Chamber and committees

I have two quick questions. You described the outcome agreements between universities or colleges and the Scottish Funding Council. Do graduate apprenticeships feature in those agreements?

I would be grateful if you could, because it is important that graduate apprenticeships feature in those agreements. In relation to your job, I think that it would be helpful if there could be a more joined-up approach to that, because, like you, I think that graduate apprenticeships are extremely beneficial. I wonder whether we are talking enough about them and giving them enough consideration.

When you speak to people in schools, how much comment do you get about youngsters not necessarily having the breadth of curriculum that would be desirable from the point of view of their going straight into the workplace, rather than doing college and university courses?

Thank you. I think that there is a disconnect there and we need to do more on that.

If that is true, does that imply that, when it comes to accountability and measuring achievement of the outcomes, the Scottish Government has to allow the measurement and the ambitions to be developed much more from a local perspective? Some people have used the word “prescriptive” to describe the 11 outcomes that are on the diagram.

People feel that their local communities can do things in their own way with considerable effectiveness, without having to worry too much about what the national performance framework says. I have some sympathy for that, because I have certainly seen examples of good practice that has been informed not by the national performance framework but by what works for a local community.

Last week, we debated community wealth in Parliament, and we have had the levelling-up agenda. In principle, both of them are good things, even if we might debate aspects of how they are run. What I am getting at with this dilemma is that many local communities across Scotland feel that they have an awful lot of ambition, talent and resources that they can best use if they are the decision makers, rather than having to apply themselves always to a national performance framework. That is the issue.

I will cite comments from the Wise Group, which has done fantastic work. Its point was that, although the national performance framework’s principles are extremely important, if the organisation is doing its job properly, it does not need the national performance framework to tell it what to do. It feels that it has enough examples of really good practice—of collaborative work with the third sector, local government and the private sector, I may say—that is helping to achieve national performance outcomes, but it does not need the NPF to get those outcomes in the first place because, if it is doing its job properly, the outcomes will be there. Given that observation, do we need to be slightly less prescriptive about the national performance framework so that people buy into its principles but we do not have to set too many parameters about how it is delivered?

Earlier, Mirren Kelly quite rightly said that what works in Fife might not work in the Borders, that what works in Glasgow might not work in the Highlands and so on. The dilemma that the committee faces as we scrutinise the national performance framework is that there is broad agreement across the board as to what we should be trying to achieve in improving the wellbeing of communities across Scotland, but the measures that will ensure that that happens could be very different in different parts of the country. I am interested to know whether you feel that the structure of the national performance framework allows for that or whether we should have a slight change in approach.

If I follow the logic of that, are you saying that it is beneficial and helpful to somebody like you who makes local decisions on what is best for, say, Fife to have considerable flexibility and autonomy in what you decide to do; to have less ring fencing of money so that you can choose the priorities that you feel will deliver the best outcomes; and not to have anything too prescriptive at national level?

My final question is for Mirren Kelly. One of the people who gave evidence to us was clear that, when there is good practice in another local authority, they pick up the phone and speak to their counterpart there, then agree to follow their practice because it worked for them. Does COSLA have any way of collecting in all 32 local authorities the data and the delivery improvements that are working? How do you measure what is and what is not working?

Do you mean on the collection of data?

Good morning. I want to flag up to you some of the evidence that we took when we went out from Parliament to visit two local authorities. At the workshop that I attended, senior local government officials said that everybody is agreed that, in principle, the national performance framework is a good thing, because it focuses minds on what we ought to be doing, and because central Government and local government come together to decide on it.

However, there is a big dilemma at the heart of delivery in practice because, if you make the prescription too state-orientated and too cumbersome, it is difficult for local authorities and other stakeholders to have the freedom to do exactly what you have both said this morning, which is to deliver where you know that things will improve most at local level. Do you agree with the perspective of those senior officials?