Chamber and committees

John Mason will know, including perhaps from our other conversations, that I believe that the critical issue in Scotland, as is the case elsewhere in the United Kingdom and globally, is that of leadership. Leadership is much more than what is conventionally thought of as leadership, and the character and quality of leadership is the defining issue. We see that in schools in particular. Where you have a tremendous school leader, you have a tremendous school, regardless of any other externalities. Frankly, we do not spend enough time in any of this Parliament’s committees, or in the chamber, debating and discussing the need to deepen the leadership skill base in our country across all sectors.

I do not disagree with what John Mason said, but I do not want to create structural issues that will lead to the continuation of some of the matters that are connected to the SQA and that have arisen in the past few years. Those are issues that led the Government to decide that it was going to abolish the SQA and replace it. I do not want us to simply change the name plate on the door or the building. It would be a failure of leadership on our part not to grasp the issues that are before us and do something positive about it through the bill. At the moment, we are not doing enough that is positive through the measures that are proposed.

Amendments 122 to 125 and 132 to 139 seek to remove the provisions that tether the accreditation committee to qualifications Scotland. Most notable of those is amendment 133, which I strongly support. Amendment 133 would provide for the accreditation committee’s annual reporting to be done independently, as I think that Pam Duncan-Glancy mentioned, rather than as part of qualifications Scotland’s corporate reporting cycle. That is vital. A body cannot be both the subject and the author of its own regulatory assessment. That is common sense. The amendment would ensure transparency and avoid the consolidation of narrative control within one body.

Amendment 134, which pre-empts amendment 135, seeks to clarify that the Scottish ministers should not have the power to direct the accreditation committee’s operational decisions. It is another safeguard for independence; indeed, I think that the cabinet secretary has picked up—and rightly so—on the mood music with regard to the need for any changes to be seen as ensuring that independence.

The OECD warned that the current ecosystem of policy delivery and oversight in Scottish education creates confusion over roles and a risk of conformity of thought in national decision making. Empowering an accreditation committee to act independently would be an antidote to such a tendency.

Amendment 173, which I support, completes the picture, as it seeks to create a new independent accreditation committee, which would be placed under the chief inspector. That committee would not be subject to direction from either the inspector or ministers in its operational work, only in high-level framework setting. It would be composed of experts, produce its own reports and make its own decisions on whether qualifications are fit for purpose. That is real independence—not performative independence, but procedural, structural and cultural independence.

Amendments 73, 287, 291, 292, 295 and 167 would make the necessary consequential adjustments to the rest of the bill by removing references to internal accreditation committees and eliminating redundancy and contradiction.

Finally, amendments 206 and 207 seek to amend the transitional provisions. I support amendment 206, which would ensure that legacy language regarding the SQA’s accreditation powers does not survive the transition. I encourage the committee—I should be using the word “encourage”, as I do not have a vote—to oppose amendment 207, which would dilute the clean break that we seek to achieve.

I want to make one final observation. This debate is not just about qualifications—it is about values. It is about whether we, as a Parliament, are prepared to ensure that the systems that we design are worthy of the people whom they serve. The calls for reform were not abstract; they came from learners, teachers, school leaders, parents and employers, all of whom wanted a system that they could trust. Professor Muir reflected that when he said that

“The replacement of SQA and the restructuring or reform of Education Scotland is a starter, but ... more is needed to ensure that the education system in Scotland is fit for purpose for current and future learners in a changing world.”—[Official Report, Education, Children and Young People Committee, 23 March 2022; c 3.]

Accreditation is not a mere technical detail in the context of the bill. It is, I would argue, one of the firm and substantial issues that the committee at stage 2 must deliberate and decide on. It is the measure by which every learner’s work is validated, and it is the reason that employers, universities and society at large take a Scottish qualification seriously. If we do not get this right, we undermine the credibility of the entire reform programme.

The Government has said that it wants a qualification body that is modern, trusted and fit for purpose, but that cannot be achieved by merging old functions under new names. It requires structural separation; it requires clear, independent lines of scrutiny; and it requires the courage to follow the evidence, even when the evidence demands fundamental change. That is what my amendment 316 and this suite of amendments does, and that is why I commend them to the committee.

I would like to see why on earth it would cost that amount of money to do something that is relatively simple, given the relative scale of the accreditation function in the SQA.

I will continue. I appreciate and am always open to interventions, but it is important that we get back to the central point that my amendment and the other amendments in the group are trying to address, which is how having the critical function of accreditation in the same organisation that is responsible for creating and delivering the qualifications creates a systemic risk of vulnerability that no amount of internal governance can correct.

I turn to the broader framework of the amendments in the group that I have put my name to in support—mainly the ones from Willie Rennie that give full effect to the reform. Amendments 115 and 116, in the name of Willie Rennie, begin the task of removing the accreditation committee from the internal machinery of qualifications Scotland. Amendment 116 in particular strikes key lines from schedule 1 that define the committee as subordinate to qualifications Scotland. That is the model which Professor Muir found deeply unsatisfactory. He said that the bill appears to allow the new body to have total control over when and if it needs to engage with wider users and who it engages with. That is a deeply troubling formulation.

As it stands, the legislation will enable the new agency to gatekeep engagement and control its own scrutiny mechanisms, which is precisely the culture of self-regulation that brought the SQA into disrepute. Amendments 115 and 116 begin the necessary process of dismantling that.

Amendments 117 and 219 are direct alternatives, with amendment 117, which I support, assigning the accreditation function to the chief inspector, and amendment 219 suggesting the SCQF Partnership as an alternative. Although the SCQF Partnership has strong expertise in qualification, comparability and recognition, it is not structured or equipped as a regulatory body. The SPICe analysis concludes that the SCQF would require significant expansion and restructuring to take on that function. Even then, concerns would remain about its legal authority and capacity to enforce accreditation standards. That is why I support the idea that the accreditation function should be housed with the chief inspector, which is an independent statutory office with scrutiny powers and, if later amendments later are passed, it would be accountable to the Parliament. I believe that that is the natural home for the function and one that aligns with international examples.

In my discussions with other parliamentarians round this table, I have repeatedly made the point that one of the organisations in Scotland for which I have enormous respect is Audit Scotland. When Audit Scotland publishes its reports, every one of us—the Government and parliamentarians—sits up and takes notice, because of the esteem in which it is held and the respect and authority with which the Auditor General speaks. Adding to the responsibilities of the office of the chief inspector would add further authority, credibility, respect and esteem to the accreditation function.

Jackie Dunbar asked about other examples. In England, Ofqual was established, precisely to address the failings of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, under which award and regulation were combined. Qualifications Wales operates entirely separately from Government or delivery agencies. In Northern Ireland, the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment combines the two roles. Having listened to what school leaders and expert opinion reflect about Northern Ireland, I know that there is deep and widespread dissatisfaction with the way that things work there.

We should stick with the expert view. I do not think that there is any appetite for continuing or replicating the model in Northern Ireland and the one that we have here in Scotland when there is so much dissatisfaction with it. We should learn the lessons that are on offer to us and move on.

Well, anyone listening is to be welcomed, cabinet secretary, so congratulations on having that particular learning skill.

Before I address the amendments, and specifically amendment 316, which is in my name, I will echo what Pam Duncan-Glancy said a few moments ago about the legislation team. The team has done a fantastic job of helping members—particularly me, frankly—to craft amendments out of a flow of unconscious or conscious consciousness, about how the bill might be improved, and there are many aspects of the bill that can be improved.

I will now address amendment 316 and speak to the full suite of amendments in group 2. I believe that it is important that we take time to debate the issue, and I am glad that we are doing so, because this is one of the most consequential debates that we will have at stage 2. The issue before us is not simply one of administrative structure or functional reallocation; it is about institutional credibility and public trust. Unless we properly and decisively reform the way that accreditation is handled in Scottish education, we will have failed to learn the lessons of the past, and we will have failed those who called for the bill in the first place.

As Willie Rennie rightly framed at the outset, at the heart of this group is the question of whether qualifications Scotland, the successor of the SQA, should be permitted to continue overseeing the accreditation of qualifications that it also awards. Currently, it is marking its own homework. The bill as introduced retains that dual function, albeit behind internal governance barriers. However, I say clearly that that is not sufficient, and that view reflects expert and stakeholder views.

We need a structure that does not see a repetition of the kind of reputational damage that the SQA has suffered, which happened, in large measure, because of that very structure, which enables a conflict of interest between the design and delivery of qualifications on the one hand and the quality assurance of those same qualifications on the other.

That was undeniably the view of Professor Ken Muir, whose report we all welcomed and which recommended putting learners at the centre. Included in that report were the following words:

“the accreditation functions of the SQA should be removed from the new qualifications body”,

to ensure greater independence. What that considerable, weighty and incredibly positive report, which we all welcomed, said was crystal clear.

I will come to what has happened elsewhere. I think that your chief comment is about whether my amendment would create a more weighty office for the chief inspector, and the answer is that it undoubtedly would, and I acknowledge that. Going back to what I said to John Mason, which Willie Rennie also said, there is no perfect solution, but we must achieve the separation of those functions through the bill. Having considered all the options and spoken to lots of people, as I am sure we all have done, I am proposing that that separation is best achieved by moving the accreditation function to the chief inspector’s office.

Returning to my amendment, my proposal does not arise in a vacuum. It directly follows from the conclusions of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s review “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future”, in which the OECD said:

“Scotland’s system is heavily governed relative to its scale and numbers of schools. The multiple layers of Governance ... can complicate implementation processes by generating additional policy priorities and supplementary materials with little co-ordination.”

In that context, the OECD specifically recommended that we should have a stand-alone agency that handles curriculum and assessment, with independent scrutiny being built into the design of new national institutions. That is largely where Ken Muir went as well.

The issue is not just conceptual or theoretical; it is deeply pragmatic and practical. The cabinet secretary has gone to great lengths to talk about costs and so on in her response to previous speakers. However, as the Scottish Parliament information centre briefing explains, the SQA’s accreditation work comprises only a small percentage of its operational activity. I think that the SPICe briefing suggests that it is £1 million out of a £107 million budget, yet it is that work that gives the system its integrity.

That last point is a big if, is it not? I accept that, but I do not accept that it is impossible, on a quid pro quo, to move one set of resources to another place. I understand the employment issues, but I would like to see the granularity of why on earth it would cost—what figure did you give?

For heaven’s sake, we are all politicians. We do not have the idea that we are going to come up with the perfect solution on anything that we discuss. Things change—the landscape changes—and we should not let perfection get in the way of being pragmatic. What I hope to see as a result of this debate is pragmatic consideration being given to fulfilling what Professor Ken Muir said and to what was at the heart of his report, which was that there should be a separation of accreditation and awarding functions.

In his report, Ken Muir goes on to say that having the same body advise on, develop and accredit qualifications lets it “mark its own homework”—he actually uses that phrase. When he appeared before the Education, Children and Young People Committee some time ago, when I was a member of the committee, he went to great lengths to underscore his concerns. That is not a sustainable foundation for any public institution, especially when it has such a pivotal role in shaping educational and professional opportunities across Scotland and everything that hangs on those.

Amendment 316, in my name, is designed to correct that. It proposes that the accreditation function be removed entirely from qualifications Scotland and instead be invested in the chief inspector of education, a post that the bill seeks to establish as a genuinely independent office. That is why I am delighted to support and add my name to many of the amendments that have been lodged by Willie Rennie in that area. By nature and design, the chief inspector would be an evaluator rather than a deliverer. Placing accreditation within the inspectorate would ensure institutional separation between the awarding of qualifications and the setting of standards by which they are approved.

The cabinet secretary makes a lot of valid points, but I simply point out that we are at stage 2 of an education bill in which we, as a Parliament, have to consider a set of options by which we deliver on the expert stakeholder view that there needs to be a separation of accreditation and awarding of qualifications.

No, no.

The danger or risk of going down that road is that we do not have the meaningful consideration that Jackie Dunbar alluded to and that now needs to take place when we have these amendments before us. Have you calculated that that is a risk that you are prepared to take?

Yes.

Can you repeat that?