McCrone Agreement
I ask Brian Monteith to introduce the correspondence that members have received from him.
The purpose of my letter was to give the committee the opportunity to consider how to deal with continuing communication to members, through e-mails and telephone calls, on the progress of the McCrone settlement.
Local authorities in some parts of Scotland have been worried about how to pay for the McCrone settlement. They believe that they do not have adequate resources and that the formula does not meet their needs. Members have been told that the McCrone agreement was finalised by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Executive, with contributions from local authorities. However, it is clear that some local authorities are experiencing difficulties. The committee must ascertain more detail about those difficulties.
It was brought to my attention recently that there are difficulties with settling how teacher training will continue through the continuing professional development courses and with the funding of those courses. I am led to believe that it would be worth considering the McCrone settlement, not from a party-political view—there is consensus on supporting the McCrone settlement and seeing it through—but with a view to ensuring that it progresses smoothly, that the consensus is maintained and that problems are identified at an early stage.
In my previous correspondence on the matter, I suggested that the committee might take evidence to facilitate the preparation of a report for public consumption, consideration by the Executive and debate in the Parliament. However, I am mindful of the time constraints—an election is not far away—and of the fact that the committee is dealing with various bills. Therefore, I suggest that the committee consider appointing a reporter to take written evidence from all the players and those members of the public and teaching staff who wish to contribute, so that a report can be prepared, which the committee could discuss and publish.
I have some sympathy with Brian Monteith's request—the McCrone agreement is central to the future of Scottish education. However, time is against us. The committee is set to have 10 meetings before Parliament is dissolved.
The danger of dipping into the McCrone agreement is that it is overarching and complex and parts of it have not been fully implemented. It would take a lot of time to consider the issues carefully. A short, sharp inquiry would not do the subject justice, which I regret, because that would have been the right approach for the committee to take. The best that we can do is use our legacy paper to highlight the McCrone agreement as a major issue that must be examined closely, dispassionately and, as Brian Monteith said, non-politically. It will be up to the new committee's members to decide whether to follow that advice.
Appointing a reporter and having a couple of evidence sessions now would make little difference. That approach might also be slightly dangerous, because the resulting report would not shine a full light on the issue. Reluctantly, I do not support Brian Monteith's proposal.
There is little to disagree with in Mike Russell's remarks. In the short time available before the election, the committee could not do the McCrone agreement justice, whether it used a reporter or full committee meetings.
Brian Monteith highlighted what appears to be a simple issue, which is the agreement between COSLA and the Scottish Executive on the allocation formula. The difficulty is that everybody involved agreed that the total envelope was sufficient to fund the McCrone settlement fully. Is the committee suggesting that money be reclaimed from local authorities? That suggestion has been made elsewhere.
Even with an issue that, on the face of it, seems quite simple, there are several complex options. It would be best to include the matter in our legacy paper for the new committee.
I agree with Jackie Baillie and Michael Russell. It would be valuable to look at the McCrone agreement, but it is still being implemented and much work remains to be done on it. We do not have time to consider it. The agreement needs a committee to look at it; a reporter would not be able to do the work required. The committee could mention such an inquiry in its legacy paper for the new committee.
I agree. The issue merits something better than we could manage in the time available. The committee could only do something superficial, which is not the right way to deal with a project of such central importance to Scottish education. We could not take proper evidence—the evidence would be distorted and it would be difficult to draw it together because of the conflicting views. Given the time left before dissolution, the time that the committee could devote to the matter and the texture of the agreement, it would be too difficult for the committee to arrive at sensible conclusions. Although, like other members, I have sympathy with the idea, it would be impractical to examine the McCrone agreement now.
Careful thought needs to be given to how to consider the agreement, even after the election. It is still being implemented and negotiations are continuing among the stakeholders. However, members should have a chance to consider it, if the new committee felt it appropriate to do so. The legacy paper seems to be the right vehicle for the matter.
My views are similar to those of other members. I understand that the Auditor General for Scotland has an investigation of McCrone as part of his work programme for the coming year. We ought to take that into consideration when we decide how best to tackle the issue.
I have done some background work on the agreement, and Irene McGugan is almost right: the Accounts Commission for Scotland has the agreement in its proposed programme for this year. In addition, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education will examine it towards the summer.
COSLA continues to monitor the McCrone agreement and has told me that the key milestones have been met ahead of time and that the objectives that were set down are also being met. We are aware that negotiations with ministers continue on some of the financial issues. Importantly, the negotiating group, which comprises COSLA, the Executive and the trade unions, continues to meet and keep a watching brief on McCrone.
From the information that I have gathered over the past week, my view is that it would not be appropriate for the committee to become involved at this stage, but it may be an issue for a future committee.
I am rather disappointed with members' unanimous view that we should not proceed with my request. In a sense, the rationale seems to be that it might have been better to proceed with the original request that I made last year, when I had greater sympathy and support.
The committee is behaving akin to the way in which political parties behave when they request a royal commission, which is the lowest common denominator when something that might be contentious needs to be discussed.
It is quite right that the Accounts Commission should look at the McCrone settlement. There is a great deal of concern about the effectiveness of the way in which it has been funded and how it will operate formally. It is important that other bodies consider the settlement, but consideration by the Accounts Commission need not exclude consideration by the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. We would take a far wider view of the operation of the settlement. However, if we cannot produce a simple paper on the progress that has been made to date, let us make that an agenda item for a future committee in our legacy paper. I hope only that we will not come to regret that legacy.
With all due respect, the letter that you have submitted does not seek a report on the current situation. As I understand it, we have reached all the key milestones that we should have reached by this point under the McCrone settlement. A five-year or six-year plan will take five or six years to work through and, in the middle of that process, some things will need to be tweaked. However, no one is telling me that we have not reached the milestones that were supposed to have been reached by now.
From the language that you are using, convener, am I to assume that, in your view, we should not even consider the possibility of examining the McCrone settlement until the milestones have not been reached or that we should assess progress only in five years' time? I cannot believe that you are saying that—I hope that you will correct any misapprehension on my part.
Clearly, people are saying that difficulties are being faced at the moment. If we are to investigate those difficulties, we must consider the progress that has been made towards reaching the milestones. We must look back to define the McCrone settlement, the point that we have reached and how we have reached it. We must then identify any difficulties that exist. The committee could suggest additional work that may be required or changes that would benefit all parties. It would be impossible to provide a report, either from the committee or from a reporter, without examining the past. I did not feel that I needed to make that point in detail in my letter.
Far be it from me to defend the convener, who is probably big enough—although certainly not ugly enough—to do so herself. However, it is entirely unjustified and wrong for the member to misquote the convener and then to provide a flawed analysis of the reasons for our taking—or being about to take—the decision that we are going to take. I heard every member of the committee say that time prohibits us from carrying out a comprehensive review and analysis of the McCrone settlement. I am talking about not just a statement of the current position, but an analysis of what has gone wrong—assuming that things have gone wrong and that difficulties have been experienced at local level—the nature of those problems, how they arose and how we resolve them. I am not interested in doing a quick, half-hearted piece of work that fails to examine all the issues.
Brian Monteith said that he raised this issue previously. Quite legitimately, members made the point that the McCrone settlement is not particularly new. There are issues that need to be worked through and milestones that must be achieved. That does not close the door on our conducting a review, but the practical issue is that the committee will meet only 10 times before dissolution. This is not the right point at which to undertake a comprehensive analysis of some of the complicated issues that arise.
In fact, there will be only six meetings of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee before dissolution. There will be three meetings of the ad hoc committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill.
I stand corrected—there is even less time than I said there was.
We have a tight timetable. If, for example, the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill is agreed to at stage 1, the Parliament will require the committee to consider that bill at stage 2 within a very tight time scale.
Brian Monteith has proposed a substantial piece of work. If we are considering a full investigation by the committee—which is not what Brian suggested in his letter—it would be for a future committee to carry out such work. I cannot place an item on the agenda of a future committee, because no Parliament can bind its successor. However, in our legacy paper we can suggest that a future committee might want to consider the issue. If members of this committee are appointed to a successor committee after the election, I am sure that they will want to pursue the matter.
We will not progress the issue further, as I see no further support for the proposal.