Chamber and committees

I am sorry that the committee has to listen to me again, but it just so happens that the amendments that have come up are in my name.

I agree with what Ross Greer said. It is not about dealing with complaints; it is about raising serious concerns—specifically, concerns that rest within the public interest remit in the statutory definition of whistleblowing.

It is important that I declare an interest. I have a long-standing connection with WhistleblowersUK, which is a not-for-profit organisation that supports whistleblowers. It is also a campaigning group that seeks to change the law to provide proper protections for whistleblowers. The issue has been a long-term interest of mine, because I genuinely believe that whistleblowers can be a positive antidote to some of the toxicity that can arise in closed cultures.

Amendments 315 and 348 are not merely about improving administrative processes; they are also about sending a powerful message about culture, trust and integrity in our schools and educational bodies. We must legislate not only for structures but for values. Among those values must be the protection of truth-telling, the safety of those who speak up and the accountability of institutions to those they serve. Amendments 315 and 348 seek to provide those values.

The amendments are not intended to be small bureaucratic changes. They are about encouraging moral courage, institutional integrity and the creation of a culture in which staff at all levels feel safe to speak up when they see that something is wrong and that it is in the public interest that they do so.

To be clear, whistleblowing saves systems from failure. It is not a nuisance that is to be tolerated and it is not disloyalty. It is the front-line defence of standards and safety. It means protecting the public interest and ensuring that the best interests of pupils, parents and the wider public are safeguarded at all times. That is particularly vital in education, and I believe that the cabinet secretary appreciates that. Schools are closed environments, power is hierarchical—that is particularly true in an educational establishment—and cultures can and do become toxic. When issues such as mismanagement, safeguarding failures, curriculum malpractice and the bullying of staff or pupils arise, the instinct too often, sadly, is to deny, deflect or retaliate.

In recent years, we have seen, tragically and repeatedly, what happens when staff feel that they cannot speak up. Across the public sector, we have seen whistleblowers suffer for doing the right thing. Careers have been ended, reputations have been shattered, and isolation, stress and even mental breakdown have followed. In many cases, the underlying issues were eventually proven to be real. We will all have had constituency casework that relates to the examples that I am citing.

The education sector is no different. Teachers, support staff and senior leaders across Scotland have shared—often anonymously—stories of having tried to raise concerns about child safety, exam integrity and leadership failures, only to be warned off, ignored or subject to disciplinary action. The Scottish Parliament has an opportunity in the bill to act to prevent that culture from persisting. We must, united, send a message that whistleblowing is not a betrayal but is a form of professional leadership. It is an expression of ethical responsibility and an act of service in defence of the public interest.

The amendments are modelled in part on the independent national whistleblowing officer, or INWO, role that was established in the national health service in Scotland in 2021. That role provides a clear, safe and structured route for NHS staff to raise concerns about wrongdoing or malpractice in their workplace. It guarantees that those concerns will be treated with seriousness, confidentiality and fairness, and it sits outside the management hierarchy.

Why should teachers, classroom assistants, early years workers and college lecturers be afforded any less protection? The argument for parity is overwhelming. The stakes in education are no less high than in health. Learner safety, wellbeing and outcomes depend on the honesty and responsiveness of institutions. The public trust that is placed in our schools is immense. When that trust is breached, the system must not silence or sideline those who speak up; it must embrace them. For the sake of pupils, for the peace of mind of parents and for the reputation of public education as a whole, we must protect the right to speak up in the public interest.

It is right that I mention the psychological and career toll that unprotected whistleblowing can take. Too many professionals who have spoken up have found themselves subtly or not so subtly punished—excluded from promotion, subject to hostile appraisals, moved between schools or stripped of informal support. Often, their colleagues fall silent for fear of guilt by association. Whistleblowing, in those instances, is a lonely and painful road. It should not be so. If the Scottish education system is to retain talented and ethical professionals, it must ensure that raising a concern does not become a career-ending decision. My amendments embed that principle.

My intention in the amendments is to create a whistleblowing framework, which is a practical and powerful way to reassure potential whistleblowers that the listening is real and to give every professional a route to be heard, even when their line management has failed them.

The approach is fully consistent with the direction of travel in Scottish public life. The whistleblowing officer role in the NHS, which I mentioned, was created following decades of failure in healthcare, with staff knowing about risks but feeling unable to speak. The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, under whose auspices the INWO sits, has made it clear that every sector should have whistleblowing protections that are tailored to the sector’s structures and culture, and my amendments seek to say loudly that it is time for education to follow.

I will expand on something that Ross Greer said earlier. Some people might say that we already have grievance procedures and staff complaint schemes. I would argue that those are not enough, because grievance procedures are internal and subject to management discretion. They are often used against whistleblowers. They do not have the independence, transparency or moral authority that whistleblowing frameworks require.

Other people might ask whether a whistleblowing framework will encourage vexatious complaints, but experience shows otherwise. Where whistleblowing systems are well designed, vexatiousness is rare, and it can be identified and addressed. The answer to misuse is not to deny use. The answer to due process is not silence.

Some may worry about workload or bureaucracy. Again, the NHS model shows that whistleblowing offices can operate efficiently when there are clear thresholds, defined procedures and proportionate oversight. They do not need to be large or costly; they need to be credible and trusted.

The moral case to support the amendments is clear. The policy precedent in the NHS is strong and the bill is the legislative vehicle to bring in what the amendments propose. We must now act. The amendments are not just about good governance; they are statements of values. They say to every teacher, learning assistant and administrator, “If you see something wrong, we want you to tell us. We will listen. We will protect you. We will act.” That is the message that the amendments send and the infrastructure that amendment 348 would provide. Together, the amendments offer Scotland a national education system that is open, honest and accountable from the inside out.

I am concerned about the cabinet secretary’s latter comments in relation to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 309 and its use of the word “must”. Unless the word “must” is used, there will be no need for ministers to do anything. What the minister has said means that Parliament has no way of creating the circumstances in which a minister must make regulations, and I am a bit worried about that.

I sense that the cabinet secretary wishes to make an intervention.

I think that I have explained my concern about what we have heard in the consideration of this section of the bill about the capacity, the resources and the idea of regular inspections. I believe that the latter are fundamental to the whole area of cultural change and that they also support the profession and school leaders and shed true light on what is happening in our schools for the benefit of learners and their parents.

I will withdraw the amendments in my name on the basis that there might be the possibility—as I think that I heard—that we can talk in detail about the issue before stage 3.

Amendment 305, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 155 and 156 not moved.

I understand and respect those concerns. However, having transparency about the fact that whistleblowers were going to the officer concerned would be an important part of encouraging and supporting a culture of transformation with regard to whistleblowing. Currently, as I know that Ross Greer is fully aware, people have a negative connotation of whistleblowing. As legislators and public servants who have an interest in reforming Scotland’s public services across the board, we should want to try to change the perceived culture that exists within organisations, so that people feel empowered to discretely, confidentially and anonymously—to begin with, perhaps—speak up.

In comparison with my amendments on inspection, with these amendments I am not trying to be overprescriptive about how whistleblowing would work. However, it is important that it works. I invite the committee to support my amendments. The cost of silence is too high and the moral imperative that I mentioned earlier is too strong. We are talking about the public interest. This is too important not to deal with now, and the opportunity to do the right thing is sitting right in front of us with these amendments.

I am grateful to Martin Whitfield for his intervention, but I am not sure that, under the very simple terms of amendment 289 in my name, what he suggests is likely to arise. All that the amendment does is to seek to establish a single framework. It would give the SCQF Partnership the statutory role of establishing a single framework for Scotland’s qualifications; it then goes to say that the qualifications would do exactly as has been identified in Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendments in this group. With such an approach, the levels and points would be indicated, which would give real clarity to learners as to what their qualifications stacked up to. As I will go on to say, it would make things very clear to employers, too.

The SCQF Partnership already fulfils that valuable role. I take the member’s point in that respect, but what I am trying to do is to create some clarity. I am not, as the cabinet secretary has suggested, trying to add confusion—I am trying to create crystal-clear clarity about what this body does and the value that it brings to the total education landscape in Scotland. I am trying to give the SCQF Partnership a clear and legitimate statutory role that aligns with the functions that it already performs in practice. I am not seeking to duplicate anything—I am just seeking to give crystal-clear clarity about what the SCQF Partnership does.

Coming back to John Mason’s point, I recognise that the partnership is a registered Scottish charity that performs critical work in benchmarking, recognising and comparing qualifications and ensuring that they align with recognised credit levels. Nevertheless, I think that its excellent work operates in a somewhat grey space. It is influential, yes, but it has no defined legal mandate. I do not think that that is sustainable, because—and here I go back to the findings of the OECD—we already have so many bodies. Let us give the SCQF Partnership the distinction of being recognised in law for the excellent work that it does.

That is what amendment 289 proposes to do: it proposes to give the SCQF Partnership formal responsibility for accrediting qualifications to ensure that they meet published requirements. Giving the partnership the responsibility for defining and comparing qualifications in Scotland by establishing a unified framework that assigns levels and credit points to learning programmes will ensure clarity, accessibility and transferability across the education and employment sectors. The amendment seeks neither to displace qualifications Scotland nor to duplicate its work. Instead, it strengthens a valuable partner and gives learners, providers and employers clarity and confidence that qualifications accredited through the SCQF are subject to transparent public standards and institutional governance.

I will move on very quickly to amendment 229, which relates to the definition and role of the SCQF in the bill. It appears designed to formalise the framework itself, which I would support, but it does not assign the functions in the way that my amendment 289 does. That is why I think that amendment 289 has some value in the context of this group. Amendment 229 is helpful, but, as I have said, it does not set out the bolder articulation of the purpose of the SCQF in the way that amendment 289 does.

I welcome amendment 231, although, again, I think that it would be helpful to have amendment 289 alongside it, for the sake of clarity.

Amendment 238 seeks to ensure that qualifications Scotland recognises the role of the SCQF. That already happens in practice, but the amendment gives it statutory backing. However, although I support its intent, I suggest that it would benefit from being nested within the more comprehensive structural definitions that I have included in amendment 289.

In conclusion, amendment 289 is a pragmatic proposal that seeks to give crystal-clear clarity to the education landscape when it comes to the salient institutions that learners, employers and others need to know about and appreciate. Being able to say what something does—I recall the old adage about something doing what it says on the tin—is what amendment 289 is all about. By creating a clear understanding of what organisations exist to do, it enhances coherence in the system and will make Scottish qualifications and the Scottish qualifications landscape more transparent, more navigable and more understandable, not just for professionals and institutions but, as I have said—and this is the critical group that I have in mind with amendment 289—for learners themselves.

I commend amendment 289 to the committee.

In the light of what I have heard the cabinet secretary say, I have a relatively easy task because I am more than happy to collaborate with her in respect of amendment 236.

This group of amendments goes to the very heart of why we are in the place where we have arrived. It is down to the issue of trust, which the cabinet secretary herself has highlighted. Comments from Ross Greer and Pam Duncan-Glancy underlined the importance of this legislation in restoring trust. Amendment 236 is important because it answers the fundamental question how a national qualifications body should approach its work and we are trying to be helpful by indicating in the bill what that approach should be.

Amendment 236 would insert an additional general duty on qualifications Scotland to act in a way that respects the professional judgment of teachers and practitioners. That principle of professional respect is not just symbolic but crucial. I am afraid that the historic breakdown of trust between the SQA and its many interconnecting audiences and collaborators that we are all talking about is especially true when it comes to teachers.

Ken Muir said in his review that there was a consistent call in the feedback received for a rebalancing of the relationship between schools and national agencies, and that teachers and school leaders feel unheard and constrained by inflexible systems and a lack of professional trust. Amendment 236 responds directly to that, as does the whole group of amendments. Qualifications Scotland should not merely serve learners in a vacuum; it should work in partnership with and respect those who teach, mentor and assess learners daily.

It is inarguable that education is in a tricky spot at the moment on any international comparison. Scottish educational outcomes have declined in the past decade or so. The SQA has failed repeatedly and the lack of trust in that institution is a key reason why we are here in the first place.

To many people, Education Scotland is an organisation with little influence or positive impact on education—a point that I made earlier and which I will no doubt come back to. Many parents feel estranged from their child’s school life, and many teachers fear that the institutions, both educational and parliamentary, will not have their back when needed. That must change.

Amendment 236, along with the others that I have lodged, not least my amendments on whistleblowing, aim to steer education back to where there is a broad consensus that it needs to be. If our education system is to live up to its great heritage, whereby it is recognised as world-leading, and key to why Scots pioneered the modern world—a subject on which we could all wax lyrical for a long time—with great inventions and institutions, we must put teachers back in the driving seat of the curriculum.

As it stands, the bill includes the duty to

“promote and advance education and training”

and to

“have regard to the needs and interests of persons using its services”.

That formulation is repeated in other statutory bodies, but those are generalised statements. Amendment 236 proposes something precise. The theme of our debate on this grouping has been having something more precise and responsive to the issues identified as being at the heart of why we need a reform process and the bill.

There is also a need to treat Scotland’s educators not as delivery agents but as valued professionals. If we are to ensure lasting change, we must define and legislate for the values that will guide that work. Amendment 236, in particular, puts front and centre the respect for teaching professionals that has too often been neglected by national agencies. I would urge the committee to support it, but I do not think that I need to include that sentiment, because I will follow what has been recommended by the cabinet secretary. I will not move the amendment, but I hope that it comes back in a form that is more acceptable to us all.

No. I think that my amendment 289 provides a framework that does not currently exist in statute. It creates clarity around what the different bodies do within the context of the bill that introduces qualifications Scotland. It explains what the roles of those different bodies are.

For example—and we will come on to this—there are, I think, enormous questions about the role and purposes of Education Scotland. I regularly ask people in education, “What is the point of Education Scotland? What does it do for you?” The truth of the matter is that I very rarely get any kind of answer that adds up to any value at all.

In the light of what I have heard the cabinet secretary say, I have a relatively easy task because I am more than happy to collaborate with her in respect of amendment 236.

This group of amendments goes to the very heart of why we are in the place where we have arrived. It is down to the issue of trust, which the cabinet secretary herself has highlighted. Comments from Ross Greer and Pam Duncan-Glancy underlined the importance of this legislation in restoring trust. Amendment 236 is important because it answers the fundamental question how a national qualifications body should approach its work and we are trying to be helpful by indicating in the bill what that approach should be.

Amendment 236 would insert an additional general duty on qualifications Scotland to act in a way that respects the professional judgment of teachers and practitioners. That principle of professional respect is not just symbolic but crucial. I am afraid that the historic breakdown of trust between the SQA and its many interconnecting audiences and collaborators that we are all talking about is especially true when it comes to teachers.

Ken Muir said in his review that there was a consistent call in the feedback received for a rebalancing of the relationship between schools and national agencies, and that teachers and school leaders feel unheard and constrained by inflexible systems and a lack of professional trust. Amendment 236 responds directly to that, as does the whole group of amendments. Qualifications Scotland should not merely serve learners in a vacuum; it should work in partnership with and respect those who teach, mentor and assess learners daily.

It is inarguable that education is in a tricky spot at the moment on any international comparison. Scottish educational outcomes have declined in the past decade or so. The SQA has failed repeatedly and the lack of trust in that institution is a key reason why we are here in the first place.

To many people, Education Scotland is an organisation with little influence or positive impact on education—a point that I made earlier and which I will no doubt come back to. Many parents feel estranged from their child’s school life, and many teachers fear that the institutions, both educational and parliamentary, will not have their back when needed. That must change.

Amendment 236, along with the others that I have lodged, not least my amendments on whistleblowing, aim to steer education back to where there is a broad consensus that it needs to be. If our education system is to live up to its great heritage, whereby it is recognised as world-leading, and key to why Scots pioneered the modern world—a subject on which we could all wax lyrical for a long time—with great inventions and institutions, we must put teachers back in the driving seat of the curriculum.

As it stands, the bill includes the duty to

“promote and advance education and training”

and to

“have regard to the needs and interests of persons using its services”.

That formulation is repeated in other statutory bodies, but those are generalised statements. Amendment 236 proposes something precise. The theme of our debate on this grouping has been having something more precise and responsive to the issues identified as being at the heart of why we need a reform process and the bill.

There is also a need to treat Scotland’s educators not as delivery agents but as valued professionals. If we are to ensure lasting change, we must define and legislate for the values that will guide that work. Amendment 236, in particular, puts front and centre the respect for teaching professionals that has too often been neglected by national agencies. I would urge the committee to support it, but I do not think that I need to include that sentiment, because I will follow what has been recommended by the cabinet secretary. I will not move the amendment, but I hope that it comes back in a form that is more acceptable to us all.

I cannot see how it adds to confusion to clarify any statute.

I fully understand the point that the cabinet secretary makes, but does she accept what the OECD said about cluttering the educational landscape with bodies? Does she agree that we ought to do something?

She points to Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 238, if I understand what she is saying. Does she believe that we should do something to recognise the distinctive and valuable contribution that is made by the SCQF Partnership?