Chamber and committees

That is it. That is where we sit together and work these things through between Government, local government and the unions. That will be done; it will help us to monitor the impact, and remits ought not to grow.

You mentioned the OECD study. We also have a study, which was carried out by the University of the West of Scotland, Birmingham City University and Cardiff Metropolitan University, which shows that

“The three activities that consume … the largest time commitment outside contracted hours are planning and preparing lessons, preparing resources, and marking and feedback for pupils.”

It stands to reason, as I discussed with Mr Dunlop, that the more opportunity a teacher has—as you will know—to have a quiet moment to prepare feedback, or consider a young person’s work, the far better prepared they will be to push that young person to reach their potential, which I talked about in my opening remarks. In my view, a better-supported teaching profession is good for teachers themselves, and it is good for young people.

As I said to the convener, I see two major upsides of RCCT, firstly for teacher workload and the profession and, secondly, for young people. I appreciate that the committee has taken a lot of evidence on it but, for me, the implementation of RCCT ought to be neutral, as long as it is done right, which is why local planning and the collation of data that we are encouraging local authorities to do are important.

We made £7.5 million available to allow local authorities to review their workforce, consider gaps, and think carefully about how they were going to implement the policy to ensure that it does not lead to an erosion of curriculum content, because we cannot let that happen. I do not want to underplay the fact that implementation is critical, but there is no reason that reducing class contact time in that way should not have a positive effect on what young people are taught, especially when it creates opportunities for learners to have more specialised time with specialised teachers.

The ongoing exercise that we are funding with £7.5 million is doing exactly that work on a local scale in order to get a clear picture of where the vacancies are and to give us time to address those as we move towards a phased implementation of the policy.

I stress how important phased implementation will be for RCCT; it cannot be done in one go, and I recognise the points that need to be worked through. It is absolutely right for there to be local planning. I will not sit in front of you all today and say that the policy is not without challenge. However, our assessment is that the benefits will outweigh the challenges that we will need to work through.

We know from His Majesty's Inspectorate of Education in Scotland data that the feeling that workload is unmanageable is exacerbating and driving staff shortages—or, certainly, staff absences—which can cause problems for learning and teaching. Creating that space can help the profession by helping us to avoid absences that are related to overworking, and it will have a positive benefit for young people.

Yes, absolutely. I have undertaken a suite of engagement with individuals directly. I have visited schools, spoken to all the people who make up the classroom and had discussions with all the unions. I hold round tables with representatives of the sector, too, so I am always absorbing as much as I can from—

That is something that we could probably each say a word on. The minister has spoken to our intention to produce an implementation plan. We are taking a lot of influence from what we are being directed to do, for example by the Oversight Board, to achieve clarity and precision and, as the minister said, to track responsibilities. We also need to set out the programme for implementing the Children, Care, Care Experience and Service Planning (Scotland) Act 2026. It is a substantial act, with significant change to be made in aftercare, continuing care, housing and the children’s hearings system. We will need to programme all of that work, too.

Supporting the social work workforce is another major priority. The National Social Work Agency, which we set up, is now up and running. It is already proving to be a fantastic resource, which is helping us to understand really well what the social work workforce needs. In our programme for government, you will have seen across children’s services, justice and others that we have committed to support the social work workforce in the times ahead.

We also realise that the sufficiency of care placements is a big priority. I know that Ms Brown has been doing a lot of visits with kinship carers and foster carers to get a sense of what they need. She also held a round-table meeting, and some recommendations were taken forward from that.

I will say a little bit about the state of play just now and then a bit about future planning. We are very mindful of the issue. To take one example, the National Social Work Agency has made it clear to ministers the pressures that the social work workforce is under, because the agency advises us daily about it. Our National Social Work Agency has been working with the workforce and employers to come up with a series of things that we could do to bolster that workforce. Indeed, regardless of PSR and of the fact that we are not awash with public money, we understand the centrality of the social work workforce to that objective and we want to support it.

As I said earlier, you will see in the programme for government that it is clear that children’s services, and social work as well as justice and others will have our support. Of course, all that will come through in the budget. Our work with the agency is one example where even though challenges exist across the public sector, we are clear where support needs to be given.

I want to give an absolute assurance that the objective of public service reform is not cuts or efficiencies; it is better delivery for people in Scotland. I said to the folks on the Oversight Board that I see the commitment to the Promise as a very early articulation of how and why PSR is needed. Yes, there will be workforce rearrangements, but we will deal with them carefully to ensure that front-line individuals, whose relationships with the people they work with are absolutely critical to positive outcomes, are bolstered and not undermined.

All that is wrapped up in that opportunity to say, “There are better ways of doing this”, and efficiencies in our time and approaches can be made.

It is a really good point. I will resist naming authorities, because it is probably not fair to do so, but the process is more straightforward for some authorities than for others. There are differences between primary and secondary. In addition, schools might experience absences, perhaps by dint of their location. The profile of the young people and the demographics will also have an influence. Some authorities are at different stages in getting that clear picture. The Government is supporting local authorities to build the local picture, but we need that work to continue at pace, particularly in view of that primary deadline of August 2027. We must have that data in full, and soon, in order to do what is necessary for planning.

We are working on that, but it is entirely dependent on our getting a view of local circumstances. That work is under way, and it is what we are funding local authorities to do.

Orlando wants to come in on the teaching point.

On the point about the total cost of RCCT, COSLA referred to the sum that you have just put to me in its evidence session. However, as far as I am concerned, that is not accurate and, frankly, not affordable. My estimation of the cost of RCCT, which we are currently requiring the local plans to absolutely finalise, is not in the region of that figure, which would not be affordable.

I am still doing the work to understand the conditions in each locality, in order to work out how much it will cost. For example, we might need to recruit more teachers, so I first need to know where the vacancies are. That work is under way. However, the COSLA figure was out of date on the pupil roll, and it did not consider phasing. I stress that phasing is important for RCCT.