Education
The next item of business is a statement by Michael Russell on education. As the cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, there should be no interventions or interruptions.
I welcome the opportunity to report on the significant progress that the Government has made with its educational agenda, to pay tribute to the tremendous success of my predecessor Fiona Hyslop and to talk about the work that I and my colleagues intend to move forward.
When I came into office, I pledged to reset the relationship with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to achieve real progress on key priorities including class sizes. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pre-budget report shows, the recession has put substantial and growing pressure on public finances. I have no doubt that we will hear a lot about manifestos this afternoon; however, I also know that there was no Labour manifesto commitment to a rise in national insurance or a rise in United Kingdom borrowing to an expected £178 billion.
The Scottish Government and councils are facing an unprecedented budget squeeze and we now know that Westminster has cut the Scottish Government's budget by more than £800 million. [Interruption.] The truth is the truth, and facts are chiels that winna ding. The truth is that the Scottish Government's budget has been cut by more than £800 million. [Interruption.]
Order. I have already asked that there be no interruptions or interventions. There will be plenty of opportunity to question the cabinet secretary, and I ask members to stick to that.
We know that Westminster has cut the Scottish Government's budget by more than £800 million. The recession is hitting homes and high streets across the UK but, as we saw with today's fall in unemployment, action taken by this SNP Government to deal with the economic reality has lessened the impact in Scotland.
Dealing with reality is the mark of a responsible Government. [Laughter.] Presiding Officer, that laughter comes from those who will never be in responsible government. It is not good enough for any politician who aspires to government to ignore stark financial realities, and the refusal of Labour members—and now the Liberals—to acknowledge those realities and their party's culpability in them shows that they have given up being a party of government.
The concordat's strength lies in enshrining a realistic, flexible and sustainable approach to the important issues that face local and national Government. The Scottish Government in partnership with COSLA is firmly committed to the reduction in primary 1 to primary 3 class sizes. We firmly believe that delivering smaller class sizes in P1 to P3 is a necessary step towards improved attainment; indeed, evidence and common sense tell us that more quality time with teachers pays dividends, particularly for the most vulnerable children.
I accept that Labour, for example, does not agree with that. On 11 September 2007, Wendy Alexander said in The Scotsman:
"Class sizes are not a good measure of what matters."
I believe that she is wrong, but I accept that there is another opinion on the matter. Then the UK Minister of State for Schools and Learners, Jim Knight MP, advocated teaching classes of up to 38. Speaking at a teaching conference in March 2008, he said that
"class sizes of 38 are manageable"
and that it was "perfectly acceptable" to have maths classes of 70. However, Scotland does not agree. No teacher agrees. Labour may want classes of 70—Scotland does not.
Much progress has already been made. Average class sizes in primary school are at an all-time low of just 23.1, and whether it is improved support for kinship carers, the extension of free school meals or the expansion of nursery place numbers, there can be no doubt that real change for the better has been delivered. Over the past week, intensive discussions between COSLA representatives and the Scottish Government have produced a framework for further sustained progress between now and 2011 on the key concordat education commitments.
No one should doubt the strength of my resolve to take forward the class size issue. Over the next few months, I will discuss with a range of bodies, including COSLA and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, what we might need to do beyond January 2011 for continued, progressive implementation of this vital priority.
The framework that we have discussed with COSLA has been submitted to the leaders of Scotland's local authorities, and COSLA will feed back its views with the aim of securing a renewed and strengthened agreement that focuses on delivery at a time of increasing financial pressure on the Scottish Government and local authorities. I am determined to demonstrate the strength of our relationship by the way in which we take forward the issue.
Given the current economic and financial challenges, it becomes even more important to keep our focus on providing effective early support and intervention for vulnerable children and families in Scotland. We have made good—indeed, unprecedented—progress in improving support to kinship carers, but we now need reform of the benefits system if we are to avoid the help that councils give to carers being taken away immediately by Westminster through the reduction in carers' benefits. I hope that members across the chamber will back the Scottish Government's campaign for the benefit changes that are needed to ensure that kinship carers get the help they need.
Pre-school entitlement has gone from 412.5 hours per annum to 475 hours, and there is increased access to teachers in pre-school settings, such that, in comparison with the previous year, more than 3,600 more children had access to a teacher in 2009.
Our manifesto committed us to piloting free school meals, which we did in 2008. Extending free school meals to the poorest families was implemented from the start of the 2009-10 school year. As a result, we have extended entitlement to an additional 44,000 pupils from hard-pressed families, and increased the number of pupils who are entitled to free school meals by 42 per cent. That is a real achievement.
The concordat took us beyond our manifesto pledge. It committed us to free school meals for every pupil in P1 to P3 from next summer. The reality of the recession and Labour's cuts mean that we cannot now achieve that as quickly as we had hoped. Our proposed next step will be to target pupils in the 20 per cent most disadvantaged areas, and we will continue to give priority to intensifying support for the early years for very young children and their families through the effective implementation of the early years framework and the getting it right for every child programme. Those are also real achievements.
The curriculum for excellence will raise standards for every child, and will enable every child to become a successful learner, a confident individual, an effective contributor and a responsible citizen. Pupil performance in exams is consistently strong, demonstrating the strength of our broad-based system; I have figures aplenty to quote on that.
I am strongly committed to putting in place foundations for improving the long-term health of the nation. That is why, with my colleagues in health, we have already made sure that two hours of quality physical education are embedded in the curriculum for excellence for every child, every week.
We have also gone further than expected with technology. We have invested £37.5 million in glow, which is the only example in the world of an intranet that connects every school in the country.
Of course, we inherited problems. We have to address the legacy of crumbling school buildings. Where the school estate is a problem, it is one that we inherited from Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Buildings do not decline overnight; they were allowed to decline by our predecessors, although to be scrupulously fair, they also inherited a poor legacy after 18 years of Tory misrule. Around 260,000 pupils were in poor or bad schools when Labour and the Liberal Democrats left office. We set ourselves the target of lifting 100,000 pupils out of poor or bad schools. Well, we met our target in just two and a half years. In our first year, we lifted approximately 59,000 of those pupils out of poor or bad schools.
Aw.
I am sorry that Liberal Democrat members do not wish to see improved schools in Scotland. That is a mark of their shame in opposition and their failure in government.
In our second year, we lifted another 41,140 pupils out of poor or bad schools. That means that 100,000 pupils are now in decent school buildings that were delivered by this Government.
Shameless.
Order. I ask members not to interrupt, and I ask the minister to stick to his statement.
I am just so excited by our successes, Presiding Officer; I apologise.
In its 2007 manifesto, Labour pledged to rebuild 250 more Scottish schools during this session of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP promised to match that pledge, brick by brick. Already 236 school projects have been completed since May 2007. No school that was committed to by the previous Administration has been delayed, and we expect to complete in excess of 250 during this parliamentary session. We are meeting the challenge, brick by brick.
On my first full day in office, I visited Inverkeithing primary school, which shares a building with the newly established Carnegie primary school while the council builds Carnegie a building. Why do those schools have to share a building? Because under the old Labour administration in Fife, the new school was cancelled. Under the new SNP administration, the new school is being built; it will open in 2011. We will not stop there. We are ambitious for the school estate and committed to investing in it.
We are also making progress in higher and further education. We have restored the principle of free education by abolishing the graduate endowment fee, and we have just announced £30 million of additional measures to increase student income in 2010-11. Those measures will increase the income of more than 75,000 students next year.
We have made tremendous progress on our manifesto commitments, but we are not complacent. We know what we still have to do. Where problems exist, we will work with imagination and dedication to solve them. We will work in partnership with parents and teachers to solve them. I would like also to work in partnership with members from across the chamber to solve them. We are determined to continue to make progress despite the hard times, which were created and have been exacerbated by Labour. I look forward to working across Scotland with everyone to make progress on what is a vital agenda.
I wish all my colleagues a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
What a lot of delusion that was—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. However, facts are chiels that winna ding, and probationary teachers have been abandoned; teacher numbers are 2,000 lower than in 2007; the pipeline of new school buildings has been emptied; teacher training is to be decimated; the free school meal pledge has been watered down; the extension of care for pre-fives has been withdrawn; and kinship carers have been let down. The minister is left trying to do a deal with COSLA to take back 20 per cent of his party's pledge on class sizes. The minister says that he wants to "reset the relationship" with COSLA, but "resetting" is the term for selling on stolen goods, which is an apt analogy for the minister.
How will the minister reverse the trend in teacher numbers and post-probationary teacher unemployment? What will he do to support the efforts of Glasgow City Council and other authorities to tackle the barriers for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in acquiring basic skills? Those are serious priorities that should be every member's priorities. What is the price of the deal that he wants to do with COSLA for kinship carers, pre-fives, school pupils and those misguided people who actually believed Alex Salmond when he said that he would introduce free school meals?
When the Rev Maureen Leitch spoke earlier, she said:
"by giving a little kindness you can be the star".
I advise Mr McNulty to bring a little kindness to the matter, but let us start with him being kind about the facts. I am pleased to say that we are making good progress on the difficult problem of teacher numbers. Today's claimant count figures show that the number of unemployed teachers in Scotland has halved in the past two months. He asked me what progress I am making—I am glad that so much progress has been made so quickly. We will go on making that progress week after week. [Interruption.] I am trying to answer each part of the question in turn, Presiding Officer. It would be easier to do so if there were not noises off.
Mr McNulty asked what we will do with Glasgow. I intend to meet Councillor Steven Purcell this week. If, like me, he is a reasonable person—[Laughter.] I know that it is unusual to think of Steven Purcell as a reasonable person, but I do. If he and Glasgow City Council can discuss reasonably what is necessary for young people in Glasgow and how we can make progress on the basis of the concordat agreement and the flexibilities that we have shown, the young people of Glasgow will benefit. Similarly, the young people of Scotland would benefit if the Parliament supported the measures that we are talking about, if it was enthusiastic about change and if it recognised the difficulties that we have got into through no fault of our own—it is the fault of the Labour Government south of the border—in making progress on the issues.
Kinship carers strikes me as an issue. The work that my good friend Mr Ingram has done on that is unprecedented. The previous Administration did nothing. That is the reality of the situation. Labour members could still redeem themselves by ensuring that their Westminster colleagues take the necessary actions on the benefits package. I hope that they will do so.
We should not be distracted by nonsense from the Holyrood bubble. The reality out there is that there are many good schools, teachers and pupils. I will encourage them for every hour that I am in my present office.
It might be the pantomime season, but if the statement that we have just heard sets the tone for the new cabinet secretary's stewardship of Scottish education, heaven help us all. It consisted of little more than pathetic attempts to pass the buck for SNP failures to previous Governments of different political hues. Today is a double humiliation for the SNP Government, as not one, but two manifesto pledges have been broken—on the delivery of smaller class sizes and universal free school meals.
I hold no candle for the Labour Government, but it is laughable for the cabinet secretary to blame Labour's recession for the SNP's failure on its class size policy because we know that senior civil servants were admitting as far back as summer 2007 that the policy was unachievable, long before the start of the economic downturn.
Will the cabinet secretary tell us when he was made aware of the advice given to his predecessor by the civil service that the policy on smaller class sizes could not be delivered?
It might be the pantomime season, but I do not treat education as a pantomime.
Oh yes he does!
I advise Mr Fraser and any other member in the chamber to do exactly as I do and to treat the matter with the seriousness that it deserves. I outlined in my statement all our achievements—and there are many of them; I could have spoken for another 10 minutes and still not finished the list. At the end of my statement, I made a commitment to work across the chamber to see what we could do.
Answer the question.
If Mr Rumbles will stop shouting, I will be able to answer questions. I will work as hard as I can across the chamber to ensure that the class size pledge continues to be rolled out in a way that benefits children.
The information that I have as cabinet secretary came to me when I became cabinet secretary; I did not receive any briefings on education until that time.
Given all the circumstances, we all know that we have a big opportunity. The Liberals, Labour and the Tories might wish to live in the Holyrood bubble, but most people in Scotland do not live in the Holyrood bubble; they live in the real world where there are real difficulties. The prizes go to the children and others who work hard to solve problems, rather than trying to make them.
The cabinet secretary says that dealing with reality is the mark of a responsible Government—it is a pity, then, that this Government was ever elected on a wholly unrealistic education programme that was enshrined in an unworkable and unenforceable concordat.
We are disappointed that the cabinet secretary had to be dragged to the chamber today by Opposition parties to confirm that his Government is doing a U-turn on class sizes, free school meals as a universal benefit, allowance support to all kinship carers from next year and increased nursery hours. Unfortunately, the statement was long on blame and spin and short on clarification of how the Government will deliver what it promised.
We could ask when the Scottish Futures Trust will deliver a single school or when those 2,000 teachers—the newly trained and the lost—will be in classrooms, but I will focus on class sizes. Given that, between 2007 and 2008, classes of 18 or fewer went up by just 1 per cent, from 12 per cent to 13 per cent, how does the cabinet secretary plan to deliver a 7 per cent jump in less than a year? Delivery remains the key issue. What will happen if councils have not delivered on the SNP's new scaled-down class size promise by autumn 2010? Will the SNP again threaten to take away from local authorities the control of our schools?
I wish that Margaret Smith would just focus on what she and I agree on. We both want smaller class sizes—I have had that conversation with her—and I want to make sure that we continue to deliver smaller class sizes.
The document makes it absolutely clear that the framework creates the opportunity for councils to achieve the target that we have set them in a verifiable way. That is the discussion that we are now having. The door is open; I hope that local authorities will come through it. We will get an agreement that can be verified and we will make progress on that target. I want those lower class sizes; Margaret Smith wants those lower class sizes. Let us get rid of her rhetoric and get some results. The Liberals could be around for a long time and not match the list of achievements over two and a half years that I gave for Fiona Hyslop and her team.
We come to open questions. Time is at a premium so please keep them brief—and the same applies to the answers.
When suffering a bout of insomnia, the cabinet secretary might have read Labour's 2007 manifesto, which referred to the commitment to build or refurbish 250 schools over the four years to 2011 as an acceleration. Will he confirm that we have now exceeded that total in two and a half years? Will he say whether that acceleration is above and beyond anything that Labour could ever think of?
That is the best question that I have had so far. It is also the only question so far that is based on fact, not prejudice.
The reality is that yes, of course, we are doing even better. We are doing far better and we will continue to do so. The important thing here is not shouting from Andy Kerr—that is never important—but that better schools are being provided for young people, and that the people responsible for providing the worst schools were those in the previous Administrations. That is the truth.
The minister promised to reset the relationship with COSLA; I hate to think what he would have said if he had been adversarial in his approach. Is it still the Government's policy to maintain teacher numbers at 53,000, as promised in the SNP manifesto? If so, exactly what action is the minister taking that his predecessor was unable to take?
It is my policy to ensure that we have the right number of teachers in Scotland for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. If every Labour local authority were to sign on with me to maintain every single teacher, we might be able to do that. If they are not prepared to do so, I will face the reality of the situation in which I will find myself, particularly because of the Labour-exacerbated recession, and I will ensure that a number of things happen. The first is that we will try to ensure that the teachers who are trained get into jobs as quickly as possible. I am very pleased to be the inheritor of the good progress on that that I have reported to the Parliament this afternoon. From an unacceptable start, we are going in the right direction.
The second thing that I will guarantee is that teachers who are in classrooms are supported to the ultimate degree by this Government, the new developments in curriculum for excellence and, I hope, throughout the chamber. That is what we should be doing.
The third guarantee that I will give is that those who go into training as teachers will get the most modern and the best training that they could possibly get.
If Mr Macintosh wants to tie himself to anything else, he may tie himself to what he wants.
The SNP said in its manifesto that it would deliver two hours of quality PE per child per week. Will that be delivered by 2011?
I cannot know everything in two weeks—I am sure that the member would accept that. However, I am told that the curriculum for excellence is making very good progress on that ambition and I am happy to ensure that we keep up to speed on it.
The statement was strong on bombast and disingenuousness, so I will cut to the chase. Will the cabinet secretary clarify how many extra nursery teachers our nursery schools now have as a result of this Administration? Are they actually present in the classrooms, rather than just being passed through the classrooms on an ad-hoc basis?
Mr O'Donnell will know, because he has been involved in the sector longer than I have, that the big fall in nursery teachers came under the previous Administration. Admittedly, he was not a member of the previous Administration, so he can walk away from that. I am happy to provide the full statistics on numbers of nursery teachers—
There are 53 fewer nursery teachers in Scotland.
Presiding Officer, would it be possible for me to finish without interruption from Margaret Smith? She keeps waving her hands.
I was answering the question for you.
Order. Let us see whether we can get an answer.
I will be happy to provide the information to Mr O'Donnell. I am not avoiding the issue. He will be provided with the information. However, the fact is that the big fall in nursery teachers came under the previous Administration. My statement was not long on anything other than facts, but if there are some facts that I have not covered, he is welcome to them.
Presiding Officer, you wrote to me to say that Parliament can hold ministers to account through oral questions. With your assistance, Presiding Officer, can I ask the cabinet secretary which ministers were copied into advice about class sizes in primary 1 to primary 3 between 9 May and 2 July 2007?
I know that this is the subject of a number of inquiries by Mr Henry. I am not avoiding the issue by saying that I know that it is now also the subject of a referral of an accusation that was made about the First Minister. In those circumstances, it would be wisest—because I do not have the information in front of me—to provide the answer in writing and within the context of those inquiries.
I am disappointed that a combination of savage UK cuts and, in some cases, local authority non-co-operation on class sizes has led to a phased delivery on free school meals. However, can I get an assurance that the SNP Government is fully committed to universal and nutritious free school meals at lunchtime for P1, P2 and P3 schoolchildren and that the principle remains intact—only the pace of delivery has changed?
Of course. I am happy to confirm to Mr Doris that the commitment in the concordat—which went further than our manifesto—remains intact, but the pace of delivery has had to be altered. That is inevitable, because of the savage cuts from south of the border, about which the only people who are in complete denial are the Labour group and its denier-in-chief, Mr Andy Kerr.
Is the cabinet secretary aware that in the real world of Edinburgh, where his SNP colleagues are part of the council administration, there are proposals not to increase nursery hours, not to extend free school meals, not to reduce class sizes and—most of all—to cut school budgets for each of the next three years by 2.5 per cent per annum? If, with the same financial challenges, Labour in England can ensure that every school receives a real-terms funding increase of 0.7 per cent for each of the next three years, will the cabinet secretary find a Scottish way of achieving the same objective?
I sympathise greatly with Malcolm Chisholm's point about protecting education and I will do everything that I can do to achieve that, but the explanation of Labour's policy that followed the pre-budget report was less than convincing. On the radio the next morning, the chancellor ruled out sixth-form colleges as part of the educational establishment. What Alistair Darling and Ed Balls have said about schools allows such wriggle room that the commitment has not been made in the terms that Malcolm Chisholm described.
I want to protect education, which is our investment in the future. However, Malcolm Chisholm will accept—although he might not agree—that the concordat created parity of esteem between levels of government. Local authorities must make their decisions. They do so on the basis of proposals that they issue for discussion and consultation. I understand that no final decision has been made in almost any Scottish local authority area. Decisions will be taken locally in consultation with local voters.
My responsibility is to continue to protect and defend the best in Scottish education, which is very good indeed. The standards in Scottish education are very good. Members who seek to make political points by running down those standards damage Scottish education and themselves.
During Labour's recession, further education has played a major part in delivering Scotland's recovery programme. Will the cabinet secretary build on commitments such as the £28 million for extra courses and the 16,000 new apprentice places and continue to ensure that Scotland's colleges have the support that they deserve?
Yes, of course. Scotland's colleges richly need the support that they have. I have had interesting discussions with representatives of Scotland's colleges in the past fortnight and I will continue to have those discussions. I draw several conclusions from my experiences in the past fortnight, the strongest of which is that Scottish education has such strengths that if problems exist—as they do—they can be solved by the strengths in Scottish education. I intend to encourage those strengths.
Is the cabinet secretary aware of the alarm of parents throughout Edinburgh at the council's proposed 2.5 per cent cuts in school budgets in the next three years? Will he respond to the concern that those budget cuts will make implementing curriculum for excellence impossible? What support will he make available to the council to prevent those cuts and enable the educational success that he claims will be achieved in Edinburgh?
I discussed with the curriculum for excellence management board yesterday a range of issues. Nobody around that table said that delivering the curriculum for excellence was impossible. Concern was and always is felt about the situation in which some local authorities find themselves—I had a large-scale education stakeholders meeting yesterday about that. We know—and all members should admit that the Parliament knows—that the overwhelming reason for that situation is Labour's cuts. We need to work together to find a way through that. I am sure that each and every local authority—no matter what its political control is—will act to achieve the best outcomes. The Government will encourage that.