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The final agenda item is our early years inquiry, the terms of reference for which have been amended following our discussion last week. There is a draft pro forma that needs a bit of filling in with details of what we might be looking for from our adviser. The clerks would appreciate any thoughts.
I am still unhappy with bullet point 2, which we discussed last week. I do not think that the wording reflects my concerns. I do not think that the parents and children of Scotland will thank us for making a judgment on whether it is more appropriate for children to be cared for collectively or individually. That is not our role.
Was it you who raised this issue last week?
Yes, and our discussion has not been reflected in bullet point 2.
Do you have a wording that you would like to suggest?
I think that we should replace the wording at bullet point 2 with, "the policies needed to support the development of children who are cared for in both collective and individual settings". If any themes come out of that, we can then—without prejudging—reflect those themes.
I suggest an alternative wording. The point that we are trying to get at that is not mentioned in the draft terms of reference is the question: what does the recent work on child development tell us? That is all. We do not want to find out whether there are overlaps in provision; we want to find out what the recent work on child development tells us about the first five years. My suggestion, which plays a little bit into what we want the inquiry to do, is that the second bullet point should read, "the recent insights in child development and their potential implications for future Government policy".
That is a slightly different issue from what Fiona Hyslop wants to address, although they overlap.
Yes. We should not talk about individual and collective care settings. The most important point is to find out what the child development work tells us and what implications that has for policy. That is a higher-level issue altogether and I think that it addresses Fiona Hyslop's concern, but it means that, when we think about appointing an adviser, we will be looking for somebody who is interested in what the recent child development work tells us.
We should try to keep it reasonably short, if we can.
I will make a third attempt at the wording: "to examine the variety of approaches in child development work and their implications for future policy".
I cannot repeat that, so somebody had better have written it down.
It has been written down.
I am still not completely happy with the final bullet point—"provision in low income areas"—because the point that I was trying to make last week was about provision for low-income families. A low-income family in a remote area might have considerably more problem in accessing services than a similar family in a low-income area.
I think that we can readily agree on "provision for low-income families". However, I am not sure that we have not lost something in Frank McAveety's rendering of the earlier bullet point. I saw Fiona Hyslop nod in agreement with his suggestion, so perhaps I should not go back over it, but it seemed to me that the impact on children of their being cared for collectively or at home was an important and reasonably high-level issue.
I have: "to examine the variety of approaches in child development work and their implications for future policy".
Does that satisfy everybody?
When we have our briefing session with the adviser, we can discuss the nuances of the terms of reference with them. The adviser will have read the Official Report of the committee's discussions before that and will know that our consideration of the variety of child development work is part of a wider approach. The critical point, which Wendy Alexander and Fiona Hyslop have been trying to identify, is that there are two different impulses in child care and we need to try to reconcile them if we can.
We can probably agree now. The bullet points are indicative anyway; they are specific examples of the general points. It is reasonably clear that the terms of reference include where we are at with child development research; whether that means that any changes to policy are needed; the broader issues of flexibility of child care provision and availability of choice; and to what extent children should be cared for at home, collectively or in a mixture of the two environments. All those issues emerge from the terms of reference. Is that okay?
Are there any other points?
As a subsidiary point, would it be worth including something about skills and ability? I was thinking of experience of research, child care, social work and child protection legislation; and the ability to interpret and summarise written information consistently and thoroughly. Perhaps we should consider skills and ability.
That is quite a wide issue.
I think that Lord James is referring to the pro forma, which deals with the person specification for the adviser.
Is that what you referred to?
Yes.
We will come back to that in a second, but first I want to be clear about the terms of reference. Have we now reached agreement on the terms of reference?
Let us consider the skills that we are looking for in an adviser. The clerks seek guidance on the knowledge that the adviser should have. What is the general thrust behind what we are seeking? Do we want someone with knowledge in public sector finance or health or more general research? What is the person specification? I put those questions to Wendy Alexander, given that she raised the issue initially.
I meant to bring with me, for circulation, the two-page essay on current challenges in child care that was produced by one of the London think-tanks. Basically, as well as providing information on a slew of new research from North America, the essay outlines the two competing views in the United Kingdom on child care policy. The issue is whether child care should be driven by the need to tackle social exclusion—because a child's first five years matter most—or whether it should be seen as a way of driving universal female labour force participation. Those are not one and the same objective, so there are significant choices to be made. However, the essay is lying on my office desk. That is no use.
We need to avoid two extremes. We want to avoid people who have determined views about research who just want to push a particular line. We need someone who can assess the research. However, although we need someone with sufficient knowledge of the research, they must be able to relate the research to reality rather than let it remain way up in the sky. Too often before in education, one has seen situations in which, as far as the layperson can gather, things have been driven by people who have no knowledge of the coalface.
We have only three major teacher education faculties. I cannot believe that we could not find a couple of people from them. We could then make a judgment.
In addition, the adviser must add value to the committee's work. We can make some of the other judgments based on the evidence that we receive. I think that the area that Wendy Alexander identified is the key point on which we want guidance.
With great respect to Wendy Alexander, most of us know the parameters within which the major debates in child care and education take place. A huge range and volume of information has been produced by the different think-tanks both down south and in Scotland—much of the work from Scotland is worth paying attention to—but we do not want some intellectual treatise that just reinvents the wheel by restating all those academic studies. We want something that deals very much with current practice.
We must be careful to distinguish between two strands. It seems to me that the first is that we need somebody who can comprehensively assess the evidence. Despite what Fiona Hyslop said, I understand that there is dispute within the field on the precise direction that we should be taking. That was the first point that Wendy Alexander made. Secondly, we need someone who can help us to analyse the plethora of bodies and projects on the ground. In a sense, those are two different things and we will not get one adviser to cover them both. On which of those issues should the adviser focus? On which do we need advice and on which might we not be able to assess for ourselves the evidence that we hear?
The former.
Yes. I think that the adviser should focus on the research.
It depends on what we want the outcome to be. If we want our outcome to be simply a snapshot of what is happening, we should choose a director of education, who will be able to find out about what is happening in other parts of Scotland through the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. If we want to make recommendations, perhaps we need someone who has more of an academic background.
That is probably the proper focus, as we can take evidence on the other issues. We may or may not get it right, but we can assess the current provision from the evidence that we hear from directors of education and others. For the adviser, we should emphasise research. Is that the view of other members?
We need someone who can relate the theory to the practice, so the emphasis should be on neither one thing nor the other. We do not want an academic researcher who gets bogged down in the theory. We need that link. Wendy Alexander is right in identifying the person as someone who is likely to have worked either in one of the children's organisations in Scotland or at academic level in one of the education faculties. The adviser should have practical connections with those who deliver the provision, which could perhaps include the professional organisations that specialise in this area.
The faculties of education have some people who were formerly practising teachers, so they might double up in that respect. That is probably the grounding that we want in this context. I think that we have probably given enough guidance to the clerks on where we are trying to go. Do they need guidance on anything else?
No. We shall draft a paper, which can be circulated and agreed through correspondence.
Thank you.
Meeting closed at 12:02.
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