Chamber and committees

I take Mr Sweeney’s point that, in some ways, the petition is there to provoke some sort of wider progress. Some of the issues that it raises are quite intriguing. From small seeds, big outcomes can follow, if we show an interest and a commitment.

I suggest that we write to Glasgow City Council saying that we are interested in the aims of the petition and are minded at some stage to facilitate a wider discussion but that it would be useful at this first phase if it fleshed out its ideas as to what might follow. I suggest that we indicate that we do not necessarily require an immediate timescale, because we recognise that the council might have to do a little bit of thinking before it comes back to us. That would allow us to have a better idea of how we might advance the aims of the petition. Does the committee agree?

Members indicated agreement.

That is great. We will keep the petition open on that basis. Thank you very much for joining us, Mr Sweeney.

PE1953, which was lodged by Roisin Taylor-Young, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to review education support staff roles in order to consider urgently raising wages for education support staff across the primary and secondary sectors to £26,000 per annum; to increase the hours of the working week for education support staff from 27.5 hours to 35 hours; to allow education support staff to work on personal learning plans, with teachers taking part in multi-agency meetings; to require education support staff to register with the Scottish Social Services Council; and to pay education support staff monthly.

We previously considered the petition at our meeting on 9 November 2022. The submission from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities states that there are no national rates for non-teaching staff and that pay levels are determined through job evaluation. The submission notes that a separate salary increase for one group would have a wider impact on other roles and raise affordability concerns. Similarly, the submission explains that pupil support assistants work varying hours that are based on pupil needs and that changing that would have financial implications for various roles in councils. It notes that involvement in personal learning plans and multi-agency meetings varies locally and is determined by school and teacher discretion. Lastly, COSLA notes that the issue of pay periods and its impact on universal credit falls under the responsibility of United Kingdom benefits.

The committee also received a response from the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills that indicates that the Bute house agreement exploration group will share its recommendations on a qualification and registration programme for additional support needs assistants by the autumn of this year.

We have received a late written submission from the petitioner, which has been shared with the committee this morning. Unfortunately, a technical issue caused the submission to be received late; it was through no fault of the petitioner. I thank her for working with the clerks to get the submission to us in time for us to consider it this morning.

The petitioner’s submission raises a number of points in response to the submissions that we have received, to which I have just referred. She asks that the Bute house agreement exploration group consider recommending national, rather than local, agreements for the registration and accreditation of education support staff in schools. The petitioner highlights the “School Support Staff—The Way Forward” agreement, which was produced by the National Education Union in England, which considered similar issues to those of the exploration group.

In response to COSLA’s submission, the petitioner highlights that the single status agreement is almost two and a half decades old and that pay disparity exists between areas such as Edinburgh and Glasgow. The Harpur Trust v Brazel case from 2022 is highlighted and put into the context of the petition, with cautionary points about the potential implications of backdated unfair pay claims. The petitioner concludes by suggesting a number of options for the committee to pursue.

Do members have any comments or suggestions?

The second of the three new petitions that we are considering this morning is PE2014, on reverting to the appeals system used in 2022 for Scottish Qualifications Authority exams. The petition, which was lodged by Elliott Hepburn on behalf of Moffat academy students, calls on the Scottish Government to implement a revised SQA appeals process that takes into account evidence of pupils’ academic performance throughout the year, particularly prelim results.

The SPICe briefing states that the Scottish Government intends to replace the SQA and that it is expected that a bill will be introduced later this year for that purpose. The briefing outlines the appeals system used in 2022 and notes that the SQA described the 2022 appeals process as “an emergency response” to the Covid-19 disruption.

The SQA conducted a review of the certification and appeals processes, which included a consultation with learners, teachers, parents and others. The review found several issues, including increased workload for teachers and perceptions of unfairness in the process. All MSPs have probably received representations in relation to that.

Views on the approach for the 2023 appeals were mixed. The SQA appeals process for 2023 will involve a marking review by a senior marker that will focus on the correctness and consistency of the initial marking, and it will no longer consider alternative assessment evidence. The process is free, and individuals can appeal directly to the SQA.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills has responded to the petition. She has stated that the SQA is responsible for its operational decisions, including its approach to the appeals process for 2023. Her response highlights the examination exceptional circumstances consideration service, which supports pupils who are unable to attend their exams due to reasons that are outwith their control or whose performance may have been affected by personal circumstances.

I am struck by the fact that the appeals process now is simply that a senior marker focuses on the correctness and consistency of the initial marking and no longer considers alternative assessment evidence. I have to say that I thought that that was very often the principal thing that many schools submitted on behalf of pupils. It was a case of presenting evidence to suggest that the individual had done better than the process had shown. Notwithstanding that, that is what is happening in 2023.

I imagine that colleagues elsewhere who are intimately concerned with these issues will have debated them thoroughly. We are in a situation in which the Scottish Government is, I think, indicating that a forthcoming bill will alter the situation, so I am not sure that there is terribly much more that we can do at this stage.

PE1961 is, as I mentioned a moment ago, also in the name of Edward Grice on behalf of the Scottish Private Hire Association. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to expand the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 to include private hire and taxi drivers by creating a specific criminal offence of assaulting, threatening or abusing private hire or taxi drivers while they are engaged in private hire or taxi work; and considering such offences as aggravated when the offence is committed while the driver is enforcing a licensing or operational condition.

We considered this petition, along with the previous one, on 7 December 2022, when we agreed to seek further information from Police Scotland, the Scottish Taxi Federation and Unite the union. Since then, we have received a response from Unite in support of legislating to protect private hire and taxi drivers but recommending that the scope of any such legislation be extended to include all transport workers. The petitioner has indicated that he would be agreeable to that suggestion.

Police Scotland has provided data on the number of breach of the peace and threatening or abusive behaviour offences that have been recorded over the past 10 years but was unable to provide a breakdown by occupation.

Do members have any comments or suggestions?

A bill would be required to amend the legislation. It is not just a case of waving a wand and us all saying, “Aye”; there is a bit more of a process to it.

I am inclined to give the petition one last hurrah because Unite has come in in support of the petitioner, who has said that he would be agreeable to its suggestion. I think that I can anticipate the Scottish Government’s response, but, nonetheless, the petition has had that additional level of support, and we can flag up that that is the case and ask whether the Government might be prepared to contemplate that, if even only in the longer term. Are you content with that, Mr Stewart?

I realise that there is not much that can excite the blood this late on a summer afternoon, but I hope that a change to the members’ expenses scheme will be just the ticket.

I rise to move the motion on behalf of the corporate body. Members will be aware that they are able to transfer up to £5,000 from their engagement provision to their office cost provision or from their office cost provision to their engagement provision. However, although the office cost provision and the engagement provision have risen by the appropriate inflation index, the amount that can be transferred has not. As a consequence, the real value of the sum that can be transferred has been declining each year.

Members have brought the matter to the attention of the corporate body. It seems a reasonable request that that index should also be uprated by inflation. The consequence of passing the motion today will be that the sum that can be transferred in the current year, on which some members rely, will increase from £5,000 to £6,060, and by an inflationary sum in subsequent years.

It is revenue neutral to Parliament and all within the umbrella of the overall provision that members have, but it introduces a degree of flexibility that I hope that members will welcome and support.

I move,

That the Parliament, in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 81(2), 81(5)(b) and 83(5) of the Scotland Act 1998, determines that the Reimbursement of Members’ Expenses Scheme, which was agreed to by resolution of the Parliament on 2 March 2021, be amended to—

(a) insert, in paragraph 1.2.4, after “considers appropriate.” and before “Such increases”—

“Any such uprating shall also be applied to the limit on the amount by which Members may vary their office cost and engagement provisions up or down subject to the overall agreed combined annual limit, as set out in paragraph 4.3.1 and 5.1.3.”

(b) insert, in the second sentence of paragraph 4.3.1 after “financial year,” and before “subject to”—

“or by such sum as determined following the uprating of the variation limit applied under paragraph 1.2.4,”

(c) insert, in the second sentence of paragraph 5.1.3 after “financial year,” and before “subject to”—

“or by such sum as determined following the uprating of the variation limit applied under paragraph 1.2.4,”

I wonder whether Mr Greer will agree with me on this. Alexander Stewart and I, on behalf of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, have just come from Glasgow, where we met three 12-year-old girls who were victims of violence by other girls. Two were left unconscious in pools of blood and gore. In each case—I have not heard this reflected in the debate—the incidents were filmed by friends of the perpetrator. The police and the school accept the prima facie evidence, but say that nothing can be done. Despite the evidence, the violence continues. Is that not a problem that we have to get to grips with?

Will the minister also recognise the tremendous contribution that our national companies make in promoting Scotland? In this, its 60th anniversary season, Scottish Opera’s production of “Ainadamar” has been picked up by the Metropolitan Opera in New York and its production of Puccini’s “Il Trittico” is to be picked up by a number of opera houses across the rest of Europe and the world. Those performances enhance Scotland’s reputation as a centre of international culture.

This is really quite an old-fashioned members’ business debate in that it is entirely unique to my constituency and the immediate surrounding area. I know that there is a fashion these days to bring national issues into members’ business debates, but this one is very local and is just about my constituency. I thought that I had better get in there quick, because if Boundaries Scotland has its way, I will no longer have a constituency. [Laughter.]

I was reminded a few weeks ago, on the Monday holiday after the coronation, which was a day about giving service, that the King’s mother’s coronation all those years before had underpinning it the concept of duty. Duty is less fashionable these days, but these two things—duty and service—are incredibly well represented in East Renfrewshire Good Causes and in the person of Russell Macmillan, who is in the public gallery this afternoon, along with his wife Yvonne.

Russell set up the charity in 2007, the same year in which I was elected, and he has run the charity successfully in the 16 years since. Why did he do that? As he lay in bed in hospital after surgery that had cured his type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes and kidney failure, he decided that he would do something in return for the life that had been given to him. He does so as a man who is registered blind.

Russell has characterised East Renfrewshire Good Causes by saying that the charity

“will start where the state stops.”

In the 16 years since he set it up, he has single-handedly raised £1.7 million for charitable causes. [Applause.] That has assisted the lives of 6,000 people by delivering “acts of kindness”—as Russell puts it—in memory of the organ donor who saved his life.

East Renfrewshire Good Causes provides real practical improvements for people in an almost limitless way, and supports individuals in hard times with essential tasks. Although the charity began in East Renfrewshire, it is now helping in Glasgow, South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and East Ayrshire. The charity started out in August 2007 with the provision of a new wheelchair for use in assisting carers with a disability to go out for some respite.

It has gone on to provide a very wide range of supports, including wet-floor shower adaptations for elderly individuals; tablet devices for people with learning disabilities at Cosgrove Care; assistance with travel costs for people who have been diagnosed with cancer so that they can travel to hospital for treatment, and with transport costs to enable vulnerable young people to get to and from school or nursery; baby monitoring equipment for infants with complex medical needs; play spaces and equipment for young people with additional support needs; food and toiletries for people who are homeless and living in temporary accommodation; grants to support families who are experiencing financial difficulty in providing clothing for their children; and mobility equipment, such as scooters, to allow people who are living with a disability or elderly individuals to maintain their independence.

What is remarkable is that Russell, in the way that he operates the charity, is able to respond very quickly to emerging circumstances, and he can complete essential tasks in a short space of time. The key thing that Russell has done is not to second-guess where a need exists but to seek referrals from all those who are professionally qualified to establish where that need exists and then to direct the funding speedily and directly to them.

That has a positive effect in many other ways. Russell’s assistance with practical home improvements enables those people who are—to use the current term—bed blocked in hospital to get out relatively sooner, through instructing local contractors to undertake vital remedial works to properties, which allows the person to get home.

Russell has also worked in concert with others, such as my colleague Jim McLean, the councillor for Newton Mearns South and Eaglesham, who has himself raised more than £1 million for his local community in his lifetime and who was one of those who worked with Russell to secure a £100,000 contribution from the National Lottery, which is helping with the raising of funds just now as well.

Russell is prepared to do anything, anywhere. He appeared on “Songs of Praise” last year, explaining how his strong Christian faith has guided him in the work that he does. In 2011, he appeared in a short-lived ITV game show hosted by Gethin Jones, where he won £121,000 for his charity.

He has also secured partnerships with local developers. Cala Homes and Wimpey, which are developing a major new facility in Eastwood, in Maidenhill, are working with him, making a roof donation of £50 to Russell’s charity for every property that is built, which has contributed a further £17,100. He has also worked with technology companies to ensure that they are able to deliver and assist people.

What is interesting is that Russell says that the problem is not in the raising of funds but in being able to get the funds to people. I say to the minister that, in that respect, Russell has an ambition and a request, which is for us, as politicians, to make the pathway between those people who are able to undertake assessments and the referrals to him much easier.

Bizarrely, some of those organisations and professional services feel that, in making a referral to Russell’s charity, there is implicit criticism of them for not being able to provide the funding for the service that he is able to provide, as if that is somehow a failing on their part. That is not his concern. He is concerned simply that, with the funds that he has, he is able to offer assistance quickly and directly to the people who matter.

There will be examples of what Russell does elsewhere. I see in the chamber Paul O’Kane and Tom Arthur, who both represent East Renfrewshire, and there is Bob Doris, whose constituency is across in Glasgow. Others will be benefiting from Russell’s fantastic efforts in Eastwood, but I hope that there are people elsewhere who are similarly minded and motivated. It is absolutely extraordinary what such an individual can do, coming from circumstances in which many of us would have thought only of ourselves and our immediate situation: how we were going to cope, whether life would be the same and whether it was worth it. Instead, Russell sat there at that moment and thought, “I’m going to turn the life I’ve been given back to the advantage of others.”

I commend and applaud that, and I believe that it is exactly the sort of public-spirited initiative that we, as politicians, should applaud and support.