Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 14 Jan 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Official Report 188KB pdf

---

Reporters' Inquiries

Agenda item 3 is reporters' inquiries, a number of which are on-going.

On my inquiry into football, I have met several of the clubs and I intend to attend this weekend's Supporters Direct conference. Matters are progressing and I hope to report by the end of February.

My report is ready to be written up. I have only one person still to see. I would have had the report finished, but personal circumstances at the end of last year held me back. I expect to produce my report by the end of February.

The report on the Scots language has been completed and we are in the process of translating it. We expect publication to take place by the end of January or the beginning of February. I hope that we will be able to hold a substantial press launch.

I have been remiss. I said that I would do a report on early-years education, which is a difficult issue for a single reporter to tackle. I do not feel that I am expert enough to come up with details and decisions on a complicated area. I will produce some sort of report, but it will not be as full as I intended at first.

When I raised the issue, my intention was that the committee should investigate it by seeking expert opinion and taking proper evidence. I am genuinely hesitant about making statements on subjects on which I am not an expert. I will try to put together a report that will fit the bill in the meantime, but I suspect that the issue should feature in the legacy paper. Early-years education is a big subject. I will draw together some of the main strands and let the committee decide what to do after that.

Mike Russell has his hand up—perhaps he is doing a secret report.

It would be helpful if Ian Jenkins produced a starter paper to accompany the legacy paper. We have not been able to tackle early-years education and it would be worth widening out a topic that we should have been able to address.

There are three missing issues. Mr McAveety was doing a report on popular music, which died when he left the committee; I presume that he has not done any work on it. We should probably close down that report formally.

I have forgotten the second issue, so I will go on to the final one. I have received an e-mail from Susan Duffy and I am ready to start my work on the report on the purposes of education, but I am waiting for Brian Monteith's comments. He said that he would e-mail them to me.

I thought that Mr Russell was preparing a draft for me to comment on.

No, I was waiting for your comments on the original draft.

I have done those.

Could you e-mail them to me? I will then do a redraft and pass it on to Cathy Peattie, as agreed.

I have remembered the second issue. We have not managed to progress the issue of primary school closures.

We are coming to that. There is some unfinished business in relation to rural schools, closures and guidance. We need to obtain a final reply. I have asked the clerks to take up the matter with the relevant minister, so that we can conclude it one way or the other. We will be able to take things from there.

There was a rumour that COSLA had batted the issue back, saying that it could not deal with it, and that the Executive was considering a bill. We would not want to finish the committee's work without knowing what will happen next. Closures are still taking place. I spoke to someone at the end of last week about a possible closure and the first thing that they asked was, "Is the consultation process usually so biased against the parents?" Cathy Peattie addressed the issue in Argyll. We have repeatedly picked up dissatisfaction with the failure to follow procedures.

The issue can be dealt with in guidance to local authorities, rather than in a bill. Mike Russell is right to say that COSLA batted the issue back. There is room for the Executive to consider the matter, which has been around for a wee while, and I would be interested to hear what the minister says.

We will follow that up.