Education Committee, 14 Jan 2004

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Official Report 365KB pdf

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Petition

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Early-years Education and Child Care (PE523)

Item 2 is consideration of petition PE523 and the further paperwork and Executive response that we have received. The petition was submitted by Unison in the previous session and was forwarded to us. Members have the Executive's response before them.

As is clear, a significant number of reviews are taking place and I am inclined to think that we should let the Executive complete those reviews. We could perhaps consider the petition further at a suitable point—which I guess might be in the early autumn—when the reviews will either be completed or be heading that way. We would then be able to get more solid information and perhaps carry out more successfully our duty to hold the Executive to account on the issue. Have members any thoughts on that approach or any other comments on the response?

I agree with your suggestion, convener. I welcome both the petition and the response from the Executive.

The situation is difficult. Many of us will have strong personal sympathies with nursery nurses who strike because they feel that they are badly paid—none of us would consider that nursery nurses are particularly well paid—but that is not to say that we approve of their going on strike or that we should even encourage the notion that the Executive is responsible for setting pay levels for nursery nurses. That is the background to the petition.

We have responsibilities and duties in many areas. I was encouraged by the extent to which the Executive is taking action on the issue. We should allow that action to take its course. We should not raise false expectations among nursery nurses that we will address a problem that must be resolved between them and their employers.

Arguably, our committee is not readily equipped to do that or to comment generally on pay issues.

It is a pity that the petition has been around for so long and will continue to be around until the autumn at least. We have a duty to consider the education of our young children and to look at the conditions of service and the national strategy that is in place for nursery nurses. I know that reviews are going on, but it will be a pity if we do not join things up to take the issue forward.

I propose that we should consider the issue that the petition raises. In particular, we should consider a national pay structure and national conditions. We should also look at the training of nursery nurses. All those things have been requested in the one package. Although the reviews are under way, the matter will drag on and on.

The education of our youngest children should be our priority. Until we have a joined-up service, in which there are satisfied professionals working, our youngest children will not receive the best service. We have a duty to consider the issue carefully and not to let it hang around until the autumn, which is a long time away. The dispute is already taking place.

We need to acknowledge that the current pay structure, under which individual local authorities come to agreements, does not help but just creates more disunity within the service, as different authorities provide different pay settlements for nursery nurses. That does not happen in teaching, which has a national structure and a national strategy. That is what we need for nursery nurses. The sooner we get it, the better.

We agreed our work programme not too long ago. Even if we commenced a report in a timescale that the work programme would allow, we would hardly be likely to complete our work before the Executive's reviews are completed. We would benefit from having the work of the Executive review committees before us on a series of issues that seem to be involved.

There is a strong case for the committee to review the Executive's progress. We previously discussed the issue last June or last October. Some of the feedback that we received concerned the Executive's substantial investment in the area. The size of that investment alone imposes a duty on us to scrutinise effectively. There is a strong case for reviewing progress. I am not suggesting that there should be a massive exercise, but a short, sharp inquiry might be the way forward.

I was particularly concerned about the progress of sector skills councils, which we inquired about. Little progress appears to have been made. Indeed, I think that we are still waiting for the completion of a Westminster consultation. For all those reasons and for the reasons that Rosemary Byrne has flagged up, I believe that we should consider the matter in some way.

Do members think that there should be a short, sharp review? I confess that I do not think that there should be. There seems to be a whole series of issues relating to training, qualifications, resources and patchy provision across the country. I do not think that any of us would dispute that provision must be consolidated and built on at some point, but surely to goodness we must have the Executive's reviews before we can sensibly consider the issues.

You are right, convener. As Ken Macintosh says, many of us have a great deal of sympathy with nursery nurses and would agree that they are underpaid, but there would be no point in pretending that a committee review could resolve the current pay dispute—the committee is not in a position to resolve the dispute. As Ken Macintosh says, it would be wrong to raise expectations in that way.

I tend to agree with you, convener. It is clear that a lot is going on. On the sector skills council, the response that we received to the letter that was sent to Patricia Hewitt said that the consultation period would end on 1 December 2003, after which the results of the consultation would be considered. Until we have the results of that consultation and of some of the work that the Executive is undertaking, we will not be in a position to make a judgment about what is going on. We need to let some things take their course before we can inquire into the issue in any meaningful way. Doing something earlier for the sake of doing something would probably not achieve much.

The sector is so fundamental that we must consider it properly and timetable a thorough look at it. I would prefer to do that rather than simply to react to a petition.

Obviously, timescales are an issue. Some members have said that the matter is urgent and that things must be done now, whereas others have said that we should wait for the outcome of the reviews before progressing matters. I think that the latter option would fit better with our work programme, although that is an incidental issue to some degree. If we decided to take the former option, we would have to displace something that is already in the work programme, as a number of sessions would be required to get a handle on the issues, which have overtones of the administrative difficulties that were involved with free personal care.

We must deal with the sector properly. Many things are happening and there are many things that we cannot influence, but we do not want to sit back and do nothing. Many reports and reviews will be published, are in the process of being published or have been published—we can consider them, even if we cannot deal with some of the work until the autumn. It might be helpful if the committee appointed a reporter on the issue to keep us in touch with the development of the sector skills council.

The Executive says on the second page of its response that it expects a final report on the integrated early-years strategy towards the end of the financial year—I presume that that is in the next few weeks. It might be helpful if one of our members could keep us in touch with the progress of reviews and reports in preparation for our comprehensive look at the sector. For example, I understand that Lewis Macdonald will make an announcement today about launching a number of sector skills councils in Scotland, although, for obvious reasons, that will not cover the early-years strategy. However, rather than waiting until October, when we will have a full inquiry, we need to keep up to date with all the reviews and the work that is going on so that we can hit the ground running when we have evidence sessions and so on.

Fiona Hyslop's suggestion is helpful, but I would rather that the whole committee were kept informed. I do not wish to rely on a reporter now and then; I would like Executive correspondence and initiatives to come to the whole committee. One of the first issues that we discussed from the previous committee's legacy paper was an inquiry into the early-years sector. I supported holding an inquiry at the time, but, now that we have prioritised our agenda, this does not seem like the right time to progress with that inquiry.

A lot is happening in the area. I notice that there have been advances in relation to SPRITO and the relevant sector skills council. The whole area of sector skills councils is difficult—for example, we need to consider whether we should have Scottish councils or United Kingdom ones. I do not wish to marginalise all those issues. The role of a reporter is useful on some issues, usually when it comes to investigating something that the whole committee cannot take the time—

It is usually a narrower issue.

Exactly. I do not want to lose sight of the fact that the committee will return to the matter. Rather than appointing a reporter, we could write to the Executive and ask it to ensure that you are kept informed, convener, so that you can circulate the information to us as you receive it.

I support that. Timing is essential and we should avoid duplication. I remember clearly that, when the House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs did a lengthy report on employment, the process took more than a year. By the time the report came out, the Administration had already taken many decisions on implementation. The report was superseded by events—it was irrelevant, it carried no impact or weight and a lot of time was wasted. If the Executive keeps us informed on the progress of the reviews, we can return to the matter at the most appropriate moment and make an input that would have some effect and be of use.

Okay, let us try to come to a conclusion. If I read correctly the view of the committee, everyone is hugely concerned about the matter, which is an important and significant issue for Scotland. The question that we face is about timescales and the proper way of acting. I do not think that there is an appropriate role for a reporter—that role is more useful in a consideration of a narrower issue, on which an individual member can do some useful investigative work.

In this instance, I suggest to the committee that we follow Ken Macintosh's suggestion to ask the Executive to keep us in touch on the specific developments that are detailed in the response and that we return to the matter as part of our work programme as the opportunity arises. I guess that that might happen in the latter part of the year, when the reviews come out.

As Lord James suggested, it is not our job to mirror and shadow the Executive; it is our job to hold it to account. The proper time to do that is when it pushes ahead with the policy proposals that will result from the reviews. We can then do something useful.

What are members' views on that suggestion? I appreciate that there is some division on that point, but I am trying to crystallise matters.

When we have the results of the reviews—as soon as possible after conclusions have been reached—can we make a commitment to reconsider our work programme if there is a feeling that we can move forward before the autumn? My main concern is that the issue has been lying around for a long time. We might find ourselves having to join everything together and, in that regard, it worries me that there are bits here and bits there. I wish that the review had been full, thorough and joined up in the first place. We cannot change that now, but it would be useful to make a commitment to examine our work programme while we are monitoring the review process. We should not leave the issue behind.

We will not leave it behind. I take the committee's views on the matter seriously and I think that that suggestion is helpful. I would add that we could ask the Executive to give a bit more clarity as to when it expects the various reviews to be concluded. That would give us an idea of when it would be most useful for us to fit into the process. Would that be acceptable to the committee?

Members indicated agreement.

I do not think that it matters too much what we do with regard to the petition at this point.

We should agree to note the petition.

That would be sensible, as we will not lose sight of the issue as progress is made. Do members agree to note the petition?

Members indicated agreement.

We will write to Unison to inform it of our decision.