Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary has mentioned my media appearances a couple of times. I am impressed that you are listening to the radio so much, cabinet secretary.

The committee heard what the cabinet secretary said about some positive destinations, but voluntary work—there is the issue of whether that is maintained—and activity agreements between schools and local authorities are positive destinations that are not tracked for a significant number of young people. Is the Government reviewing the opportunities that are seen as positive destinations for young people but that might not continue? There is a need to understand the fact that many young people—15-year-olds—who are not going to school but are getting personal skills development, often in the third sector, are not necessarily given any opportunity to get on to the courses that they would like to do. I would love to visit Barnardo’s with the cabinet secretary to introduce her to some of the 15-year-olds who tell me about the courses that they want to do but cannot at this moment in their lives.

The courses are out-of-school education within the—

I have concerns about the possibility that, in Lothian, the Government’s target on waiting lists is being met only because people are being re-evaluated in order to remove them from those lists and send them to third sector services.

I want to move on, although I do not know whether the cabinet secretary can answer this point.

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials.

We need to put on record that we are working to the Government’s timetable and that it has been the Government’s decision to leave the bill until the end of this parliamentary session. The committee does not have a choice in that regard. However, I would have liked to have seen the bill being considered much earlier in the session, and I think that every other member would probably agree with me on that.

I return to the convener’s point. I expect various amendments on the board to be lodged. The bill will establish a board, which other people will potentially join as a result of those amendments. Will you not need to come back to the committee after stage 3 with that anyway? Does that not present an opportunity for the Government to lay orders on what will be a reformed board? Given everything that you have outlined, would delaying the order until stage 2 not be more sensible, because by then we will have a clearer view of the political consensus on what the board structure would look like? As the convener has outlined, we are talking about a matter of weeks.

I am not sure whether the cabinet secretary will be able to directly answer this question, given her wife’s involvement, but how has the attainment Scotland fund been supporting outcomes for care-experienced young people? Specifically, how have outcomes been evaluated?

It is about positive destinations, and whether the Government would look at reviewing both voluntary work and activity agreements in that context. The Government says that those are positive destinations—they can come to an end, but the Government thinks that those young people are in a positive destination.

Good morning to the officials who have joined us for this session. I will carry on with questioning on the theme of tracking outcomes specifically. On educational outcomes, Scotland has the highest absence rates in the UK—according to Scottish Government figures, one in three children is persistently absent and missing 10 per cent of their education. With regard to PEF, therefore, how are we tracking impacts on the educational outcomes for those children, or is it just for teachers to look towards the projects that might help to improve those outcomes? I am thinking, for example, of the family link worker model that some schools have taken forward.

The committee has done a lot of work with care-experienced young people, and one of the key messages that I have heard is that identification is still not happening in schools.

I also put on the record the fact that young carers are very much in the same situation. I do not know why that is the case or where the opportunities are for using PEF to train teachers to help to deliver that—especially in secondary schools, given that different teachers are involved with the young people. I put that on the record as something for the Government to take away, because the situation does not seem to be improving. In the recent private evidence session that the committee had with care-experienced young people, they all pointed to that.

You say that the Government wants to work on a cross-party basis. Do you accept that the order makes members of the committee feel that the Government is putting the cart before the horse, and that it is disrespectful of the committee’s upcoming work?

I listened to the chair of the SQA impress upon us that this was an opportunity to get things right. However, it feels like the Government has its own agenda and has decided what it will do. It has already been said in the press that the replacement of the SQA with qualifications Scotland is only a nameplate change. We need significantly more than that. I hope that the cabinet secretary understands members’ concerns that they feel that the Government has decided what it wants to do already, before we have even got to the amendment stage, and that it is trying to railroad the legislation through the Parliament.

Thanks for that. I think that Mr Rennie might want a right to reply.