Teacher Employment
The fourth item on the agenda is an evidence-taking session with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning on teacher employment issues. I am pleased to welcome the cabinet secretary, Michael Russell, and Michael Kellet, the deputy director for schools: people and places division in the Scottish Government. I believe that the cabinet secretary wishes to make an opening statement before we move to questions.
09:15
Strangely enough, I have brought a statement with me.
I thank the committee for its invitation to discuss what I must first acknowledge is a difficult issue for Scotland, for the Government and for me. I say quite openly that this problem beyond any other that I deal with regularly probably causes me the most difficulty, the most heartache and the most sleepless nights.
Although I appreciate that this is perhaps scant comfort to teachers who are still trying to find a job, it is perhaps worth noting at the outset that the situation in Scotland is not as bad as it is elsewhere in the United Kingdom. The latest jobseekers allowance figures, which are for September 2010, indicate that the claimant rate in Scotland is 10.9 per 1,000 of the workforce, whereas in England the figure is 14.5; in Wales, it is 20.8; and in Northern Ireland, it is 41.6. There is a glimmer of hope in the latest figures, which show a slight drop in the number of claimants since this time last year. That is the first such year-on-year drop since May 2008. I will come back to that issue in a moment.
There is no disputing the fact that for the past few years there has been an oversupply of teachers, and the only steps that we can take in the current circumstances will take time to have an effect. As members know, the lion’s share of responsibility for the position that we are in lies with the previous Administration; after all, most of the teachers who graduated during this Government’s period in office are the output of the previous Government’s teacher supply decisions.
In fairness, though, no one could have anticipated the sea change in our economic circumstances, and it will be of little comfort to the teachers who are still looking for work to hear us arguing over who is to blame. We need to re-establish an appropriate balance between teacher supply and teacher demand.
I can sort out the supply side of that equation—indeed, almost a year ago, I took the toughest decision on that front. Last December, I announced a reduction in the number of student teachers that universities should recruit this autumn. That was not just a token reduction; we cut intake numbers by 42 per cent from the previous year’s figure of 3,650 to 2,100. That was hard for the universities concerned and I am aware that the move has in some cases led directly to redundancies. As I say, the decision was tough, but the irony is that it does not instantly solve the problem. As the decision was taken in December 2009, it will be August 2011 before the reduction actually results in fewer probationers in our schools and a further year before it results in fewer post-probation teachers looking for work.
Although the reduction will take time to work through, we have some clear evidence that it will work. I referred earlier to the claimant figures, which show a drop for the first time since May 2008. That coincides with the impact of a smaller cut of 500 that my predecessor made to student intake numbers in 2009, which led to fewer probationers in our schools since August and, apparently, more jobs for post-probation teachers. It is not rocket science but, reassuringly, it demonstrates the link between cause and effect.
I accept that cutting student intake does little in the short term for teachers who are unemployed and looking for work. I am doing what I can to support those people by, for example, introducing CPDStepIn, a new on-line resource that is available through glow, the national schools intranet, for teachers who are not regularly employed and have difficulty in accessing continuous professional development. The resource will enable them to keep in touch with issues relating to, for example, the curriculum for excellence.
We are also exploring whether there might be opportunities in developing countries of which some could avail themselves to develop their skills and gain invaluable experience until employment prospects at home improve. I am not suggesting that every unemployed teacher could or will volunteer to work in a developing country—indeed, opportunities might be limited—but some might wish to go down that route. If I can help to facilitate that, I will.
In February, I wrote to directors of education, drawing to their attention the importance of supporting teachers in such a position and recommending to them refreshed guidance by the national CPD team on CPD for supply teachers. I welcome constructive suggestions from any quarter as to what else we could be doing on this front, bearing in mind the reality of the current economic situation. Of course, I will give serious consideration to any constructive suggestions that committee members might make this morning.
We should also bear in mind that the employment situation in any year eases as the year progresses. We would not expect every teacher to be employed in the August following their probationary year. If they were, schools would be sending children home as winter ailments took their toll on teachers. We know that jobs become available throughout the year. For example, the surveys that the General Teaching Council for Scotland has conducted in both autumn and spring in each of the past few years show a significant reduction in the number of unemployed teachers as the year has progressed.
Of course, it was all very well for the previous Administration to grow the teacher workforce in times of plenty by providing ring-fenced funding. However, the target of 53,000 was essentially arbitrary and, indeed, we now know that it was unsustainable at the best of times and is most certainly so in the present financial circumstances.
Although I have taken steps to sort out the supply side, solving the demand side falls to local authorities. Local authorities, not the Government, are our teachers’ employers, and I am worried by the prospects there. We know that local authorities shed more than 2,000 teachers between 2007 and 2009, in a period when budgets were still growing—perhaps not as quickly as before, but still growing nonetheless. I am disappointed that local authorities shed all those teachers. I will not go into details of which authorities shed the most teachers just now—perhaps that will come up later—but there are serious questions to be asked about why some authorities found it necessary to reduce teacher numbers so drastically while others were able to grow their numbers.
Let us be clear: we are moving into a period of falling local authority budgets. Roughly 40 per cent of those budgets is allocated to education, and roughly 50 per cent of that 40 per cent is accounted for by teachers’ salaries. It does not take much to work out that it will be impossible to protect teacher numbers as we move forward. To avoid further shrinkage of our teacher workforce, we need local authorities to do what they can not to allow further drops in teacher numbers. I am satisfied that the demographics of the profession are such that significant numbers of teachers will be leaving each year for the next 10 years or so. We need local authorities not to look on each retiring teacher as an opportunity to save money, but to recruit recently qualified teachers to as many of those posts as possible. We need them to do that for two reasons: first, to ensure that the educational aspirations and outcomes of Scotland’s children are not jeopardised; and, secondly, to ensure that the investment that we, as a society, have made in training teachers is protected and enhanced.
I will conclude with a brief reference to the on-going review of teacher education that Graham Donaldson is conducting. I am particularly keen to hear his views on how we can arrive at a more stable pattern of student intake numbers moving forward. As members know, his report is due at the end of the year.
I hope that those remarks have been helpful. I am, of course, happy to discuss them and any questions that arise.
Thank you for those comments. I am sure that many of the points that you have raised will be covered in our questions to you this morning.
I refer you back to your comment that the target of 53,000 teachers was arbitrary and unsustainable. If that is so, why was it in your election manifesto? Is it your view that it would be inappropriate for any Government to affect a local authority’s decision in relation to the number of teachers that it employs?
The statistics for the number of teachers over the past 10 years or more—since devolution—show that the numbers were steady during the first Administration, when the previous Labour First Minister was the education minister and I was the shadow education minister. I do not remember there being an enormous debate about teacher numbers at that stage.
It seems to have been during the second Administration that a decision was made to raise numbers from around 50,000—the figure fluctuates—to the magic figure of 53,000. I can only assume that that was an objective of the then education minister, and his spin seems to have been very successful, as everybody seems to have accepted that that was a wonderful thing to do. However, the number of pupils was falling at the time and with hindsight—which is a great thing in politics, as in other areas of life—that can be seen to have been an arbitrary number. I congratulate Peter Peacock on his success in persuading people that that arbitrary number was the right one, although it turns out not to have been, particularly in the context of the financial difficulties that have hit so severely.
Sorry, convener—what was your second question?
Is it right for the Government to determine teacher numbers in Scotland, or should that be entirely a matter for the local authorities?
That gets to the nub of the issue—whether that is right and whether it is possible. Under the present dispensation, it is difficult for the Government to do that. The committee will reflect on the relationships between local authorities and the Government in the delivery of education, and I know that it has been looking at the funding of education. Nevertheless, in the present situation, it is very difficult to do what the convener suggests. If the Government ring fenced the money and provided it year on year, and if local authorities were prepared to use it in that way, given the balance that we have, I suppose that it could be done. However, I do not think that that would be sustainable given where we are at the moment.
It is also an input measure, and we have moved much more to output measures. We should perhaps have a genuine debate about whether we need to look more closely at the output measures in education and not worry so much about the input measures, although we can discuss teacher numbers in conjunction with class sizes, as class sizes are also an input measure. There may be reasons why that input measure is of particular importance, but there we are.
In some ways, that leads on to the next question. You seem to be saying that this is entirely a matter for local authorities and that Government cannot predict the numbers of teachers that are required. However, in light of the fact that later in the meeting the committee will consider class sizes for one cohort in schools, is it not unsustainable for the Government to make commitments on the number of children that will be in classes without working out whether we will have sufficient teachers to teach them? The reality is that we can pass all the legislation that we like, but if we do not have a sufficient number of teachers to teach the children, it makes no difference.
I did not say that we could not do anything—I pointed to the difficulty that we have in Scotland. If I may say so, you are taking the argument to rather illogical extremes. There will be a logic to the number of teachers required for the number of pupils. There will be a general area in which one would expect provision to take place. Our teacher numbers are broadly comparable with teacher numbers in a country of a similar size, such as Finland.
You can have Government policy objectives that you wish to meet, but nobody in the room would say anything other than that how you do that in Scotland is a key issue now, given the relationship between central Government and local government on the delivery of education. That is a key issue which will require discussion.
I have been able to negotiate continued progress on class-size reductions in primaries 1 to 3, and that is an example of how negotiation on education objectives is probably the way in which we can achieve most. However, local authorities will also rightly wish to see some regulation where that assists them. There is a complex system of education delivery in Scotland, but whether that should be simplified is not for me to say to the committee today.
I know that it would be very helpful to you to paint me as being illogical. However, I think that most parents and teachers in Scotland will think that it is perfectly logical to expect a Government—any Government—to know how many teachers it aspires to have in employment in Scotland. More important, if the Government wants a particular number of children in particular classes, it is logical to expect that Government to know how many teachers that would take. That is a basic mathematical configuration.
I think that parents and teachers also believe that it is perfectly logical to expect a Government that was elected on the basis that it would maintain teacher numbers at 53,000 and would reduce class sizes to 18 for children in primaries 1 to 3 to stick to those proposals and not to say, “In actual fact, this is all difficult.” I accept that you were not the shadow cabinet secretary for education in 2007, but you have often claimed that you wrote the manifesto and that the class-size pledge—
I have never claimed that I wrote any manifesto. I think that that is going well beyond your role as convener of the committee. I put on the record that I have never claimed to write anything of that nature and I regard your remark as inappropriate in the circumstances.
If you want me to respond to your question, I will try to do so by discussing education, which I think is what we are trying to do at the committee. I disagree with your comment: I am not trying to paint you as illogical, and I do not think that you should try to paint me as being inconsistent. I have tried to indicate that I think that the artificial figure of 53,000 was arbitrary. Of course I think that we require a substantial number of teachers in Scotland. I have reduced the number of people being trained to ensure that we do not have an oversupply, but the history of the supply of teachers in Scotland is one of boom and bust for as long as people can remember. That is one of the problems, and is why I said at the end of my opening remarks that the Donaldson review should be helpful, because we need to get to the bottom of the matter.
We have just gone through a boom-and-bust cycle, which is utterly wrong. I said in my opening remarks—I hope that you will give me credit for this, convener—that I worry considerably about the issue, because there are young people who I want to see employed as teachers, but we are unable to give the resource to local authorities for them, and local authorities have sometimes chosen not to use their resource to employ them. I am trying to ensure that we move forward on the issue and find a solution. It would be easier to do that if we recognised that this is not a ping-pong between you and me about who wrote which manifesto.
This is a serious debate about how we achieve the right number of teachers in Scotland and the right number of pupils in classes. We continue to make progress with the educational objectives in what is a highly distributed system of education delivery. It is not a system that the committee or I invented but one that we have inherited, in which there is distributed decision-making activity that we all play our part in. Parents want highly-effective outcomes, which is what we are doing with the curriculum for excellence.
09:30
In the Official Report of the plenary debate on class sizes, you confirmed that you were the architect of the SNP’s policy on class sizes. If you are distancing yourself from that today—
I have never denied that. You said that I wrote a manifesto in 2007; I did not. I am pleased with the people who wrote it, but I did not write it. I have never claimed to be anything other than someone who supported and instituted a policy of lower class sizes. I believe such a policy to be necessary. It is difficult to achieve, but you do not find me shying away from things that are difficult.
A key part of that manifesto was a commitment on class sizes.
Not in 2007. I was talking about the 2003 manifesto. It is still inappropriate.
It is exactly the same. Perhaps you will confirm whether you believe that class sizes will fall further in December this year.
I believe that my agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities last year has for the most part been honoured. I hope that we will see progress when the figures are reported.
Will teacher numbers remain the same?
I have indicated that teacher numbers remain on a downward trend. I regret that. Local authorities need to discuss that with the committee. However, that is where we are.
I want to pick up on your point about the figure of 53,000. We all went into the election saying that we wanted to sustain that figure. You are branding it as arbitrary. It is unfortunate that my colleague Euan Robson is not here. He was an education minister in the previous Administration and I have discussed the issue with him on a number of occasions. He was clear that 53,000 was not an arbitrary figure and that the thinking behind the figures for teacher numbers was effectively due to the tasks and projects that teachers were asked to be involved in. One of the key projects was the curriculum for excellence.
You have identified teacher numbers as being of particular relevance in the second session of Parliament. Part of the thinking related to the requirements of the curriculum for excellence. There were implications for class size policy as well. However, the idea that no thought was put into how many teachers we needed and what we needed them for is not borne out in my conversations with people who were ministers at the time. There were reasons why they felt that such teacher numbers were necessary. A falling school roll was an opportunity to free up some time for teachers to focus on what I think we would all agree is one of the big developments in Scottish education in the past few years. I do not wish to be difficult, but I am concerned that the branding of the figure of 53,000 as arbitrary is not a proper writing of the history of the department’s view on the matter as it has been presented to me.
I do not wish to be difficult either. I look forward to not being difficult as much as I can, but we must agree to differ. The figure was arbitrary. Also, there was a certain lack of subtlety in describing the figures. Not every teacher among the 53,000 is involved in classroom contact. One of the things that you may see in the declining figures is a combing out of teachers who are in other roles. The problem with the Government’s statistics is that you do not necessarily get the detail or the information that would make things crystal clear. It may well be that the drop that we have seen is a combing out of non-contact teachers and teachers who are in administrative positions. Inevitably, when schools are merged and so on, some teachers who are not in classroom positions will be lost. Changes are taking place.
I stress that it is a local authority decision not to employ those teachers. Local authorities make such decisions for a variety of reasons. Some have made the decision to increase teacher numbers. The situation is not consistent.
Would it ever be possible for your Government—or any Government that might follow you—to be able to say, “Bearing in mind everything that we’re asking of our teachers, all the policies that we as a Government are putting into place and all our aspirations, we believe that this is the number of teachers we require to deliver those policies and the education system that we want”? Is there a number that you can look at and say, “Frankly, we cannot drop below that”?
Your final remark is probably closest to the mark. There is probably a minimum or floor that you would not want the number to fall below. However, you would need a mechanism that would allow you to say to local authorities, “This is the minimum number that you must employ”. We do not have such a mechanism; in our current system, you have to divide things up.
Of course, given the obligation on local authorities to deliver education efficiently and effectively, I suppose that, if they were failing to do that, the issue of teacher supply could come in. However, another issue then arises. I am sorry if all of this sounds complicated but the fact is that it is complicated, because we also have to take into account the issue of school autonomy and how schools are organised. In Scotland, we have a very distributed and autonomous network of schools; indeed, some have argued that they should be even more autonomous. In those circumstances, we have to accept that a different decision might be taken in different schools about the number of teachers needed for different tasks, all of which makes the situation very complex indeed.
I am simply trying to indicate how complex and difficult the issue could become. If we were to get half a dozen headteachers together, they might all give us slightly different numbers for the teachers needed and the tasks that had to be undertaken. The issue is indeed that complicated.
You have said that you think that there is a floor or minimum number. What is it?
It is possible that there is a floor. I do not know what it is, because it would have to relate to the issues that I have discussed with you. However, it is worth examining the issue closely.
That said, it is not a simplistic matter—
I am not suggesting that it is.
I know, but I am simply saying that mistakes arise when it is seen as simplistic.
On the mismatch between demand and supply, which, as you have rightly pointed out, is perhaps the biggest difficulty in all of this, two local authorities in my region—Fife Council and Perth and Kinross Council—have put it to me that, given all the difficulties and the current economic situation, it might be necessary to re-examine teachers’ conditions, the McCrone settlement and so on. They have suggested that teachers’ current working terms and conditions might not be the most appropriate way of dealing with both the flexibility that we are all trying to seek and the cost situation. What is the Government’s position on that?
That view is held not only in your region but in a variety of places. Indeed, the leader of Glasgow City Council thought it advisable to tell me the same thing on the front page of The Herald before he gave me the letter that he was allegedly sending me.
In Scotland, we have established a tripartite negotiating mechanism between local authorities, Government and the teaching unions, and I think that that is the right place to discuss this issue. I would be very surprised if it were not being discussed, given that the McCrone agreement is 10 years old and any 10-year-old agreement probably needs to be revisited. However, I am not going to start that negotiation process in public by committing myself to one position or another. Some local authority figures are certainly making their position very publicly known, but I think that the best course of action is to sit down with the teaching unions, discuss the issue in the tripartite structure and see what progress can be made.
One thing that is absolutely clear is that Scotland’s local authorities are going to come under very substantial financial pressure. As I have indicated, education accounts for at least 40 per cent of local authorities’ costs, and salaries account for 50 per cent of that. Given that the issue dominates so much of their expenditure, it is inconceivable that it will not figure as an area that will need close examination.
Without committing yourself to any view and bearing in mind your wish to pursue the negotiations within the tripartite structure, can you tell us what specific issues should be covered in negotiations on changing teacher conditions?
As I have indicated, the whole package of terms and conditions of service would be discussed. However, I do not want to separate out that package. Some local authority leaders are doing that very publicly, but I do not think that that helps. Instead, we need to have those discussions and negotiations. I have not yet met a teachers’ union leader who has been anything other than realistic about the real difficulties in the public sector. How could they not be, given what they see? The discussion needs to take place—and it needs to take place within the tripartite structure.
I am not asking you for a specific Government view on the matter. However, if you accept that the issue is demand and supply, which, of course, brings us back to the marketplace, prices and the fact that for many teachers’ salary is an issue, you will also accept that a possible issue for discussion is teachers’ conditions.
I accept that the package of terms and conditions will be for discussion. However, an agreement exists and the partners in that agreement will be required to sit down and discuss in a mature fashion how to move forward in these difficult circumstances. That discussion needs to take place. I am neither including nor excluding any part of that package.
Has the Government taken responsibility for monitoring whether reductions in the number of secondary teachers in particular are having any impact on certain sectors or subjects, especially those that have been identified as being important to Scotland’s economic growth, such as the sciences?
The answer is yes. The science, technology, engineering and mathematics—or STEM—subjects are of great importance. Michael Kellet will give some detail about how we analyse delivery and then I will say something about the range of subjects.
Michael Kellet (Scottish Government Learning Directorate)
There are two processes. First, as part of the annual teacher workforce planning round, we discuss with authorities and teacher education universities the subjects that are under pressure with regard to, for example, the ability of councils and universities to recruit teachers. Secondly, we monitor teacher vacancies, to pick up on which subjects councils are finding it difficult to recruit teachers to.
Over the years, the problem has decreased over the piece because of increasing levels of unemployment. However, as the cabinet secretary has said, councils have traditionally found it difficult to recruit in maths and science. The subject of home economics is also tricky and Gaelic teachers are an issue. We constantly review such matters. That said, the position in general over the past year or two has not been as severe as it was in previous years, even in relation to the subjects that I have mentioned.
We need to be imaginative and inventive in ensuring that the widest choice of subjects is available, particularly where there are geographic pressures or difficulties in attracting teachers. Off the top of my head, I know of a school in Tiree that has found it difficult to recruit a chemistry teacher. Obviously, we want to ensure that chemistry is available to the pupils at that school and there are ways of addressing the problem. For example, you could get a retired teacher to come in for a period of time; you could look into how much can be taught on-line; and there could be collaboration to allow sixth-year pupils, say, to move from school to school for different subjects—although I have to say that that approach is much easier in a city or town with at least two or three schools.
Michael Kellet’s point about planning is really important. Recently, I was encouraging the headteacher of the Glasgow Gaelic school to work with Bòrd na Gàidhlig to anticipate what her school would need over a five-year period and to ensure that people had that knowledge at this stage. We can—and are trying to—do that with other subjects. We cannot micromanage the availability of every teacher in every school but, given Scotland’s size, we can be sensitive to issues and encourage new means of delivery. After all, we are in the 21st century. It is possible to deliver some subjects in a collaborative way.
09:45
That is helpful. Do you have any concerns about how the Government’s process of identifying possible difficulties in certain subject areas sits alongside the reduction in teacher numbers? You gave the example earlier of a teacher who is retiring, and you said that local authorities should view that as an opportunity to recruit rather than as a money-saving exercise.
How does Government influence such behaviour by local authorities? Does it concern you that there could be a drive to use the fall in teacher numbers as a way to save money rather than authorities properly preparing to meet the demand in particular subject areas?
Some local authorities seem to regard it as a money-saving opportunity more than others do. There have been strong falls—Glasgow is much quoted, but there has been a strong fall in teacher numbers in that area of almost 10 per cent between 2007 and 2009. There has been a fall of 9 per cent in Inverclyde, 7.5 per cent in North Ayrshire, 7.1 per cent in East Dunbartonshire and 6.1 per cent in Midlothian. Those administrations have made decisions about how they take that situation forward.
Other local authorities have decided to increase teacher numbers. There may be a demographic issue in some cases; I am not making the wholly partisan point that the councils I have just mentioned are all Labour controlled. If you look at increases in teacher numbers in 2008-09, the numbers in East Lothian went up by 3.4 per cent, but there is a demographic factor in that instance, because the population of East Lothian is rising and so the patterns are shifting.
I would encourage local authorities to see the benefits of having a good complement of teachers, and of employing some young teachers who have come from teacher training colleges and are full of commitment and enthusiasm. I am not being ageist; I know many older teachers who are extremely enthusiastic and energetic, but young teachers have been coming in and helping to energise schools, particularly in relation to the curriculum for excellence.
I had the wonderful experience of visiting Cardinal Newman school at the very beginning of term. I went on the first day that the curriculum for excellence was rolled out in the secondary sector, because I had heard two young teachers who worked at Cardinal Newman give a wonderful presentation at the Scottish teacher education committee conference about the curriculum for excellence and how things join together in a school.
The only way that one could go further would be to ring fence the moneys and insist that the local authorities spent them in that way. However, local authorities are very resistant to ring fencing: they regard it as unhelpful and wasteful in terms of what they are trying to deliver, and the Government and local authorities have concluded that that is true overall.
I have a number of questions, but first I will have a stab at the issue that the convener and Margaret Smith pursued to clarify the Government’s policy on teacher numbers.
You stated in your evidence to us last time, minister, and you have confirmed again today, that it is no longer your policy to maintain teacher numbers to reduce class sizes. You seem to be suggesting this morning that it is in effect up to local authorities to decide how many teachers are employed in Scotland, and that your job is simply to provide that number. Is that true, or do you have a policy on teacher numbers?
Local authorities decide how many teachers they employ. They are under a statutory obligation to deliver education efficiently and effectively, and they will be called to account if they do not do so. I do not have a policy on employing an arbitrary number of teachers; I would like to see as many teachers in Scotland as are required to do the jobs.
Moving on to the subject I wanted to ask about, the problem is not simply unemployment but underemployment, and the huge number of teachers who are moving on to temporary contracts. The GTCS survey suggests that the percentage of teachers on permanent contracts decreased from 66 to 23.5 per cent between 2005 and 2009. It is a trend that is worsening. Do you approve of that situation? If not, what are you doing to address the number of temporary contracts?
I want to ensure that the local authority has a stable workforce that is committed in the long term. In the circumstances, I encourage local authorities to offer permanent contracts to teachers when they are able to do so, but the local authority has the discretion to decide how it employs its employees and I have to accept that it is the employer.
You encourage local authorities. It has been reported that some local authorities are not renewing some teachers’ contracts beyond a year because they would qualify for more secure employment rights. Are you aware of that? If so, are you taking any action?
I have no knowledge that that takes place.
One of the teacher employment working group’s recommendations was to reduce the number of retired teachers coming back on supply and increase the number of probationers used as supply teachers. How much progress has been made on that?
I have been clear with local authorities, publicly and privately, that I endorse that recommendation completely and I expect local authorities not to employ retired teachers unless there is no other possibility. It is sometimes essential that they do so, otherwise children would not be taught a subject. I use the example of chemistry in Tiree. If a retired teacher did not do it, there would be no teaching of chemistry. Such circumstances arise from time to time, but the absolute preference is to ensure that when teachers retire they do not expect to come back regularly to supplement their income in retirement.
I was asking what progress has been made, given that it was a recommendation.
Very substantial progress has been made.
Do you have any figures?
Very substantial progress has been made.
Can the committee expect to see some figures?
If I am able to find statistics that back that up, I will issue them to the committee. Would Michael Kellet like to comment?
If it is helpful, convener, I can add that after publication of the teacher employment working group’s report, ministers wrote to councils extolling a number of the recommendations and in particular pointing to this recommendation and asking them to take it into account. I know from my discussions with a number of authorities that they are doing that actively. I also know that some authorities have, because of their employment policy, been challenged by teachers who allege that it is discriminatory. The authorities have been quite robust in refuting such challenges. We know that the practice recommended by the group is one that authorities endorse, support and are trying their best to deliver.
If you are advising the committee that very substantial progress has been made, which we are more than happy to accept, it would be very helpful if the committee could have sight of the evidence that leads you to reach that conclusion. I am sure that you must have that evidence, otherwise you would not have told the committee that substantial progress has been made.
You are absolutely correct. I would not make statements to the committee that I did not believe to be true.
Very substantial progress has been made and I will endeavour to ensure that my officials obtain the statistics, with the caveat that at times of great difficulty I am keen that our officials, teachers and local authorities get on with their jobs, so I am quite keen—no doubt you will want to discuss this on another occasion—that we do not spend all our time taking watches to pieces to tell us the time.
Does Mr Macintosh have any final questions?
I do. If I may, I will read briefly from an e-mail that I received last night from a teacher in my constituency. She states:
“In all honesty the situation is far far worse in reality than what the GTCS, Education Departments etc will ever tell you. From my Primary Teachers course last year, after our probation year, I know 4 people with a full time permanent job”.
She states that the first person is in Abu Dhabi, the second is in Kuwait, the third is in Spain and the fourth is
“In a Secondary school as a pupil support teacher.
Not one single person has a permanent full time job in a Primary school. The harsh truth is fully qualified teachers are trying to go back to their old jobs prior to doing their teaching qualification at university. ... I have fought tooth and nail (as you are aware)”—
I am aware—
“just to get onto supply lists—still can’t even get on my own local authority supply list. I am now on a couple of lists hoping for a call. I am continuing to send my details EVERY AND ANYWHERE. I have some work with my school from last year and I continue to apply for the very few jobs that arise, with no luck so far.
The bottom line is something has to be done now, not next year or the year after but now as a matter of extreme urgency. As a bright, confident and enthusiastic teacher it truthfully upsets me to have to paint such a negative gloomy picture, however, this is what I am going through along with a whole host of others.”
The cabinet secretary introduced his remarks by suggesting that the lion’s share of responsibility for the situation that we are in lies with the previous Administration. The upside of that is that if the lion’s share lies elsewhere, the cabinet secretary at least accepts some responsibility. Will the cabinet secretary take this opportunity to apologise to my constituent for his share of the responsibility?
I repeat what I said in my opening remarks: the issue causes me more heartache and more sleepless nights than any other issue in my job. I speak regularly to young teachers who have such difficulties. I speak regularly to parents of young teachers who have such difficulties. I recognise the real difficulty that the situation causes. Were I in a Government that was not constrained by the financial wreckage created by the previous Government, and were I in a Government that had unlimited resource to throw at problems—previous Governments had much greater resources—I would do everything that I could financially. I am extremely constrained financially in what I can do. Although that upsets me greatly, it is no consolation to the people who have the difficulty.
I have tried to make really difficult decisions on supply numbers so that I can bring the situation back into balance and so that there is the prospect of jobs emerging. As I said in my opening remarks, we are beginning to see that change taking place.
I have also tried to support young teachers in those circumstances with continuing professional development so that they continue to have opportunities in their careers. I indicated earlier that I am trying to find other solutions in the interim and short term, including help with voluntary activity. If I could wave a magic wand, this would be the first problem that I would wave that wand to solve. I cannot do so at present because of the financial constraints that we are under and because of decisions in local authorities to reduce teacher numbers. I do not have a resource to reverse that. I also do not have the power to tell local authorities that they must employ more teachers.
As I said earlier, if you have other solutions, I would be more than willing to listen to them. I am not trying to do anything other than to make a difference in this matter. If you give me that correspondence, I am happy to write directly to that young teacher to say so.
And to apologise?
I am happy to say that I am deeply sorry that this situation exists and has arisen, and, as the person responsible, to show that I am doing everything that I believe I can to help. I never shirk the opportunity to say that and to talk directly to those affected, and I am happy to do so in this circumstance.
You touched on the issue of Tiree and the difficulty faced by some communities in attracting teachers. Arran high school, on the Isle of Arran in my constituency, is an excellent new school, but it took nine months to find a music teacher. Eventually, the school had to hire someone at a promoted teacher’s salary, for a department of one teacher.
How many areas in Scotland fall into that category? Clearly, it is not just island communities. There must be other areas in Scotland in which there is a mismatch between the vacancies that are available and the number of teachers willing to apply for those vacancies.
We try to address that in the probationary system by offering additional incentives to people to undertake probationary activity in places that are not their first choice. That sometimes leads to people deciding to continue their careers in those areas. I met two probationers and two young teachers in Barra recently, none of whom were from the island but all of whom had taken the opportunity to teach there. There are places in which that probationary opportunity is seen as a positive advantage. However, there are mismatches in various parts of Scotland. Even in the cities, it is sometimes hard to recruit in certain subjects.
It is probably not helpful to say so, but that has always been the case. There have always been one or two places in which it has been hard to recruit people. It takes time, and it is not necessarily a product of the situation in which we find ourselves.
We asked earlier about the fact that the number of people going into teacher training has fallen by 42 per cent. Have the falling numbers presented an opportunity to improve the entrance qualifications and standard of teachers entering training?
10:00
I hesitate to say that that is a plus point, but there is of course an issue around the best-qualified young people competing to get into teacher training courses. There has been a great deal of debate about that. Every single party that is represented in this room has discussed the need to ensure that the highest-qualified people are going into teaching. Some people have cited the Finnish experience, where teaching requires a masters degree. Given the difference in university systems, however, that is not exactly an accurate description. Those falling numbers are a slight plus point in this regard, therefore.
I look towards what Graham Donaldson is doing: he will tell us his view following an intensive period of research on how we continue to increase the standards of Scottish teaching. All the evidence shows that the standards of the people who have been coming out of teacher training colleges in Scotland, even before the research, is very high indeed.
Indeed.
Another point that came up earlier is covered by recommendation 4 of the teacher employment working group. It states:
“Local authority employers should wherever possible use post-probation teachers to fill supply vacancies rather than rely on recently retired teachers.”
Among young teachers there is a lot of resentment when someone retires on a Friday—often on a very good pension—and they come back to the school on the Monday. The quid pro quo is that headteachers want somebody who they know has the ability to deliver in a classroom. You said yourself that the education of children should not be jeopardised. I am not saying for a single minute that it would be jeopardised by recruiting more of the younger teachers, but there is surely an issue to do with the headteacher having flexibility about who they employ, taking into account the circumstances of their school. How does the Scottish Government feel about where the balance lies?
Not every retired teacher comes back on supply. If a headteacher does not think that they are up to much they will not come back, but there are some people of a very high standard who it can be very helpful to have in a classroom.
As ever, there is a balance to be struck. The preference is to ensure that post-probationers are given an opportunity. If it were a choice between a post-probationer who the headteacher knew was simply not able to teach and a retired person who was required for a particularly difficult class, that decision would have to be made by the school.
Your point illustrates the fact that hard cases make bad law, but the preference is to ensure that post-probationers are given the ultimate opportunity. As Mr Kellet has said, the evidence that we have shows that that is overwhelmingly the case.
We have spoken about numbers, which are important for the discussion. You have spoken about the 53,000 figure being arbitrary. Surely there must be a legal figure below which the number of teachers cannot fall, as there are maximum class sizes and, if we multiply the number of pupils in classes by the number of teachers, there must be a minimum figure. What is the minimum threshold at primary and secondary levels?
The numbers of pupils vary, of course, as do the capacities of schools and the numbers of pupils in schools. It is a volatile situation. Theoretically you could do that calculation, but I am not sure that it would help very much. We need to ensure that there is a supply of good teachers coming through that matches the vacancies that are available. We have not got that right—we have gone through boom and bust over several generations. I hope that Graham Donaldson and others will help us to get it right.
The McCrone settlement was discussed earlier today. Some prominent local authority figures have publicly—some privately—called for an increase in the number of hours that teachers have at the chalk face. I have such discussions with my own leader.
The workload of individual teachers differs substantially. English and maths teachers might have to mark dozens of essays or papers every week, for example, and they might have a different workload from other teachers who get paid the same salary. Rather than discussing the pay and conditions of teachers as a cohort and increasing the workload of teachers who are already delivering a good job in the classroom, surely it could be a matter of perhaps replacing those teachers who are not delivering so well in the classroom with some new probationers. We have all been to school, and we all know that there are good, bad and indifferent teachers. Even in the best schools, there are teachers who are perhaps not delivering. Perhaps the Government should think about a mechanism to assist some of the teachers concerned to move on, in order that others can replace them.
I return to your comment about the education of children not being jeopardised. I know that, when I was at school, some people’s education was jeopardised by the poor quality of teaching that they received, and I am sure that that continues in some schools to this day.
From the evidence of my own eyes, Mr Gibson, you had nothing but the highest quality of teaching. I can tell that just by looking at you.
I do not think that we should exaggerate the issue. Undoubtedly there are poor teachers. I have spoken about the issue before, and we have taken action with the GTC to ensure that the process for dealing with them is better and that such teachers can be weeded out. There are people who should not be teachers—there are people who should not be politicians. That happens, and in those circumstances we want to ensure that those people go and do something else more productively.
Your point about class contact is interesting, and we have touched on it twice before. Some local authority leaders use a shorthand in describing class contact. If we think about it, we realise that if we increased the class contact time for every teacher we would need fewer teachers. When a local authority leader goes on to the front page of a newspaper to say that we must increase class contact time, that local authority leader is saying that we want fewer teachers—we should not disguise that fact. People need to think carefully about that if there is a commitment to not having fewer teachers.
We also need to look at the figures. Surveys show that class contact time for Scottish teachers is at the higher end of the spectrum in international comparisons. Considering all those circumstances, we need to be realistic: while these matters should of course be discussed, they are best discussed within the established negotiating mechanisms rather than by megaphone.
The other factor is that headteachers know which teachers they have the most confidence in, and they already put those best teachers into the highest possible number of classes, subject to the McCrone agreement. There is not really any room for those teachers to take on additional classes, so I agree fully with that point.
I have one last point—I do not want to turn this into a dialogue, as I am sure that plenty of other members want to ask questions. You mentioned Glasgow City Council reducing its teacher numbers by 10 per cent. When Glasgow came to give evidence, it took the view that falling demographics in the city presented an opportunity to reduce not class sizes but teacher numbers, because it does not believe that smaller class sizes work. There is clearly an ideological issue in getting the message across. Glasgow may be a minority in believing that, but that is the point that it made to us.
That is part of Scottish education: local authorities have the freedom to operate in the way that they wish.
I want to put something on the record, as I saw some strange stuff about this at the weekend. I am not against the Glasgow nurture group approach in any sense. I have visited nurture groups in Glasgow, and I think that they are very positive. I do not think that it is an either/or between early intervention and lower class sizes in primaries 1 to 3, and nurture groups have their place. However, you are right to say that Glasgow City Council, in evidence to the committee, made it clear that it took the decision to reduce teacher numbers. That is what the evidence shows, and we need to put that into the mix. A variety of decision-making processes are driving down teacher numbers, but the decision of employers is the most important.
Margaret Smith has a brief supplementary question.
I want to come back on the subject of retired teachers being used for supply work, which I am very concerned about. We touched on the issue of figures, and I have some figures from some freedom of information work. That work showed that nearly 1,000 retired teachers were used for supply work in Scotland in the past year and that schools across Scotland had almost 2,500 retired teachers on their supply list.
I agree with the cabinet secretary that there needs to be a balance. There will always be occasions when the retired teacher fits the bill and is available, and headteachers and local authorities must have the right to get the right balance for them. However, I am concerned by those numbers, because the post-probation teachers coming out of our colleges and universities are well-trained and well-motivated people and we should have them in our classrooms wherever we possibly can.
One thing that we found when we did the freedom of information work is that a large number of councils say that they do not hold the information. The figures that I have given are based on the fact that 12 or 13 other councils could not give us the information. That is something that you might set your mind to, cabinet secretary, as it would be helpful if we had the figures for the whole of Scotland.
You say that substantial progress has been made but, on 1,000 occasions, retired teachers were used instead of the post-probationers whom we all want to have supply positions, to build up their continuing professional development and their classroom experience and to have the career in teaching that retired teachers have had. The fairness agenda is involved.
I do not disagree in any regard. I believe that substantial progress has been made, but I am happy to ensure that figures are provided to you. We must recognise that the issue is complicated. The figure of 1,000 is lower than I might have expected, given—
Given that 13 councils will not give us the information.
Given the amount of supply work that might require a day or half a day, an enormous amount is taking place. That situation is normal—it is not a difficulty; it just happens.
The default position should be that post-probationers are given the opportunity and brought in as much as possible. In the ideal situation, the supply of post-probationers would dry up because most or all had jobs, so other people would have to be used. We must be aware of that, but I certainly want post-probationers to be given the best opportunities. I am committed to that, and that aspect is a way of trying to achieve that.
In the next five years, the number of primary school pupils is projected to increase by 21,500, which is welcome. That would give us about 860 classes of—I hope—25 pupils. Have you done work on the impact of that on future planning and on teacher numbers?
If I have made the correct decisions on training numbers, I expect the numbers to begin to come into balance some time after August 2011. I am discussing with my officials what we might be required to do in relation to the number of training places. Some time next year, we need to decide on training places thereafter. We are looking at that.
The figures are interesting. The number of primary school pupils is estimated to go up in 2013 from the present 364,000 to 375,600. The rise is not massive, but it is significant. The numbers are varied. Glasgow will have a small rise of 900, whereas other areas will experience small falls—nothing dramatic is happening. It is interesting that the figure of 285,800 in secondary schools this year will go down to 269,100. We have a bulge that is beginning to, and will, move through the system. We are aware that the figures will fluctuate.
As I keep saying, the key issue for me is Graham Donaldson’s recommendations, which I anticipate almost as keenly as Christmas—they, too, are due in December. Those recommendations and views will influence what we do next.
Do you have an early indication of those recommendations?
I have had regular discussions with Graham Donaldson as he has undertaken his tasks and I am interested in how his thinking has developed. However, the full recommendations are up to him and I am unaware of them at the moment.
I will ask about teachers retiring. We have touched on peaks and troughs in teacher numbers. The age profile has peaks at two points—among teachers in their 20s and teachers in their 50s. How is that pattern likely to develop? Is it likely to stabilise?
We have interesting figures on the age profile of teachers, which I am just about to find. I have a table that gives primary and secondary teachers by age. When teachers in primary and secondary schools are divided into age groups, the majority group is 55 or over—4,732 primary teachers and 5,133 secondary teachers are in that group. The next largest groups are those aged 50 to 54 and then those aged 25 to 29. The numbers undulate slightly.
We know broadly how many primary and secondary teachers we will need in the next five to 10 years. We are planning for those positions to be filled. That gives me the confidence that, in reducing training places, I am creating the right number of teachers to fill those vacancies.
10:15
The view of Joe Di Paola from COSLA is that teachers who might have been anticipated to retire at 60 have been staying in post until 62 or 63. Is there any evidence of that nationally? If so, are you trying to plan around it?
There are two conflicting sets of evidence on that. The Times Educational Supplement Scotland published a story some months ago, based on work that it had done, that suggested that that was not a major factor.
COSLA believes that it is a factor. I am not an expert on this, but there is evidence from the wider economic market that if they can, people defer their retirement in times of difficulty. It may be a factor. We know the number of teachers who are 55 or over, we are watching retirements as they take place and we are considering the matter carefully.
I understand that extra borrowing powers have been awarded to local authorities to provide retirement packages for teachers. Can you say more about that? Has it made any impact?
Mr Kellet will remark on that. We are disappointed with the take-up of that opportunity.
An offer to take borrowing powers to fund early retirement on a one in, one out basis was made to all councils. Only two councils—Falkirk and West Dunbartonshire—took that up. As the cabinet secretary said, a relatively limited number of teachers support the idea.
However, other councils are taking forward their own early retirement schemes and some have been quite successful in refreshing their workforce through such schemes.
The difference is that our scheme would have been one in, one out; local authority schemes are not that. We were happy to offer that opportunity to manage the situation but local authorities are not that interested in it.
I was about to ask about that. In 2009, when you came up with the proposal, it was suggested that it might free up anything up to about 500 teaching posts. How many teaching posts did it free up?
I do not have the papers here, so I will check and confirm that, but my understanding is that the combined number of applications from Falkirk and West Dunbartonshire was around 66. As I said, other councils were using their own schemes to push early retirement but, as the cabinet secretary said, the numbers were relatively limited.
Although it was disappointing that the offer was not really taken up, it indicates the desire on the part of local authorities to retain control of the issue and to manage it in their own way. The offer exists, but it has been difficult to persuade local authorities to take it up.
I have a question on a slightly different topic. There has been a concerning change over a period of years in teacher employment. Previously, newly trained and post-probationary teachers were more likely to get permanent contracts. Now, many more get temporary contracts. We have focused quite a lot on supply, but the big issue is the number of teachers who get temporary rather than permanent contracts. What are your thoughts on that? Do councils follow up people who have been employed on temporary contracts and move them on to permanent contracts? Are temporary contracts seen as a way of progressing into permanent contracts, or are teachers in effect just being kept on and used on a much more temporary, supply basis?
There is some evidence that people on part-time, temporary contracts go on to get jobs with full-time contracts, and that is the intention.
In response to an earlier question from Mr Macintosh, I said that I encourage local authorities to offer full-time, permanent contracts. It is good for schools to have that continuity; that is what is expected of them. However, I keep going back to this important point: local authorities are the employers; they make those decisions. We could change that. If you want to debate whether that should be changed, we can have that debate, but the situation is as it is. Without passing a piece of legislation, I cannot go in there and say, “This is what will happen,” and I do not think that that is the type of legislation that would assist with the development of relationships between elected bodies in Scotland.
In 2005, 66 per cent of probationer teachers were getting permanent contracts; in 2009, the figure went down to 23.4 per cent. There has been a significant turnaround, with increases in the number of supply and temporary teachers, and in the number of unemployed teachers. There has been a real change in the way in which the contracts are being dealt with. I understand that that is a matter for the employer, but some kind of permanence is of educational benefit to a school and a class.
The interrelationships between all those figures have to be thought through. The number of full-time opportunities will have fallen because the number of teaching posts has fallen. In those circumstances, the number of people going into full-time posts that have been vacated will have fallen. Temporary contracts might well be used to substitute for people who are on maternity leave or things of that nature. There has been a change in the demographics and the conditions of the people going into the profession immediately post-probation. The question is how many of those people move from temporary jobs into full-time jobs. To go back to the very first point that I made this morning, we believe that, given the reduction in the number of training places and the changes that will take place over time, the situation will change again. However, the additional factor is the effect on this complex situation of the tremendous pressure that is being put on local authority finance.
What impact will the decisions that have been made have on teacher training institutions? In December 2008, the cabinet secretary at that time said in evidence to the committee:
“I could make easy decisions now to ensure that we have as much employment as possible for probationers by cutting teacher training radically, but the danger would be that in four years’ time we would have a teacher shortage”.—[Official Report, Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, 17 December 2008; c 1823.]
The current cabinet secretary went on to cut teacher training places pretty radically, by 42 per cent, as he said in his introduction. He recognised that that has led to redundancies at teacher training institutions. He has also recognised this morning that pupil numbers will fluctuate and that retirals will increase. Does he have any concerns that, through the redundancy process and last year’s drastic cut in the number of teacher training places, there has been a loss of expertise in the sector that could present challenges in the future if we wanted to increase the number of teacher training places, as he indicated might need to be considered after 2011?
I felt that I had to make the difficult decision to reduce places. Of course that will have led to a reduction in capacity in the teacher training colleges—that was inevitable. I gave £3 million to support those departments through difficult times, part of which was for a competitive bidding process on work to support the curriculum for excellence, and that has helped. I do not think that anyone wanted to reduce the number of places in the way that we did, but it was simply the right thing to do. I did not want another generation of young people who want to be teachers finding themselves without jobs in the long term. I believe that what I did was the right thing to do.
I think that sensitive management of the change to the teacher training institutions has taken place by and large and those institutions remain of world quality. I had a discussion in China last week about the fact that our teacher training institutions are highly respected because of what they are able to do, which is of great benefit. I do not see—and did not see—any alternative but to ensure that we were not producing too many students who would inevitably be disappointed.
There has been a significant reduction in the number of probationers in permanent employment. In fact, the figures also show that the number of those in temporary employment has declined from 2005-06, which shows that local authorities are not sneakily trying to keep folk on temporary contracts in order to avoid giving them the appropriate terms and conditions. Nine months after qualifying, about 27 per cent of teachers are still unemployed. Are there specific issues with certain subjects and the balance between primary school and secondary school teachers in that cohort? In other words, do we still have a shortage of teachers in some subject areas and a glut in others, or is there a spread across subject areas?
The GTCS survey last autumn showed that 27.5 per cent of probationer teachers were not in employment as teachers, but that figure reduced to 13.5 per cent by the time of the survey in April last year. There are subjects to which it has traditionally been difficult to recruit: maths, Gaelic, music and home economics. There still tend to be pinchpoints with those subjects, but the general pattern across the board appears to be that there are not as many difficulties as there were before.
In what areas are there a significant number of unemployed teachers? Are there too many English teachers, maths teachers, physical education teachers or primary school teachers? Where are the majority of unemployed teachers concentrated? Is the number spread across the spectrum?
Obviously, a significant number are teachers with a primary teaching qualification. The number tends to be fairly balanced across the subjects, with the exception of the few subjects to which we have traditionally found it more difficult to recruit.
The number of nursery teachers has increased from about 2,100 to almost 3,000. Is that correct?
Yes—fully qualified nursery teachers. We have tried to increase the contact between fully qualified nursery teachers and nursery pupils. That remains our aim and ambition.
Des McNulty (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab)
The issue that the minister has said is most pressing is the position of newly qualified teachers and probationer teachers. The minister has the advantage of having access to information and data, as well as an understanding of the expected impact of his policies. How many newly qualified teachers will remain unemployed by Christmas? What are the employment prospects next year for current probationers?
I cannot tell you the exact number, because that will depend on a whole host of variables, which include such things as whether there are more pregnancies among Scottish school teachers than we anticipate over the next few months. I stand by what I said in my opening statement: in September we saw the first year-on-year reduction in jobseekers allowance claimants in the workforce since May 2008. That indicates that the change in training numbers that my predecessor made in 2009 was the right approach. I think that the further changes that I have made will improve the situation. There will still be young unemployed would-be teachers for a period of time, but I hope that the actions that I am taking will help. I am nothing other than sorry that that is the case. There was an overexpectation and I am trying to resolve a very difficult situation with very limited and reduced resources. I am not the employer of teachers. The final decision about how many teachers are employed is a matter for local authorities, not for me—alas.
I understand the complexities of the situation and the architecture of the current arrangements. Like Mr Macintosh and, I am sure, like the minister, I have been speaking to current probationers and newly qualified teachers. Most recently, I spoke to some at the demonstration in Edinburgh last Saturday. The straightforward question that they want answered—you will have estimates for this—is how many newly qualified teachers will remain unemployed by Christmas.
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I cannot answer that question. With the greatest respect, I think that it is important that all of us make clear that an absolute number cannot be provided. The trend, as indicated by the claimant count over time, is going in the right direction. The actions that we are taking have meant that the situation in Scotland is better than that in the other parts of the United Kingdom. We are doing everything that we can.
I have said that I am open to new suggestions and am looking at the possibilities of assisting in different ways. However, given the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves, I do not have the resource to be able to devote additional millions of pounds to employing more teachers. Even if I had that money, there is no indication that local authorities would employ those teachers. In those circumstances, the actions that I have taken and am taking are focused on changing this deeply regrettable situation, which has arisen for a variety of reasons, one of which was overadmission to training colleges.
Your manifesto at the previous election—which, I accept, you did not write—contained two promises about numbers. One related to the maintenance of teacher numbers; the other related to police numbers. You have made clear that you regard the number of teachers as arbitrary and that, therefore, the promise is not to be taken forward. Your colleague Mr MacAskill has managed a more robust defence of police numbers. Whether he has delivered them is a different issue, but he has certainly defended the idea that they should be delivered. What is the difference between education and police?
There are substantial differences in where we are. There is a clear correlation between falling crime and police numbers. The requirement to improve on the previous Administration’s record on falling crime was manifest, so it was right for us to deliver on police numbers.
The Scottish Government and Fiona Hyslop inherited what I regard as an arbitrary figure, which was spun effectively by your predecessor, Peter Peacock, when he held office. It turned out to be impossible to sustain that figure, for two reasons. One was the changed circumstances. The other was the decision of local authorities not to employ the teachers. I would be happy to read you the list of authorities that made that decision most dramatically. It is headed by a number of Labour authorities. I suggest that you ask them why they made that decision. I have made clear to you why I believe that we are now in this position and that I am doing everything in my power to assist those who are the victims of the situation.
I make the same rejoinder to you that I made to the First Minister—the highest percentage reduction is by Renfrewshire Council, which is an SNP-administered authority. I return to the main point. All of us accept that teachers are the vital wellspring of education. Why are education and teacher numbers not a priority for the Government in the way in which, apparently, police numbers are? Is education less important, less valuable and less significant? Is it the SNP’s view that significant benefits are to be derived from other areas of spending that are not to be derived from education?
Absolutely not. Both the facts that you have just given and your other figures are wrong; I will change them in a moment. We have spent record amounts on education and have increased education spending. As you know, education is delivered through local authorities; at the end of the day, they decide what they will do. Some do that supremely well and really try hard, but some seem to have a cavalier attitude towards teacher numbers.
In 2008-09, Glasgow City Council reduced teacher numbers by 6.9 per cent; Renfrewshire Council reduced them by 6.1 per cent. However, Renfrewshire is delivering smaller class sizes, whereas Glasgow has refused to do so. Glasgow is entitled to make that decision—we have a distributed system—but I will never accept, because it is simply not true, that the SNP does not regard education as a priority. We have put more spending and effort into education than into anything with which I have been involved at any time in my political career. The regrettable fact is that some of your colleagues’ mistakes have taken an awfully long time to sort out and are still being sorted out. That will continue to be my job through and, hopefully, beyond the next election.
That concludes the committee’s questions to the cabinet secretary. Because the next two items on our agenda also relate to matters that fall within the cabinet secretary’s portfolio, I suggest that we have a short comfort break. The meeting will resume at 10.40.
10:35
Meeting suspended.
10:40
On resuming—