Chamber and committees

That takes us to the nub of the difficulty. It is hard to monitor good work in schools. It is hard to get evidence or to track it without creating burdensome bureaucracy and a paperwork exercise. That is why I think that a cohort study would be welcome.

The Scottish Government’s review of the attainment challenge over the past five years shows that some schools are using the SHANARRI indicators—safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included—as a light-touch way of measuring young people’s wellbeing. There is no systematic or nationwide approach to doing that.

My final question is an open one. Can any of the witnesses point us to a piece of research that has been done, or to some monitoring that could be done, that would follow young people from the early years and through their school career and would show or demonstrate the success or otherwise of PEF spending and attainment challenge funding?

We want to measure that in a way that is not burdensome. We want to learn what works for future generations. Poverty bites countries over generations. We want to learn what works and embed it in our system for the long term. Do any of the witnesses want to say something about measurements and outcomes that would not be bureaucratic?

Thank you very much.

We are having a really interesting evidence session this morning. I was quite taken by Professor Ainscow who, it seems like a lifetime ago now, said that we should celebrate success. He was quite clear that there are lots of challenges still, but it is right to put some of the successes on the record.

We see that school leavers from low-income backgrounds in Scotland are doing better in relation to positive destinations, and, in the past few years, there has been a record narrowing of the gap between the most deprived and least deprived groups for positive destinations. That is to be celebrated, as is significant progress that has been made at national levels 5 and 6, although we would all agree that it is not fast enough.

However, I want to flip the question on its head and direct it at Professor Ainscow, given that I mentioned him. We know that progress has been made, but do we know how we achieved it, and do we know how we can achieve more?

I thank Paul Sweeney for bringing his proposals for a cross-party group to the committee. I should declare an interest: it was a pleasure to go to the first meeting of the proposed cross-party group with him and others, and, should the group be successfully established, I will be its deputy convener. You might be able to take from that that I have good will towards the committee agreeing to recognise the group.

I will make one observation. Immigration is a reserved matter, but caring for people who have chosen to make their lives in Scotland—those who have come to our shores to flee violence or persecution, or for whatever other reason—is, of course, not a reserved matter. It is the core business of representing our constituents, irrespective of where they came from or how long they have been in Scotland. The group will go some way towards ensuring that the Parliament fulfils that important role.

I thank Paul O’Kane for bringing this cross-party group application to this morning’s meeting. I have been following the conversation and have read the paperwork really closely, and I think that it is right that we highlight the strain on the public purse and think about how we most effectively direct cash towards enhancing a network of essential provision. You made that point very well, and I also note your comments about tourism.

I was wondering about corporate Scotland and putting duties and obligations on our private companies, some of which are still doing okay in the current climate, to work in partnership with you and to commit to putting in changing places toilets, with child facilities and the like, and making them publicly available on the national network. Will there be a relationship with the private sector and corporate Scotland in that respect?

Put the kettle on then, Mr Simpson.

With the convener’s indulgence, I will put on the public record some information that is not particularly pertinent to the cross-party group.

Paul McLennan, you mentioned raptor persecution. I am the species champion for the peregrine falcon. I note that it can often be an urban bird as well, because its habitats can include high-rise flats and industrial cranes. Therefore, all of Scotland is covered by parts of your work.

As a city MSP whose constituency is quite far away from the islands, I wondered what interest I might have in relation to the proposed cross-party group. I thought about how vital tourism is for many island communities and how important the idea of sustainable and responsible tourism is. Everyone in Scotland and beyond has a responsibility to be aware of that and to make sure that, when we visit island communities, we are respectful and that our tourism is sustainable. Might the cross-party group consider that at some point in the future?

Following some of the exchanges, I have been inspired to ask a question. I was taken by the inclusivity of your approach to the cross-party group in response to members who want other voices to be represented. You have made it clear that your door is always open, be it to other third-party groups or MSPs, and I commend you for that.

I also commend you for trying to be more efficient, and you have made some pretty important points about streamlining the approach to cross-party groups. I am not involved in it, but I know that there is a cross-party group on disability, and I have been looking at the list of non-MSP members on it. Given some of the considerations that have been floated—they are not concerns as such—it might be worth your while to keep that cross-party group aware of your work. I am not saying that it will necessarily want to work on the same issues, but it has a pretty strong network of groups through which it could disseminate information on the work of your own group. It is just a suggestion, Mr Simpson.

I have a brief question. I should point out that my first ever engagement with cross-party groups in the Parliament was sport related. The first email that I received as an MSP in 2007 was from the late David McLetchie and it related to a cross-party group on golf. There is a long tradition of sporting cross-party groups in the Parliament.

I am interested in the involvement of the School of Hard Knocks in the proposed cross-party group, as I have seen at first hand in my Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn constituency how it has worked with local partners to get not only young people but various sections of society that otherwise would not think about rugby as a sport for them to use it as a way of team building, team bonding, learning skills and even signposting to college for further education opportunities.

If the proposed cross-party group were to receive recognition and do any work in relation to deprived communities and vulnerable groups, I think that a wider range of MSPs would be interested in following that, even if they were not formal members of the group, because the School of Hard Knocks has a strong reputation.