Chamber and committees

We will meet HIAL on 18 May, so we will be able to put some of the points that you have raised to it directly. However, we have received strong representation from HIAL that the change is not window dressing and that, whatever the motivation—we can chase that up—it is not simply a cover in order to bring back the proposal that has been set aside in five years’ time. That position is quite robust and clear in the submission from HIAL. As petitioners, do you accept that?

I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer but, according to the Scottish Government’s most recent annual statistical publication for schools, there was at the last count an increase in the proportion of temporary teachers. There are thousands of temporary and supply teachers in Scotland; many would like nothing more than a guarantee that their job is permanent and secure, but they are continuously being let down by what appears to be a fairly ancient and utterly inflexible recruitment system.

Several of my constituents who are affected by the situation contact me regularly, and the uncertainty and worry that it causes them are considerable. The annual battle just to keep their job is completely demoralising and, sadly and even more worryingly, I know that the situation is contributing to a number of teachers leaving the profession for good. Will the Scottish Government offer a plan that would fundamentally address and update the process and, in so doing, secure the continued availability and commitment of many of those teachers and their futures?

I do so after a moment of some consternation, Presiding Officer.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its progress in increasing the number of permanent teaching roles available. (S6O-00981)

Sorry—there was a misstep in our communications.

Paul Sweeney, is there anything that you would like to add?

Would Fiona Garven like to come in?

Fiona, you particularly wanted to come in at this point.

I will play devil’s advocate. We are not here to establish a balance sheet between the two, but I am interested in understanding what you would say. A lady who works at my local baker’s, which I get my messages from—to use the antique term—said to me that she elects me and has absolutely no interest in any discussion or involvement. She thinks very carefully about how she is going to vote for her elected representative and will get rid of them if she does not like the decisions that they make. That is how she wants to operate. Is that lady being marginalised by farming out the decision-making process to people over whom she has no democratic control? She has no mandate to determine who they are or what they discuss, and she has no control over the decisions or recommendations that they make. The process is voluntary; we cannot mandate that people participate. As politicians, we know that there is a very wide community of people who are not apathetic but who do not want to involve themselves in such a process.

I have posed this question in other forums, too. If one community is very interested in being involved in deliberative democracy and consultation and comes forward with a series of recommendations, but the community in the village next door is not interested in being involved and does not agree with anything that that group says, has that community been marginalised? The risk is that people could find that decisions that are prejudicial to them are being arrived at simply because they chose not to participate in a voluntary deliberative process.

I am not necessarily advocating that as a risk, but I am trying to articulate what I think might be an unforeseen consequential risk of the process being, in whatever sense, successful.

I am not sure whether Kelly McBride wants to have a bash at addressing that.

We come on to the recommendations in the report. Paul Sweeney will lead on that.

PE1902, which was lodged by Maria Aitken on behalf of Caithness Health Action Team, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to allow an appeal process for community participation requests under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. We are again joined by Rhoda Grant, who I will come to in a moment.

We previously considered the petition on 17 November 2021, when we agreed to write to the Scottish Community Development Centre to ask about the work that it is carrying out in exploring options for an appeals process. We have had a response that indicates that a working group has been set up, comprising people and organisations with a particular interest in participation requests. I understand that the group was due to meet some time between when we previously considered the petition and this month.

Our signal with Rhoda Grant has been lost, so we cannot hear from her. We will probably want to chase up any recommendations. Would any colleagues like to come in?

I am quite happy to incorporate that point into the request for information that we are seeking from the organisations that David Torrance has mentioned. Do we agree to keep the petition open and take forward the gathering of information that was suggested a moment ago?

Members indicated agreement.