Chamber and committees

Yes. However, in his evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee in the first evidence-taking session, Mr Mannion made it clear that some close-to-home experiences that were provided near schools did not cost terribly much and gave as much educational benefit as a residential experience would.

Therefore, we have to see this in the broadest sense. The bill is not about trying to replace other educational experiences; the experiences for which it provides will be complementary to those experiences. Lots of really good things are happening on school campuses and in the world of outdoor learning—as the Scottish Government has promoted it—and the bill should not displace that sort of thing.

As for whether the ability of parents to pay for outdoor education experiences will have an effect on the choices that a school might make, it might do in some circumstances. The bigger issue is transport, because that is where the cost lies. The point was put to me originally that parents cannot afford the kit, the boots and all the things that are needed for outdoor education, but I was really pleased to hear last week that the centres are largely providing those things now. That is a big change from my day when we had outdoor education, when that really was something that stopped people going. These days, a pair of boots, a decent cagoule and so on are very expensive—it costs a good few hundred pounds to get a child kitted out to do such activities—and the fact that centres are now providing that equipment is a big step forward.

That is very helpful.

It is quite important for the overall tax burden in Scotland.

That is a good question. I have to say that, even after considerable research, it is difficult to tell how many schools have their own minibuses, how many minibuses there are within local authorities or, even within local authorities, how much of that service is deployed to schools. A lot of schools use coach services. Again, it comes back to the numbers. The average school minibus now seats 17. That includes the driver and will almost inevitably include two other members of staff. Realistically, each minibus of the type that we normally see on the roads has only about 14 or 15 pupils in it. A coach can take up to 44 pupils. I have a lot of experience of organising minibuses and so on, and there is considerable variability. It also depends on how far you are going and the capacity of the outdoor centre when you get there.

We do not have all the data on that. One of the fundamental issues is that we need more data. I am very pleased that the Education, Children and Young People Committee has written to the outdoor centres to get a bit more intelligence back from them about how many people are pitching up.

It will in some cases. Let us not forget that, because of Covid, there were two years of virtually nothing happening. The Scottish Government very kindly provided £2 million in the first year and an additional £1 million to ensure that the centres were able to stay open. I was very grateful for that at the time because, had it not happened, more of the centres would have shut down.

If somebody goes for a state-of-the-art outdoor education centre, where there is not only an improvement in the buildings and facilities for young people but an update to outdoor activities—if specialists are brought in to do rock climbing or canoeing or whatever—the costs will increase. That might have a knock-on effect, so we would have to be mindful of that.

No. Under the bill, it is not compulsory for everyone to take part in outdoor education—I have never said that it is. I want the opportunity to be made available for all young people, but it is not compulsory. Some families will choose not to participate, just as some do now, for very good reasons. The bill is not about making outdoor education compulsory, which would be the wrong thing to do. It is about ensuring that there are opportunities for more young people than is the case currently. The University of Edinburgh’s analysis from 2019 shows that about a third of pupils from the secondary sector and roughly a quarter of pupils from the primary sector get such provision, which means that two thirds of secondary school pupils and three quarters of primary school pupils do not.

When it comes to the public’s understanding of why Government makes a choice about what the money that they pay in tax will be used for and, more important, on what basis such decisions are made, it is an important principle that we should ensure that there is greater transparency for the public so that they can understand on what basis a specific decision has been made.

I cannot speak for the committee, but I think that we sometimes feel that it is not very easy for the committee to understand why a specific policy was put in place, given the other possible choices that could have been made. I would like to hear your thoughts on what we can do to improve that situation.

Good try, Mr Greer.

I seek clarification on the £160 million that is being removed from social security. Of that amount, £148 million is a result of the UK Government changing eligibility criteria. The implication is that the remaining £12 million is to do with funding for staff and so on. Can you clarify that that is the case, because it seems to be quite a high figure?

Nonetheless, you will be aware that, from time to time, the committee has made the point that, in order to measure the effectiveness of the delivery of a specific policy, it is helpful to understand the rationale behind the decision to move money around. Do you think that the Scottish Government is getting better at increasing transparency in that regard? Some of the answers to Mr Marra’s questions suggested that there is a bit of a cloud over why decisions have been made and on what basis it has been decided that such a repurposing of spend will help the priorities of the Scottish Government, which is what Michelle Thomson was referring to.

The demand-led scenario in something such as social security is a big, moving feast, however.

To go back to Michelle Thomson’s point about the priorities that the Scottish Government has set out, how easy is it to reflect what the spending priorities are in relation to those policy commitments? I think that the committee would like to be able to understand that a bit better and to see the evidence about why specific choices have been made and how effective they have been in delivering those commitments.

I go back to, for example, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s September report, which, as you know, was very supportive of actions to reduce child poverty but made a specific point that the evidence to show how successful that policy had been was pretty thin. In order to ensure the committee’s overseeing the best possible spending of public money—and the probity that goes with it—the more transparency we can get, the more helpful it is.