us ask what prevented inclusion of the provision in that bill and whether it is retrievable.
We will ask the adviser and SPICe to produce a briefing for us.
Meeting closed at 12:28.