[The Convener opened the meeting at 10:05]
Good morning, colleagues, and welcome to the Education Committee's 12th meeting in 2006. We have two items on the agenda today. In a moment, we will start our second oral evidence session on the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Bill, which will be followed by consideration of an update on the child protection reform programme. However, before we start, Fiona Hyslop has a question.
Audit Scotland has recently produced its report on the McCrone agreement, although the report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education is yet to be published. As the committee has a long-standing interest in reviewing the operation and implementation of the agreement, can we arrange a time to consider the educational issues that emerge from the Audit Scotland report and from the HMIE report, when it is published?
It has always been our intention to do that. I confirm that, when the HMIE report comes out, I intend to bring both reports to the committee for consideration. Under a parliamentary protocol, we cannot deal with an Audit Scotland report until the Parliament's Audit Committee has completed its deliberations on it. We are partly tied to the Audit Committee's timetable, but my intention is for the committee to consider both reports, once the HMIE report is published.