Chamber and committees

I am grateful to have the chance to reflect on the success of the young persons guarantee and the national transition training fund, one year after their inception. As we steadily and conscientiously navigate our route out to recovery, it is crucial to remember that the social, educational and economic scars of the pandemic have disproportionately affected the lives of our young people in Scotland.

Research funded by the Scottish Government and carried out by Young Scot, the Scottish Youth Parliament and YouthLink Scotland over the past year gave young people aged 11 to 25 the opportunity to share their views in an open survey on the impact of Covid-19. Thousands of responses to the survey show that it was largely girls and young women, young people aged over 18, young people with a disability or long-term illness and young carers who reported lower physical and mental wellbeing, lower satisfaction with educational arrangements and lower levels of optimism about current and future employment prospects.

In the same month that the Covid impact survey closed, the Scottish Government launched the young persons guarantee—a commitment that every 16 to 24-year-old in Scotland will be given the chance to work, start an apprenticeship, attend further or higher education or gain experience through specific training programmes or volunteering.

With fair work remaining a key tenet of the SNP’s economic plan, it is essential to create a labour market that values individual wellbeing and actively strives to remove the barriers that certain communities face to finding employment. Although more than 18,000 opportunities, including modern apprenticeships and graduate programmes, have been created through the young persons guarantee since 2020, I whole-heartedly welcome the additional £70 million that has been pledged by the Government, which will continue to support employers and providers to equip our young people with the skills that are needed for Scotland’s future.

In addition, as part of building an inclusive and environmentally focused economy, enhancing the national transition training fund by a further £125 million will allow us to work towards our net zero ambitions and support those aged 25 and over to retrain and develop the skills required to move into areas with the greatest potential for future growth and job opportunities.

Given the thousands of people in Glasgow marching for climate action, it is fantastic that those employment initiatives will be strongly linked to the climate emergency skills action plan and the green jobs workforce academy, including aircraft decommissioning training for workers in the aerospace sector and upskilling and reskilling individuals in the construction industry, with a focus on energy efficiency. I have seen that at first hand at the City of Glasgow College in Kelvin. [Interruption.] I am just about to finish.

After the success of its first year, which helped more than 6,000 people enrol in a variety of training programmes, the national transition training fund will continue for a second year, providing 20,000 training opportunities in sectors that have been impacted by Covid-19, climate commitments and an unwanted EU exit.

Although progress has undoubtedly been made, there is no room for complacency. I am proud that the Government continues to act with future generations in mind, and to quote my colleague Fiona Hyslop when she launched the young persons guarantee, I say to Scotland’s young people that I want you to know that we are marching with you and

“we want you to be successful and we will do everything we can to give you the opportunities you need.”

Thank you, convener. I have listened with great interest to what has been said. I have questions on local authority funding, but before I ask them, I want to ask why the gaps in data exist. Is it not in the scope of the Accounts Commission or the Auditor General to collect that data?

How do you share what you find? We have your report, but are briefings or documentation shared with councils in order to spread that good practice or, indeed, to shed light on councils that require a bit more support?

Thank you. I will move on to the area that I am particularly interested in. Overarching policies and budgets are set at the Scottish Government level, but local authorities ultimately deliver and implement the policies and services in education. You said that your analysis had not found a link between spending per pupil and educational attainment. However, there is an expectation that a significant amount of funding will go towards supporting education. What are the policy implications of the finding that pupil spend does not correlate to performance? Can the panel share any observations on the characteristics of local authorities that perform well, in terms of culture or policy and delivery approaches?

Thank you.

I have a final query on the report’s reference to the private finance initiative. Is information available on how much money councils have spent on PFI? I know that the private finance initiative was used to fund a certain amount of school estate building. Is any data available on how much money is still being spent on PFI?

If there is one thing that I learned as a primary teacher over far too many years, it is that the best start in life begins long before the more formal education that is provided by our schools. The role of early learning and childcare provision is crucial not only for our wee ones but for our whole society and the economy.

We know that the Conservatives have little interest in giving anyone the right start in life, never mind the best start. Under their austerity programme, they slashed funding for the surestart programme in England, even though the programme was proven to address inequalities in early years support.

In 2019, a study conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies concluded that surestart children’s centres reduced the number of people who were taken to hospital and saved millions of pounds for the national health service. However, the Tories closed more than 500 centres between 2010 and 2017.

Let us come on to Scotland. The doomsayers of the previous session of Parliament said that 1,140 hours of early years care could not be done. In 2019, just two years ago, the Conservative spokesperson for children and young people told the Parliament that ministers had to urgently address flaws in the plan to double free childcare provision—and yet the policy was successfully delivered on time and in partnership with local government and early learning and childcare providers within the first 100 days of this session.

The building of a system of wraparound childcare—something that was often talked about by new Labour but has been delivered by the SNP—will have significant benefits for families and the wider economy. The system, which is free to low-income households and asks for fair contributions from those who can afford it, enables families to seek job opportunities and plan careers in ways that were denied to parents in the past. The knowledge that early learning and childcare are taken care of frees women, in particular, to return to work—full-time, if they wish, which is important.

That brings me to the jobs that have been created in early learning and childcare. Let us remember that the Tories told us two years ago that there would not be enough trained staff to deliver on our commitment, yet here we are with 435 new graduate-level ELC posts across Scotland, supported by £21 million funding in 2018-19, building the capacity for growth as we expand ELC to one and two-year-olds. No doubt the Tories will tell us again today—indeed, they have done—that we are too poor and too daft to make that work. However, what the Tories lack in positivity is more than made up for by the ambition and aspiration for our families and children on the other side of the chamber.

How will the Scottish Government ensure that teachers and staff are central to the process of reform?

I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate. The impact of COP26 is being felt right across Glasgow, but it is into the former industrial communities of Anderston, Finnieston and Yorkhill that global leaders, delegates, and activists will descend to discuss and debate the best ways forward for our environment and, ultimately, our planet.

Scotland’s impact on the world has been significant, and central to that has always been our greatest resource: our people. The excellence of our thinkers and the institutions that educate them continues to be pivotal and will undoubtedly impact the conversations that take place at COP26.

We know that the work to develop critical thought must start early, and I warmly welcome the Caledonian club, a Glasgow Caledonian University initiative that works with schools in Glasgow to equip primary 5 and 6 pupils to answer questions such as “What is climate change and its effects?” and “What can I do to raise awareness about climate change?” Glasgow Caledonian University is also supporting a series of talks focusing on the climate emergency that will involve local and international experts in conversation with girls from Glasgow.

The focus on young people and providing them with an environment and platform to flourish is shared by the University of Strathclyde, which is hosting the UN climate change conference of youth. That event is designed to prepare young people for their participation in COP26, and to ensure that the voice of youth is heard.

Against the backdrop of Brexit and the United Kingdom’s hostile immigration policies, I welcome those demonstrations of international co-operation that reinforce that Scotland does not share in an isolationist dogma but instead embraces an outward and collaborative approach to solving truly global problems.

Indeed, COP26 is a unique opportunity to showcase Scotland to the world, including what we are doing to meet our world-leading climate targets. A perfect example of that is a Glasgow Kelvin business, Katrick Technologies. Its CEO moved from India to Scotland to attend the nautical college, before eventually graduating from the University of Strathclyde with a master’s degree and an idea. That idea developed into a technology to capture, converge and convert energy from waste heat, wind and waves into mechanical vibrations, producing profitable zero-carbon electricity. That truly revolutionary work was done in Glasgow and it could power our homes and electric cars for many years to come. Once again, the excellence of Scottish education, which has been safeguarded by successive SNP Governments, has attracted and developed the best and brightest, and we are delighted to call Katrick Technologies a local success.

With the Scottish Government committed to delivering the ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2045 and an interim target of a 75 per cent reduction by 2030, I am proud of the world-leading research and development that is currently under way in Kelvin and in Scotland. That work could provide the solutions to the global challenges that are being addressed at COP26.

That is great.

I am also mindful of staff. Looking at the three scenarios that have been outlined for this academic year of 2021-22, what safeguards have been considered in order to prevent additional workload for staff?

Good morning. We have taken evidence from young people and from the unions, and we all listened very carefully to what they said about the alternative certification model. A wee bit of concern came through that there were too many assessments in too short a time. What stakeholder engagement has the Scottish Government undertaken to listen to the views of young people and unions in order to inform contingency planning for the year ahead?