Teaching Profession
Under item 3, the committee will consider a response from the Scottish Executive on the committee's seventh report of 2006, on the Auditor General for Scotland's report "A mid-term report: A first stage review of the cost and implementation of the teachers' agreement A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century".
I welcome Susan Deacon and Margaret Smith to the meeting. Members have copies of the paper from the Scottish Executive Education Department, which was signed off by Laura Johnson. As usual, or as we have come to expect, we have fairly clear answers to the points that we made. I notice, however, that the Executive has said "Agreed" in relation to only three recommendations. A number of the other responses are in fact "Agreed", but without the Executive saying so.
One paragraph of the Executive's response probably left some of us more confused than enlightened. Under the section headed "Assessing Impact and Value for Money", the Executive says:
"We are also developing a more robust dialog with key partners around the health of system and the impact of policy and refocusing the approach used to measure improvement locally and related support for benchmarking."
With sentences like that, we might need another inquiry.
In our legacy paper, we should perhaps recommend the introduction of an Audit Committee award for complete gobbledegook that does not mean much to any ordinary member of the public who is trying to read such reports.
That is exactly why I drew that sentence to members' attention. Indeed, it might be a worthy candidate for such an award—we could consider that under agenda item 8, when we discuss our legacy paper.
Do members have any further comments before I invite the representatives of Audit Scotland to make their comments?
I note that the paper is headed "Draft Scottish Executive Response". Is there any particular reason for that? Is it work in progress?
Referring to the second point that we made on the subject of costing, which was about grant-aided expenditure, we asked
"that the Department confirm that the GAE system is now adequate to fund teachers' salaries in every Local Authority."
The response to that was:
"we are satisfied that the resources in GAE are indeed sufficient and that they are distributed in a way which is fair to local authorities across Scotland."
In other words, the Education Department has not confirmed what we asked; nor, apparently, has it asked the local authorities. It is the department that is satisfied. The response referred to
"a way that is fair",
but "fair" is not necessarily adequate. That was a most unsatisfactory and vague response. We simply asked the department to confirm whether it has enough funds to do what it is being asked to do—are the resources that are being applied adequate for the tasks that are asked of local authorities?
Obviously, I cannot answer the question.
I am underlining the point that the response was inadequate, as you said.
We asked the department for "clear outcome measures". We were told that it looks to retention rates and inspectors' reports in assessing the impact on value for money. If it is not possible for the department to measure outcome, it should say so. If it is possible for the department to measure outcome, it should do so. The department appears to have done neither, and it is simply using the measurements under the status quo, which I think are inadequate.
Do you have any further points?
If you do not mind.
No—carry on. We are all enjoying this.
We asked
"whether improvements in classroom practice claimed as a result of implementing the agreement … are actually being delivered, and … whether value-for-money was achieved in implementing the agreement."
The Education Department simply said that we should ask Audit Scotland. Has the department no means of establishing whether the improvements that are claimed to have been made under the new policies, as well as value for money, are actually being achieved? It is the Education Department that is responsible for delivery, and it should have some way of measuring the effectiveness of those policies.
Audit Scotland makes value-for-money assessments, but the department's job is to decide whether improvements are being delivered and value for money is being achieved. If the department has no means of doing that, the situation is even worse.
To be fair, the point was on a recommendation that we made to the Auditor General for Scotland and not the department. That is why the department's response says "For Audit Scotland".
I would have thought that the department would have a pretty good idea whether it is delivering value for money. After all, it takes the action, whereas Audit Scotland always comes in after the event. Those who create policies and deliver them on behalf of the Executive should have a pretty good idea whether their departments delivering value for money. If the department in this case does not have a good idea of that, it should.
There is a problem with the Executive response. To be fair, the problem derives not from the response but from our report. Indeed, the problem can be said to derive from our consideration of issues such as the McCrone agreement, in which we swing so much from the strategic to the specific that it is difficult to do justice to either. I make that observation from the perspective of having sat on the Audit Committee for a number of years, which are about to come to a close.
Certainly, a two-sentence response in a box—which is the format of the response that we are considering today—limits the extent to which one can do justice to the wider strategic issues. That said, over the longer term, the Audit Committee should add greater value to some of the strategic stuff. In that regard, I will share three observations on the issue that is before us—I suppose that they offer a past-present-future dimension.
As far as the past is concerned, I found it interesting to observe the media coverage and associated discussion that were generated by the publication of both our report and the report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education on the implementation of the McCrone agreement. In other words, I am interested in the whole debate, umpteen years on, about what the McCrone agreement was and was not meant to do and what it has and has not done. For me, the coverage and discussion reinforced how much these things can get lost in the fog of the past. Some of this is partly about the Executive being better at stating outcomes, but some of it is also about the public policy process at the time being better at capturing—and making clear to the public—what is and what is not intended by major investments such as the McCrone agreement.
As far as the present is concerned, I am conscious that this is another example of where we—I say "we" deliberately, because I am talking not just about the Executive—have to be conscious of the fact that, when we look at these issues, we do so with blinkers on. Andrew Welsh mentioned resources for McCrone, but we need also to consider issues that have come along since McCrone, such as single status. Such issues have created other huge demands that are impacting on budgets in a number of parts of the country. We need to update our thinking to take account of other developments that come along and their impact on resources.
That takes me on to my third point, which is on the future. Although all the analysis of the McCrone agreement has been useful—for me, it has also been interesting. I hope that others think that it has been informative—there is now a need for us to move on. In doing so, we need to contextualise the issue as part of a wider discussion on what we want to achieve in our schools and classrooms in future. In other words, the McCrone agreement is done and has been analysed. Importantly, there is a need to update our thinking and to do so consciously. If we do not, we will keep looking at things through a prism that is five or six years old.
That is a long way of saying that we should note the response, although some interesting and wider points can be drawn from it. Perhaps our legacy paper is the right place for some of the points that I have raised.
At this point, I should declare as an interest my continued membership of the Educational Institute of Scotland.
The problem with the idea of assessing value for money is that the agreement contains a mixed set of objectives, which means that it is difficult to strike a balance and find a meaningful set of criteria by which to measure its success. The agreement was partly about rewarding teachers for a job that they were already doing properly in order to keep them in the profession, and partly about attracting new teachers into the profession. Consideration of whether the agreement is attracting more people into the profession and of whether retention has improved or whether people are still leaving at the same rate at which they were before should be fundamental measures of its success or otherwise.
As regards the setting of educational outcomes that the agreement is supposed to produce for our young children and which it would be meaningful to measure, we need much more sophisticated outcomes than simply the number of examinations that the children pass. That is a simple and easy measure, but it does not necessarily reflect everything that schools do. I think that the agreement will be successful in the long term, for teachers, the ethos of schools and the children and young people who are being educated in them, but before more work is done on assessing its success in the future, a great deal more thought needs to be given to the measurement tools that we will use to make meaningful judgments.
Thank you. After we have heard from Andrew Welsh and Margaret Smith, I will invite the Auditor General to comment.
Our report contained some fundamental points. Although we said that further actions
"might be needed to meet the objectives of the agreement",
we made some highly specific points on chartered teachers. We said that the Education Department should get the local authorities to take action and that it should provide funds to ensure that
"Local Authorities' budgets are not put under undue pressure."
In other words, local authorities should be given the necessary resources to carry out the task.
We also said that the department should promote the role of chartered teachers and clarify
"the added-value expected from the role".
We suggested specific, clear and sensible actions, but the result is that there will be
"a review of the scheme".
Instead of taking action, the Executive will seek opinions.
We are talking about efficient government. I agree with what has been said about the policy process. Policies can be turned into practice only by the relevant department, once the ministers have decided what those policies are. We identified fairly obvious corrections and improvements that needed to be made and asked highly specific questions. The result is that there will be a review. Fundamentally, we are talking about an issue of good, clear and efficient government. The Executive's response is not impressive.
You make a fair point, but I could play devil's advocate and say that it is necessary to take into account the context. Our report was to be followed by a report by HMIE and the Executive responded to our report before HMIE's report had come out. If the Executive had said what it intended to do at that point, without waiting for HMIE's report, it could have been accused of acting before it had enough facts. I know that that does not absolve the Executive of failing to say what it intends to do, but we should recognise that we are talking about a moving process and that a number of other factors are involved.
I fully concede that the context is important, but the problem is that time is passing by. We made some specific, straightforward comments, but I am dissatisfied with the process and the answers that we received. I hope to be proved wrong. I hope that the chartered teacher scheme, for example, will be a tremendous success, but its success will come down to what actually happens. That is why I mentioned the need for efficient government.
In this case, impatience is a virtue.
Andrew Welsh forgets that the agreement exists between the employers, the Scottish Executive and the trade unions. Even though we are held in high esteem, nothing will get in the way of the agreement.
I return to the evidence that we have. The Scottish Executive expresses concern that there is insufficient drive to ensure an appropriate take-up of the chartered teacher scheme. The review will give teachers who are considering the scheme, those who have considered it and those who have been through it an opportunity to give their views.
The biggest issue for teaching staff is funding for the course. If we want clarity on that, we should ask the Executive what the timetable is for the ministerial review and what it will include. Will it involve further discussions with the trade unions and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities as the representative body of the employers? At the end of the review, what will be the implementation stream? I share Andrew Welsh's concern that there will be 32 variations in implementation. That would not be right for the young people of Scotland, who should get the best. We are training plenty of teachers and we should encourage those who are very good to become chartered teachers.
I note that the Executive states:
"We are writing this week to interested stakeholders".
I give it due credit for that.
It is the end bit that I am interested in.
Exactly.
Auditor General, I would welcome your—or your team's—comments.
I have one or two thoughts that might help to inform the committee.
There are two points about the general context. First, as I am sure the committee knows, the Education Committee recently took evidence in a round-table discussion on the teachers agreement. The issues that have been mentioned this morning were explored in some detail during that discussion.
Secondly, we are committed to return to the teachers agreement and to carry out a further performance audit in about two years' time. That relates to the point about value for money that concerns the committee. We will enter discussions with HMIE about that. We have provided for the report in our forward work programme.
I have one or two thoughts on specific points that were made. Robin Harper mentioned, rightly, the mixed set of objectives that must be applied to the teachers agreement. In our report, we mention some of the categories that the department as a whole needs to find ways of analysing and reporting added value on. As I have said on a number of occasions—not least to the Education Committee the other day—Audit Scotland certainly does not subscribe to the view that there is a simple, linear relationship between extra pay for teachers and improved exam results. It is for that reason that we tried to point out, both in our report and to the Education Committee, some of the areas in which the service as a whole should try to obtain some measures.
Some members have expressed a general sense of impatience about progress. We thought carefully about producing the report, because it was suggested to us that a report would be rather premature, given that the scheme is relatively new. However, we felt that it was possible to publish an interim report—we chose the title specifically—that would highlight issues for the future. In general, we are encouraged by the positive response from the Education Department that it is addressing the concerns in our report. In particular, positive comments have been made about the commitment to consider the system of performance measures in the round and about outcome agreements in the context of the public service reform agenda.
Perhaps the response from the department does not fully cover the challenge that the committee presented on the impact on head teachers of reduced class contact time. The committee asked the department how it would address the unintended consequence of the agreement that head teachers had to spend an increasing number of hours on providing classroom cover. We have not really had a response to that, which is a significant issue for HMIE to follow up and for us to address in our report in a couple of years' time.
I invite Antony Clark to paint in any other issues that he thinks are important.
Antony Clark (Audit Scotland):
I echo Bob Black's overall statement that the department's response is broadly positive, but the committee may want to ask the department for further information about several aspects of the response once the department has completed its developmental work or finished its discussions with the Scottish negotiating committee for teachers. As the committee has said, the settlement is a partnership agreement and some elements can be progressed only in partnership with teaching staff and employers' representatives.
The one issue that I will highlight is that which Bob Black picked up: the department's response is perhaps less than full on the impact on head teachers of reductions in class contact time. The evidence to the Education Committee was that that problem is large; it was also picked up in the HMIE report.
The point that was made several times in the earlier discussion about looking to the future was important to how we approached our report and is important to how we intend to do our follow-up work. We intend to work closely with HMIE in determining how we approach our follow-up. We want to ensure that we pick up on the changes in the education policy landscape that have taken place since the agreement was made. The world has not stood still; big changes have occurred in the curriculum. We know from producing our report that structural changes have taken place in education authorities through the introduction of faculties. We want to see whether the building blocks on which we reported are delivering the long-term benefit and change that we all expect from the investment that has been made in the agreement.
I will pick up on several strands of what has been said. I suspect that I am in legacy mode again. I was struck by Andrew Welsh's concern that a review was being offered as action in response to us. I am often the first person to rail against the use of reviews and consultations as proxies for action, but it is important for the committee to acknowledge that such processes are sometimes important and appropriate. The chartered teacher scheme is a good example of an appropriate subject for such a response, because we cannot simplistically say, "Oh yeah, there's a problem here and we'll fix it," unless we know what the solution looks like, which requires a proper process.
Margaret Jamieson's comment was spot on. When the Executive says that it acknowledges an issue and says that it will undertake a review, almost as a matter of principle, that should be timed and we should know the implementation process for that review. All too often, we hear only the statement, "There will be a review." The committee is well placed to make that more generic point about Executive responses to such issues.
Following the briefing from the Auditor General and Antony Clark, and comments from Andrew Welsh, Margaret Smith and Susan Deacon, I suggest that I write to the Executive on members' behalf to ask about the timescale.
I draw to members' attention the fact that the Education Committee previously signalled to our committee an interest in our work in this area. At its meetings on 17 and 24 January, that committee took evidence from a variety of bodies in the field that were involved in the negotiations around the settlement and its application. Nevertheless, I do not think that we would get in the road or stand on the Education Committee's toes if we were to invite the Executive to explain the timescale. Coincidentally or not, the timescale was announced at the same time as we published our report. It is in keeping for us to seek clarification in that regard as the two events seem related.
We will have the Official Report of this meeting by tomorrow, which will give the clerks enough time to draft and issue a letter and to seek a response in time for our meeting on 27 February. We do not normally apply such a tight timescale, but if we stick to a simple question and answer rather than seeking a long response, the timescale is fair. Are members content for me to go down that route of clarifying the timescale and related points?
Members indicated agreement.
As there are no other points that members want me to pick up on, we will focus on the timetable. I thank members for their comments, which the department will be able to take into account when it reads the Official Report. I thank the Auditor General and Antony Clark for their advice.