Scottish Qualifications Authority Bill: Stage 3
For the stage 3 proceedings on the Scottish Qualifications Authority Bill, members will require the bill itself, the marshalled list, which contains the amendments that have been selected for debate—in this case, all of them—and the agreed groupings.
Before I invite Nicol Stephen to speak to the first group of amendments, I ask members who are in the middle of conversations to resume them elsewhere, and I ask other members who are leaving the chamber to do so quickly.
Section 1—Scottish Qualifications
Authority: members
Amendment 4 is grouped with amendments 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. I call Nicol Stephen to speak to and move amendment 4 and to speak to all the amendments in the group.
Executive amendments 4 to 10 deal with the appointment of a board member who is an employee of the SQA, or who has special knowledge of the interests of the SQA staff. They also deal with consequent changes to the membership of the board.
The Education, Culture and Sport Committee accepted at stage 2 an amendment lodged by Jackie Baillie that sought the appointment of a representative of the SQA's staff to the board. The Executive resisted that proposal at stage 2, but I am pleased to say that the Scottish ministers now accept the principle. Amendments 4 to 10 seek to ensure that the terms of any such appointment are made clear and that certain consequences of that appointment are properly reflected in the bill.
Amendments 4 and 5 seek to allow an increase in the size of the SQA board to a membership of between eight and 10, whereas previously, the membership was seven to nine, plus the chief executive. Amendment 9 also relates to that; it seeks to reflect the proposed increase in board membership by increasing the quorum for a board meeting. The quorum requirement will increase from five members to six members.
Amendments 7 and 8 seek to specify the type of person who should be appointed as the additional board member. Amendment 7 proposes that the word "representative" of the employees of the SQA should be replaced by the words:
"person appearing to the Scottish Ministers to have special knowledge of the interests"
of the employees of the SQA. That change directly reflects the wording of the provision that was added at stage 3 of the Water Industry (Scotland) Bill. The revised wording makes it clear that the additional member to be appointed will be a full board member with the same corporate responsibilities as every other board member.
Amendment 8 spells out that ministers should consult the employees of the SQA or existing representatives of the employees, such as trade union representatives, to seek their views on the knowledge and attributes that any potential appointee should possess.
Amendment 6 simply deletes the words "At least". Again, that is in line with the wording in the Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002, to make it clear that one appointee must have special knowledge of the interests of staff.
Amendment 10 seeks to ensure that appropriate conflict-of-interest provisions apply to any employee of the SQA who may be appointed to the board. As I mentioned at stage 2, such provisions already apply to the chief executive in his ex officio membership of the board. Amendment 10 ensures that the same provisions will apply in future to any SQA employee who becomes an SQA board member.
I hope that members will welcome the proposed changes, which reflect the clear wish of the overwhelming majority of the members of the committee at stage 2.
I move amendment 4.
I welcome the Executive amendments. As we heard, they are consequential to—and indeed improve upon—the amendment that the committee accepted at stage 2. The Executive can be helpful in improving amendments that the committee lodges. The effect of the amendments will be to provide for employee participation at board level. Virtually all committee members wanted that.
I am aware that a range of consultation and communication mechanisms are now in place in the SQA and the positive attempt to involve staff at all levels is welcome. Having an employee on the board does not replace those mechanisms, but serves to enhance the process and ensures that there is effective communication and that we avoid the evident failures of the past.
The success of the 2001 examination diet was in no small way assisted by the efforts of the staff of the SQA and it is therefore appropriate that they are represented on the board. I hope that the chamber will support the Executive's amendments.
Jackie Baillie and the minister have said virtually all that there is to say. The proposal was supported right across the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, with the exception of Mr Monteith. I am grateful that the Executive has moved on it. It sets a useful precedent. The Water Industry (Scotland) Act 2002 led to the proposal and I hope that it, in turn, will lead to other things, including employee representation on the boards of the national arts companies, which the committee has previously requested. That has not yet happened. However, amendments 4 to 10 move us into a situation in which consultation within the SQA will not be replaced, but will be added to. We are pleased to support amendments 4 to 10.
I, too, welcome amendments 4 to 10, not because I welcome the concession in principle, but because I welcome the intention to ensure that the bill works. We have had too many mistakes in the past, so I welcome the fact that the Executive has lodged these tidying up amendments.
As the only member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee who supported the Executive's position, I am disappointed that it did not show some bottle by sticking to its principle. I recall that the discussion centred around whether employee representation was required on the board when there was already representation on the advisory council. I do not rule out, as I said at the committee, employee representation on any board. However, a position has already been made available on the SQA's advisory council. In addition to that, the intention was to change the board, not to make it more representative, but to ensure that it had members who would take seriously their duties for the sake of the board and the SQA and not because they were representing a particular group.
I felt that the proposal to have an employee on the board was unnecessary and I am disappointed that is has succeeded. Although I was the Executive's sole supporter on the committee and have lost out on this matter, I will not cross the floor. However, I look forward to reading the minister's memoirs next year to find out why he changed his mind.
As a member of the Transport and the Environment Committee, I led the charge for employee involvement on the water board, so I am particularly pleased that the work of one committee is cross-fertilising that of others. Had there been an employee representative on the SQA board, much of the knowledge that was in the organisation when it was going wrong 18 months or two years ago might have come to the surface a wee bit earlier.
Even without that experience, the general principle of public bodies operating in partnership with their employees and involving them in the governance process is a good one. I hope that, having moved that good principle from Scottish Water to the SQA, we can extend the principle to other public bodies. We should be applying the principle on a broader basis, where it is appropriate to do so.
I invite the minister to respond, in so far as he can without compromising the commercial viability of his memoirs.
The best way to achieve that is to be brief and to say that I welcome the general support. I understand that Brian Monteith continues to oppose the principle, but I am pleased to hear that he will support amendments 4 to 10.
Amendment 4 agreed to.
Amendments 5 to 10 moved—[Nicol Stephen]—and agreed to.
Section 3—Advisory Council
Amendment 1, in the name of Michael Russell, is grouped with amendments 11, 2 and 3. I call Michael Russell to move amendment 1 and to speak to the other amendments in the group.
I will be as brief as the minister. The two big issues at stage 2 of the bill were the question of employee participation and the question of the relationship between the advisory council and the SQA board. The minister undertook to produce suggestions. I have seen his memorandum and his proposals. They do not go as far I want, but they go about 90 per cent of the way. It would be churlish to do other than thank the minister for that. He is a model of his sort. I doubt whether his memoirs will be a prose model, but his ministerial work on the bill is to be commended because he listened to the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. In that light, there is no reason for me to move amendment 1.
Amendment 1 not moved.
In that case, I ask the minister to speak to and move amendment 11.
In the circumstances, I could say nothing and formally move amendment 11. However, it is important to explain the background to amendment 11. I will try to be brief.
We fully understood the intention that lay behind Michael Russell's proposals. As he said, during the Education, Culture and Sport Committee's stage 2 consideration of the bill I made it clear that the Executive anticipates that the advisory council will carry out most of its work in the public domain, given its role as a key voice of the SQA's wide range of stakeholders. The advisory council will be required by the bill to consult other stakeholders before providing advice. We anticipate that the council will publish much of its advice in order to demonstrate to stakeholders that their views are being transmitted accurately.
It will be important for future confidence in the SQA and the advisory council that the flow of advice and decisions is transparent to all stakeholders. The Executive supported the intention of Michael Russell's amendments, which was to ensure transparency in advice and decision making, but did not support the amendments. We have taken a different approach and have lodged an amendment to include in the bill the power to make regulations on this. We have said that we will produce draft regulations that reflect the policy intention that lies behind what Michael Russell was trying to achieve and that we would have a memorandum of understanding. In other words, there should be a framework to govern the relationship between the board, the advisory council and the Scottish Executive.
We feel that care must be taken not to create inappropriate inflexibility in the wording of the bill. Amendment 11 seeks to make all of that possible. It will allow provisions that are almost identical to those set out in Michael Russell's amendment to be included in the advisory council regulations. I have provided an indicative draft of the regulations to the members of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee, which includes those provisions. I am happy to assure members that those provisions will be included in the regulations that will be made to create the advisory council after the enactment of the bill. The regulations will, therefore, impose a duty on the advisory council to copy its advice to ministers and a duty on the SQA to provide a written response to the council, again copied to ministers, in the event that it decides not to act on the council's advice. That was proposed in Mr Russell's amendment.
At this point, I should plead with Mr Russell not to press his amendment but, knowing that he has already agreed not to move it, I will simply move amendment 11.
Amendment 11 moved—[Nicol Stephen]—and agreed to.
Section 5—Advice to SQA
Amendments 2 and 3 not moved.
That concludes the consideration of amendments.