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Good morning. I open the 31st meeting in 2008 of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee. Agenda item 1 is consideration of the report of the teacher employment working group. I am pleased to welcome Fiona Hyslop MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. She is joined by Michael Kellet, who is deputy director of the teachers division in the Scottish Government. I understand that the cabinet secretary wants to make a short opening statement.
I do indeed.
I thank the cabinet secretary for that update. Members wish to cover a number of subject areas. We have all morning, although we also have another substantial item on our agenda. I would therefore be grateful if questions could be kept short and—equally important—if answers could be focused and could attempt to get to the heart of the issue.
Convener, it would be helpful if I knew your timescale for your next witnesses.
I hope that we will finish absolutely no later than 11:15. I would prefer to finish at 11 o'clock, if we can manage it.
Good morning, cabinet secretary. I want to ask about recommendation 1, which is about the reconciliation of national and local workforce planning processes.
I do not think that that specific problem is central, although it is certainly relevant for the individuals concerned. Different local authorities have different practices when it comes to giving probationers experience and then employment. Some local authorities, such as West Lothian Council, make a point of trying to employ as many probationers as they have, post-probation. It is possible for individuals to apply elsewhere, but each local authority decides on its own practices.
For obvious reasons, different local authorities have different teacher numbers, but do you accept that the system is too rigid if certain councils can apply some kind of stop? It is not a free market, and it can be difficult for people who want to cross to a different local authority—even within the five choices that they have made.
From a local authority perspective, you are damned if you do and damned if you do not. A local authority will be criticised for not taking on probationers from its own area if it opens up the market for everybody else right at the beginning. It cuts both ways. Many individual, smaller things can be done that can help the system, and we have identified where improvements can be made with the workforce planning group. However, we will take the issue to the meeting that I will have with COSLA tomorrow at which there will be feedback on this session and on progress with the group. We will identify with COSLA whether there can be a common understanding of what local authorities might want to do.
Brian Cooklin, who gave evidence in the session that I mentioned, was also frustrated. As a headteacher, he sometimes feels constrained by local authority rules and regulations about whom he can and cannot interview. Sometimes all candidates are taken and sometimes they are not. Do you accept that that problem should at least be considered? I think that it imposes rigidities in the marketplace.
It can be considered, but I give a caution. You make the point that the Conservatives would like more flexibility for headteachers in respect of employment. The problem is that flexibility in individual schools could cause real and severe problems in trying to co-ordinate national workforce planning and in making recruitment decisions in 2009 for plans for 2014. The Government would have to liaise with each and every school to consider where workforce planning will be in 2014 for decisions that we are making now. The idea of having flexibility in local employment and in deciding which probationers to employ, how many there should be and where they should be might be good in itself, but it would not help national workforce planning. Obviously, the issue lies in ensuring that we get the numbers right nationally and locally. For every benefit, there is a potential disbenefit. However, you are right. It is worth considering whether we can bring things closer together.
I am sure that we will debate Conservative party policies at another juncture. What I am getting at is whether you are concerned about having a national strategy at the same time as a historic concordat that involves local authorities being able to have the priorities that they want to have. Teacher employment is a difficult problem in that context. I am trying to get at some way that you can see of getting improvement in articulating decisions that are taken at national and local levels. If I have read the report's recommendations correctly, that is the central problem that people are trying to drive at.
We are trying to get intelligent and informed decision making. The problem, which was also a problem for the previous Administration, lies in getting information that is as accurate as possible for forecasting five years hence, which is quite tricky. Information and intelligence will allow flexible decision making, which is what you are asking for on a local, individual school basis, I think. Unless there is intelligent decision making and the required information, things will be more difficult. A better calibrated system on a national and local basis should allow more flexibility, even on an individual school basis, but we are not there yet. The previous Administration also had to deal with the problem.
I accept that, but probationers send out messages when they submit applications. Do those messages not form part of the information process? My point is that those applications sometimes do not get far because of restrictions in local authorities that do not allow people to go for the jobs that they would like to go for. Is that not part of the issue?
We want to continue to pursue that matter. Recommendations have been produced, which we will pursue—indeed, I have said in evidence that we have already taken forward a good number of those recommendations—but that does not prevent us from considering other things as well. Many individual things can happen to improve the system. There is no big-bang solution; rather, there should be intelligent decision making that allows local flexibility, is more responsive to individuals, and will get us to a better position.
So you are not really looking at a big-bang solution.
No, not at all.
I will change the focus to the class size policy in primaries 1 to 3. As you know, last week we took evidence from Mr Di Paola from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I was a little surprised by his comments that the Government's class size policy in P1 to P3 had not been factored in to the overall projections for primary teacher employment. Can you explain that?
Page 4 of the concordat identifies that there are sufficient resources in the local government settlement to maintain teacher numbers at 53,000. Had we not made provision for that, it would have been possible for teacher pupil ratios and class sizes to be maintained across the country but with falling rolls we would have needed fewer teachers, so as teachers retired they would not have been replaced. We ensured that there were sufficient resources in the local government settlement to maintain teacher numbers. The figure never quite reached 53,000 in 2007, but it was at about that level.
But I think that I am correct in saying that, in the statistical model, there is an allowance of 8 per cent for what was called overstocking the population: in other words, an extra 8 per cent of teachers must be on the register, as it were, to cover illness, maternity leave or whatever. I think that another 8 per cent may change in the light of the preference waiver scheme being increased from £6,000 to £8,000, so there are factors that must be taken into account in the statistical model. However, we have been told that there has not been any change in that statistical model to take account of a major Government policy on class sizes.
I do not recognise a figure of 8 per cent for the preference waiver scheme affecting the overall numbers; the scheme affects where teachers go, rather than how many there are.
Is it not the case that, because the Government has increased the preference waiver payment from £6,000 to £8,000, the statistical model is making a projection about the increase that that would provide?
Remember that the preference waiver is not for the post-probation situation; it is for the induction scheme. The preference waiver scheme is a national pot that follows the probationer, so there is no additional cost. You are saying, "Hang on, the preference waiver is an additional cost because of what you have introduced." However, it is not—it is covered within the existing probationer funding scheme.
Was Mr Di Paola correct when he said that that was not factored into the statistical model?
The workforce planning system has to ensure that there are 53,000 teachers in the system. The planning exercise aims to get the balance right between primary and secondary. Given that there are falling school rolls, particularly in secondary, there might be a shift because fewer secondary teachers are required, so when secondary teachers retire there may be an increase in the number of primary teachers.
I can accept that, but let us get this absolutely clear. There is a statistical model for projections of the numbers who will come into the profession five years down the line. However, at the end of last week's session, I was given the impression that certain factors within that model are being looked at because there is significant potential for the recruitment numbers to change. Am I correct in thinking that the class size projections per se are not part of the statistical model?
The 53,000 calculation factored in the need to achieve class size targets. Ensuring that teacher numbers are maintained at 53,000 allows the headroom to start reducing class sizes; otherwise, the numbers of teachers across Scotland would reduce markedly as school rolls fall. In that situation, local authorities would not replace teachers, because fewer teachers would be needed as pupil numbers fell.
But were the civil servants asked to consider a projection for each local authority of an increase in the number of teachers because of the class size policy?
Local authorities would not necessarily need an increased number of teachers to address the class size policy. Maintaining teacher numbers at pre-existing levels could be enough. We have seen that happening in different local authorities in the past year. By maintaining teacher numbers while school rolls fall, local authorities have been able to redeploy teachers as part of the policy of reducing class sizes. I admit that it is more of a challenge—we said this when the policy was introduced—in areas such as East Lothian, West Lothian and Perth and Kinross because school rolls are rising. However, the class size policy was factored into the 53,000 calculation.
Right. However, you do not predict that, because of the class size policy, there will be a considerable increase in the number of teachers employed.
We will maintain teacher numbers at a time when they would have been expected to reduce by several thousand. You are right that we need intelligence about the situation in individual local authorities. The more precise the information from individual authorities, the easier it is to make year-on-year predictions. However, if we had not maintained teacher numbers at 53,000, they could easily have reduced over the spending review period to 50,000 or 49,000 without necessarily affecting the teacher pupil ratio across Scotland.
But do you accept that the flagship national policy of reducing class sizes to no more than 18 in P1 to P3, which was promised to the electorate, is difficult to implement when it comes to teacher numbers?
Having several thousand more teachers in the system than are needed provides a resource to help support the policy. We provided that resource by maintaining teacher numbers at 53,000.
The committee heard from Joe Di Paola at last week's meeting that the numbers of teachers retiring were not as great as was originally anticipated. The teacher employment working group's recommendation 6 was specifically about that. Can you tell us a little bit more about what discussions you have had on reviewing the winding-down scheme and about the impact that you think it will have on encouraging teachers to consider taking early retirement?
I noted the evidence from COSLA—it was possibly anecdotal information—about people putting off retirement. We have heard anecdotal information about that. However, we have not had specific information about the number of teachers who are retiring and how that compares with the projections. Interestingly, the projections for this year were not out by much. Two years ago, it was modelled that 5,799 teachers, which is a fairly substantially number, would leave teaching between 2006 and 2007. We are therefore looking at a figure of about 6,000 retirals a year, which means that half of all teachers will leave the profession during the four years of this parliamentary session and that we will have to replace them. That is why we said that we need to have 20,000 teachers in training just to stand still.
Is there a resource issue for local authorities? A teacher's decision to retire a little earlier not only has resource and pension implications for the teacher but has a financial implication for the local authority. Perhaps some local authorities manage that better than others because they do not have as many teachers.
You might make that comment. Your question about the different experiences would be more appropriately directed at the COSLA official from whom you took evidence last week. I point out that 3,000 retired teachers will experience a cut in their pensions from April because of the recent decisions that were made about the pension scheme. Whether that will have an impact on individual teachers' decisions—such as whether they will want to do more supply work—is something to consider.
One of my colleagues will ask you about supply teachers, so I will return to the specifics of resources. Although I appreciate that local authorities have to find the money, ultimately the Scottish Government gives them the resources to deliver their services as they decide they want to. Are you confident that you are giving local authorities sufficient resources to allow them to ensure that teachers can retire if it is appropriate for them?
The resources are available for local authorities to maintain teacher numbers at 53,000. Teacher pensions are controlled and administered by Westminster, which is currently the subject of debate. The issue is that the cost of pensions, not only for teachers but for other local authority workers, is projected into planning for all local authorities. Local authority workers and others such as the police are administered and controlled by the Scottish Government.
I certainly wrote to you about that issue after being approached by North Lanarkshire Council. The council has a number of teachers who are nearing the end of their career and who might retire a little bit earlier if they had a financial incentive that made it worth their while to do so. However, the local authority would need to be resourced from the centre—some additional funding would be needed in the concordat settlement—to be able to offer such an incentive.
I remember the correspondence now. The suggestion is that councils need a pump-priming fund for early retirement. However, as you will remember, the cash-flow issue is that new teachers entering the profession are cheaper, because they are lower down the pay scales, so councils can make a saving by employing newer teachers.
I want to move on to the issue of supply teachers. In evidence last week, Joe Di Paola told us that claims that retired teachers were being used for supply coverage instead of post-probationers were more or less anecdotal, as there were no hard figures to back them up. Will the Government monitor that situation closely to check whether there is such a trend?
Again, we need to improve on the previous situation by getting more intelligence on what is happening.
The figures for 2007-08 show quite a marked increase in the number of post-probationers in supply posts. Do you want that figure to rise?
The ideal situation is to have as many teachers in permanent positions as is possible, but they cannot all be in permanent positions in August in any year. If we had 100 per cent of post-probationers in permanent employment in August, we would end up with extensive teacher shortages and pupils being sent home in November, December or January when people retire or leave the profession. We have cyclical recruitment, which is a challenge.
If, as we are hearing anecdotally, retired teachers rather than post-probationers are being chosen for supply posts, will not more teachers taking early retirement have an impact that must be carefully considered?
For every action there is a reaction. Teachers taking early retirement packages, rather than using the winding-down scheme and working on for some time, may create more permanent jobs, but it will also increase the number of retired teachers who might want to join the supply pool, which will crowd out post-probationers. It might make sense to have an improvement in one area, but that can have a knock-on effect somewhere else. That is what I am referring to when I talk about calibration. We want to ensure that the process is tuned such that a particular action does not skew the system.
We heard from Joe Di Paola at last week's meeting that you were taking legal advice about the potential for age discrimination—you mentioned that in your opening remarks. Is that still an on-going issue on which you are seeking advice?
Yes. It is obviously a delicate area. I think Duncan McNeil raised the question of age discrimination when I made the statement in the chamber, but I pointed out that we take the issue very seriously. Subsequently, the Equality and Human Rights Commissioner commented that any overt system that discriminated on an age basis would have difficulties with the European convention on human rights. We must therefore recognise that providing opportunities, whether in temporary posts or the supply pool, to keep post-probationers in the workplace or close to the profession is important for the individual professional development of the teachers and will make them better qualified to go into permanent employment later. The problem of age discrimination can therefore be addressed in different ways.
I have a couple of questions on primary school teachers. In October 2005, 61 per cent of post-probationers in primary schools were in permanent posts, but that figure has reduced to 30 per cent now. There is therefore a downward trend in the likelihood of post-probationers having permanent posts at primary school level. Are you worried by that trend? Do you feel that the working group's recommendations will do enough to address it? If not, do other measures need to be taken?
The working group's recommendations will have an impact on both primary and secondary across the piece. With the resources that are available to maintain teacher numbers at 53,000, there should not necessarily be the kind of trend that you described. We would anticipate some reduction in the numbers of post-probationers in permanent posts in secondary schools because falling school rolls are starting to impact more obviously in secondary, particularly in the west of Scotland, where population levels have reduced markedly. In contrast, there is a trend in the east of Scotland for the population to increase.
I want to talk a bit more about the commitment to maintain teacher numbers at 53,000. Liz Smith asked about the class size pledge for primaries 1 to 3. Are primary teachers being specifically recruited? The types of student are not distinguished in the figure, and maintaining it at 53,000 could mean that the secondary sector will be overloaded. Are there any guarantees that primaries 1 to 3 are being targeted?
It is clear even from experience this year that local authorities have recruited into primary schools where there is headroom. A number of local authorities—Fife Council, South Lanarkshire Council and North Lanarkshire Council—have done that. The impact that we are now seeing of class size reductions to 25 should also be remembered. Last year was the first in which all local authorities by and large hit primary 1 class sizes of 25. They have been making decisions about what to do with P1 classes, and those children are now in P2. Many authorities—Dumfries and Galloway Council is a good example—want to keep P1 classes of 25 and progress them to P2. Again, local decisions are being taken where they can make an impact. Some authorities—West Lothian Council, for example—are targeting classes of 18 for areas of deprivation, which they want to focus on. For those who believe that local authorities should have discretion on how to implement national policies, authorities are taking different ways and routes to do that.
You say that 130 primary teachers are on jobseekers allowance. Are the others in teaching or in other employment? I am sorry; I ask that question because of my lack of knowledge of the matter.
They are not claiming—
They are not claiming jobseekers allowance, but are that other 95 per cent all in teaching jobs? Do we know?
I am talking about the unemployment rates and the jobseekers allowance figures that have come out. All I am saying is that the trend is clearly that there has been a reduction in the number of teachers on jobseekers allowance at a time when, for obvious reasons, the national claimant count is increasing.
Those examples point to the variability in the implementation of the class size pledge in primary schools, because different authorities are making different decisions for different reasons.
It is not a percentage figure.
It is per thousand.
Yes, it is 5.6 per thousand.
Sorry, but in the responses that I have had from constituents who are post-probationers, many of them talk about moving abroad or looking for work in other areas. We cannot identify from that figure that the others, who are not among the 5.6 per cent per thousand on jobseekers allowance, are definitely in teaching jobs, can we?
It is not a percentage figure.
Sorry, 5.6 out of a thousand. We can say that the others are in employment, but we cannot say that they are teachers.
Of course we cannot. However, I can give you the figures for England. When we were at 6.9 per thousand, England was at 7.4 per thousand, Wales was at 10.1 per thousand and Northern Ireland was at 6.4 per thousand. The figures released this morning show that the figure has decreased in all parts of the UK, but Scotland still has a lower rate of teachers on jobseekers allowance than any other part. However, we all know from the experience of our constituents that that does not mean that there are not challenges for individuals. We must ensure that the system is sophisticated enough to deal with the issue.
I remind everyone that time is moving on, so I ask for short questions and succinct and focused answers.
I apologise for being late, cabinet secretary.
A reasonable case can be made either way and I understand the logic on both sides of the argument. However, strong regard has to be given to the fact that local authorities are the employers and they are responsible for the employment of teachers and for education policy in their local area. I also trust headteachers and they should have flexibility. I agree to that extent with Liz Smith; individual headteachers must have a degree of discretion and flexibility to provide the best staffing arrangements to meet the needs of their children.
Last week, I picked up the sense that a centralised staffing arrangement was flatly unacceptable to some people, who felt almost on principle that staffing should be up to local authorities. However, I take a bit more comfort from your response, because it indicates that, for you, it is less about the principle that local authorities should make staffing decisions and more about the fact that you think that they and headteachers are better placed to use the flexibility to make the best possible decisions.
It would be possible to argue both points. A principle is involved, and it would run counter to our current relationship with local government to impose a centralised position on local authorities. However, the stronger argument is the one that I have just given you: in practice, the flexibility that exists allows for the creativity and innovation that we need to drive up quality in education. It is easy to examine processes and numbers and consider the matter as a workforce planning issue that is about putting X per cent here and Y per cent there. However, education policy should be about improving the quality of education and it is sometimes worth keeping our eye on that driver rather than on what might be convenient from a management point of view.
What do you think of the degree of say that headteachers have throughout the country? Do some councils involve headteachers in planning more than others? Do you want that to be developed and will you monitor it? Do you consider it to be a way of improving the correlation between the numbers of post-probationers and jobs and of determining the right number of people to train?
There needs to be far more sharing of information not only at a micro level—individual schools—but at local authority level to improve the situation that we inherited. The workforce planning group said that the current system is fit for purpose. Indeed, the marginal difference between the number of retirements forecast and the number of teachers who retired shows that we have a system that is fit for purpose, as does the way in which those numbers feed into recruitment. However, the system can be improved, and greater intelligence and information are key factors in allowing us to do that.
Do you accept that we have a system that is fit for purpose as long as people communicate exactly what they think they are going to do, but that the reality on the ground for local authorities is that they often have to react to specific circumstances and pressures, including financial pressures arising from their settlement, inflation, an involvement with Icelandic banks or whatever? Do you accept that, no matter how robust the system is, local authorities will have to make decisions in a tight timescale, which is completely at variance with a workforce planning system that needs to forecast six years in advance?
Yes, and that is—
You are surely not going to make a case for both sides.
No. You will understand that that is the challenge that I face and that previous education ministers faced. That is why the intelligence is important. In the next few weeks, I will have to make decisions that will impact on the number of post-probationers in 2014, so we need a model and a common understanding of what we are trying to achieve. Therefore, the aim of maintaining teacher numbers at a certain level is one way of forecasting. If there are calibrations or movements either way, we will need to have information on that in sufficient time to make planning decisions. The situation is not new—it is exactly the same as previous Administrations faced. However, because there is a greater acceleration of those leaving the profession—as I said, 50 per cent of teachers have left in the space of four years—that perhaps presents more of a challenge to the present Administration than previous ones faced.
I will move your attention on to the particular challenges in employing secondary teachers. Recommendation 8 of the teacher employment working group report was to increase the payment in the preference waiver scheme from £6,000 to £8,000. When I questioned Joe Di Paola last week on the impact of the scheme, he told us that the working group had not modelled it. Does the Scottish Government intend to model the effect of the increase in the preference waiver payment on filling vacancies?
Certainly, there is a large number of vacancies at present. Some members are obviously concerned because they have postbags full of letters from teachers who are seeking jobs but, even recently, Aberdeenshire Council said that it had 103 vacancies. I ask Michael Kellet to comment on the preference waiver scheme.
We will certainly keep an eye on the impact of increasing the payment from £6,000 to £8,000 on the cohort of probationers who are in their final year at university and who will be offered the increased payment as they go into the probation year next year. The figures on the scheme have been fairly steady—about 8 per cent of probationers have taken up the option of the preference waiver. We hope to increase that, particularly among secondary teachers. We will keep a close eye on that to see whether increasing the payment to £8,000 has the impact that we want it to have.
Last week, Joe Di Paola told us that there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that a higher level of probationers are retained and take up permanent employment when they have used the preference waiver scheme. Do you intend to establish more robustly whether there is better retention among probationers who take up the scheme?
One reflection that I have, after visiting many local authorities in the summer, is that councils such as Dumfries and Galloway Council, Argyll and Bute Council, Highland Council and Orkney Islands Council find that when teachers come to them, although the area might not have been their first choice for permanent employment post probation, the quality of life is fantastic and they end up satisfied, so the retention rates can be high. In itself, that shows that the initial incentive is an investment, as there is a saving further down the line because councils do not have to replace teachers.
I am looking at the clock, and taking up the convener's challenge of being concise in my questioning. Has there been a drop in the proportion of permanent posts in secondary schools? If so, does that indicate that some of the vacancies are oversubscribed?
It is important to remember that the response rate for the GTCS survey was only 44 per cent, and that it concerned only post-probationers. The working group is not just about post-probationers; it is about how we reconcile the whole teacher cohort. That is one of the challenges that we face. The GTCS figures seem to show that there was some movement in secondary, which we have to consider. It is about doing comparisons. We still have the figure of 54,000 for full-time, permanent posts, which was a bit higher previously.
I am slightly concerned by your remarks about the nature of the problem that we are dealing with. You said that the trend might be improving. The GTCS survey suggests that in 2005, 94.7 per cent of post-probationers found a job in October. The following year, that fell to 92 per cent. The year after that, it fell to 87.8 per cent. This year, the figure was 79 per cent. Does that not reveal not only that there is a problem but that it is getting worse?
The figure of 79 per cent of teachers in employment is what we can reasonably expect. The figures that I gave the committee earlier on the jobseekers allowance show that the trend is such that that figure will increase. It has increased every year, and I am fairly confident that that will remain the case in April, when we expect the next GTCS survey. The situation is not new. It has happened consistently since 2005. The previous Administration faced a challenge in that it set the target of increasing teacher numbers to approximately 53,000, and it achieved a figure just a bit shy of that. It also had a situation in which a large number of teachers—up to 6,000—were starting to leave the profession.
The cabinet secretary said that the problem is not new, and that it has been consistent since 2005. I suggest that in 2005, one in 20 post-probationers could not find a job, and that that figure has risen consistently, so that now one in five cannot find a job. The problem is new and growing. If the cabinet secretary will not accept that there are too many teachers, is the problem that there are too few jobs for them to go to?
The funding for jobs allows us to maintain the number of teachers at 53,000, which is exactly the same figure as under the previous Administration.
I agree that that is one of the dangers. No one is suggesting that there should be guaranteed jobs, but there is a big issue, and the cabinet secretary has responsibility for recruiting teachers and for funding local authorities, so she has key controls. Two years ago, when the problem began to be identified, the minister at the time announced additional funds to address the problem. Last year, when the problem of post-probation employment grew, the cabinet secretary herself announced additional funds. The problem is much worse this year, so is the cabinet secretary about to announce additional funds to address it?
We provided additional funds to recruit 300 additional teachers on top of the number that we inherited. That involved an injection of £9 million into the system and was not for only one year; it has been maintained in the local government settlement.
Last year, the proportion of teachers in employment fell to 87.8 per cent and the minister announced an extra £9 million. Even though that money is still in the system, the problem is now worse, as the proportion of teachers in employment has fallen to 79 per cent. Given that the proportion of teachers in employment has fallen for three years in a row, and that in the previous two years the cabinet secretary announced additional money, what has changed? Why did she announce additional money last year but not this year?
You are confusing the post-probationer situation with the general cohort. The £9 million that we provided for 300 jobs was not for only post-probationers; it was for the whole system. The resources that were put into the local authority spend to maintain 53,000 teachers also included a 2 per cent uplift to ensure that efficiency savings did not affect front-line services.
The £9 million to which the minister referred might be for permanent teacher posts—and, of course, it should be—but, if I am not mistaken, it was announced following the publication of the GTCS survey and the response to it in the Parliament.
No, it was not. I announced the £9 million in June 2007, but the GTCS survey did not come out until October, as it did this year.
There has been continuing concern about teacher employment since the Parliament was founded. I and other members have raised questions since Peter Peacock was the Minister for Education and Young People. The problem has been identified continually. Is the minister suggesting that that is not the case?
We came into power in May 2007 and announced the money before the summer recess, which was long before the GTCS survey on probationers for that year had come out. You asked me a specific question and I am giving you a specific answer. You said that we responded to the GTCS survey in 2007 with £9 million, but that is incorrect; we announced the £9 million for 300 additional teachers within a month or two of coming into power. The basis of your question is wrong.
The basis of my question is not wrong, because it is that there is a continuing problem with post-probationary employment. A number of education ministers have announced a series of measures to address it, and I wonder what has changed this year. If there are decisions to be taken in the next couple of weeks, but no additional funding is to be announced and the Government is taking a partnership approach—the minister agreed that the problem requires solutions not only from her but from local authorities—will the minister agree to set up or recall the teacher employment working group on an on-going basis until the problem is resolved? We previously had a teacher induction scheme implementation group, but the teacher employment working group could be recalled now to oversee a realignment or recalibration—to use the minister's words—of teacher recruitment and teacher employment until we have addressed the problem of falling post-probationary employment.
The teacher employment working group was set up for a specific purpose with a specific remit and responded quickly and promptly with 12 recommendations that we took on board. You asked about continuing monitoring of the situation, which, as we know, is particularly acute for understandable reasons—that takes place. The teacher workforce planning group comprises representatives from the Scottish Government, COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the GTCS, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, teacher unions and universities. That is the same representation as on the short-life working group that was set up specifically to consider whether the system that we inherited from the previous Administration was fit for purpose and to make some initial recommendations.
The teacher workforce planning group will continue to exist, but there is a specific request for a new group to be set up to ensure that the problem that the GTCS survey has revealed relating to the employment of post-probationary teachers is resolved, so that we do not again have the situation of one in five post-probationary teachers finding themselves unemployed when they complete their probation in October.
I took action on the issue early and promptly. We have a report, on which the committee is taking evidence, with 12 recommendations. Our job is to drive forward those recommendations and to continue to identify opportunities to make differences: Liz Smith provided an example of how one local authority has done that. The fact that we have recommendations does not mean that we have finished dealing with the matter: there is a continuous process. The issue will receive the sharpest attention both from me and from the teacher workforce planning group, whose job and remit is to do exactly what you have outlined.
I point out that, according to the information that the cabinet secretary has provided, the figure for the proportion of teachers who are unemployed is not 20 per cent but 0.65 per cent.
We are keeping the issue under close consideration. We must all be responsible when dealing with the situation. It is striking that, despite the fact that we have to recruit large numbers—as I said, we must refresh 50 per cent of the whole teaching profession during this session—the quality of people who are applying to our institutions to become teachers has not diminished. It is important to focus not only on numbers but on quality. In its report on Scotland's school system, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was struck by the quality of teachers in the system and of the probationary scheme.
We have anecdotal evidence, from speaking to deans of faculties, that universities are experiencing some drop-off in recruitment this year. Recruitment is on-going, so they are not in a position to give us definitive evidence on the issue. I have no information on whether the age profile of applicants has changed, but we will liaise closely with deans to get better information and to share that with ministers and the committee, to see whether the suggestion is proving to be true.
The timeframe is such that, at this stage, we know about only the experience of those who applied this time last year, who started their studies for initial teacher training in the summer. Nothing from last summer's intake leads us to believe that there has been major variation.
Given that a lot of applications are being processed just now, I understand that it might be spring before you can give us a definitive answer, and one that takes gender into consideration.
One of the recommendations is for better forecasting for individual subjects to ensure that there is better reconciliation. There is variance, and maths is, as I said, the biggest challenge. We will have a better system this year than we have had in previous years for identifying the specific subjects to which we must recruit. My understanding is that we are examining some of the experience in England on forecasting for individual subjects to find out what lessons we can learn to help us to improve. Forecasting total numbers is challenging, never mind forecasting for individual subjects. Maths is causing particular concern.
The convener mentioned retirement, and you pointed out that there were 177 fewer retirements than anticipated. You also mentioned that you expect about half the current workforce to retire over a four-year period. That means that about 10 or 15 per cent of teachers in any given school will retire in any given year, which must be quite disruptive to the pupils concerned. If pupils have a good rapport with a teacher who is very experienced, and that teacher retires at some point during the academic year, it must be quite disruptive for the school and for the pupils in particular, who have rarely been mentioned today.
That would be quite a challenge. There are issues to do with employment, and local authorities have to consider age discrimination and other issues, but it would be an interesting challenge for us to reflect on. The situation is not easy. You suggest a simple solution that might help, but there might be added complications that would prevent the idea being taken forward. I am listening to what you are saying. I will reflect on your suggestion and discuss it with the teacher workforce planning group.
That concludes our questions to the cabinet secretary. Thank you for your attendance. I am sure that we will return to the issue in the future.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—