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For item 3, members have in front of them a draft legacy paper that will be left for the successor committee.
Will it be left in a sealed time capsule?
No, it will be left in a sealed envelope.
I must apologise: as I mentioned to Cathy Peattie earlier on, I have to leave now.
So does Brian Monteith.
I did not know that. We are not going together, I assure you. On the legacy paper, I will try to produce something for Thursday about early-years education.
When are we publishing our report on the purposes of Scottish education?
Either Thursday or Friday of this week.
Can we be kept up to speed with that?
Yes. We are just waiting. It is lots of—
Bits?
Because it is a fairly hefty amount of information, the gluing process is quite detailed and complex.
Are you doing it at home?
No. Usually, our reports run to two volumes, but I think that we may need many volumes—thick ones—to include all the evidence.
Many of us would not be available on Friday, but would be available on Thursday.
I hate to break the consensus, but—
Why break the habit of a lifetime?
Indeed. I recollect two issues that the committee considered and to which it would be worth returning. First, on the debate on school meals, having published its report, the committee suggested that it would want to consider nutritional guidelines once the Executive had published its recommendations for the way forward. We should put that in our legacy paper. Equally, Mike Russell and I spent considerable time on funding for museums—I am surprised that he forgot such a wonderful experience.
It is in the paper somewhere. No, it is in the annual report. Is it not mentioned in the legacy paper?
It should be in the legacy paper, because, although I am not sure of the Executive's timetable, I suspect that it will announce something in the spring.
I have asked a question about that.
Have you? Okay.
The Executive has said that it has no plans to announce anything at the moment.
Okay. It might be worth putting down a marker in the legacy paper that the issue is outstanding.
I agree that school meals need to be dealt with. I am reading the paper quickly. I see nothing in it on asking the Executive to produce appropriate guidelines for the closure of schools—rural or otherwise. The issue is important, as no up-to-date guidance is available. It comes up continually in petitions to the Parliament, for example. It is important that something happens with that.
I remain optimistic that we might have a response from the Executive on that before the dissolution of Parliament. Should we not have a response, the matter will go into the legacy paper. We will also add the other two points that Jackie Baillie made.
I am sure that that will be the case with other inquiries. We devote a lot of time to considering reports and any recommendations that are made. I hope that the committee will take on board the idea of including such reports in the legacy paper.
If we are including school closures in the legacy paper, it might be important to note that Cathy Peattie was the reporter on the matter, responded to a series of petitions on it and was involved in the situation in Argyll in particular. It would be of interest to the successor committee to know that there was a way of examining the matter and pointing out the flaws in the procedure, which was important in saving a group of rural schools.
That is missing from section 2. Members have no other points on the legacy paper, which I will leave in a sealed envelope, signed in blood.
Will you hide it somewhere in the new building?
No. If it were buried in the new building, the successor committee would have to dig it up to find it.
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