Chamber and committees

Good morning. As we have touched on, scrapping the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board, as the bill proposes, presents many questions. I go back to a point that you made, Clare Reid, on further involvement from regional employers. How would you see an apprenticeship committee, if one is established within the SFC? What role would industry play in that? I have specific concerns in relation to where private training providers who provide certification and registration would sit in that structure. I put that question to you again. What is your understanding of what that structure would look like?

The bill does not include any targets for apprentices or set minimum levels for service agreements, for example, for either apprentices or employers. Have your members raised that aspect?

I just caught the cabinet secretary at the end there. The matter goes back to conversations that the committee had following the tragedy at Liberton high school. It was then quite clear that, with regard to parliamentary scrutiny, there had to be an opportunity to at least review where that documentation is being held. My colleague Ross Greer referred to issues in another council area. Will the cabinet secretary be open—perhaps not as part of the bill—to consider what that will look like?

Having been a member of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, I have specific concerns that a similar situation exists for social housing, specifically with regard to RAAC. However, I think that most people would expect that documentation to be held and viewed when inspections take place in our school estate. I do not know whether the cabinet secretary could at least review the matter, given that local authorities are the ones that currently hold that documentation. I have not seen a practice in place to provide public transparency on that.

As with amendment 129, which was debated quite a long time ago and, with the kind support of my colleague Ross Greer, agreed to, amendment 172 would require membership of the chief inspector’s advisory council to include representatives of

“parents of children and young people receiving education in relevant educational establishments.”

I restate my argument about the positive contribution that parents make to the school community and how their expertise can be drawn on.

I do not agree with the point that Ross Greer made earlier. I think that having a parent on the advisory council can bring a lot of benefit, and I am surprised that people would argue against that. An increasing number of parents will raise concerns with the inspectorate, and my amendment will give a place to the parental voice where it is needed and allow it to shape many of the discussions and potential reforms in the future.

I will move amendment 172. Given that the committee has rejected the idea of a parent charter, it will allow that parental voice to be heard, and I think that that is important.

The intention of this group of amendments is to provide coherence, clarity and accountability on curriculum design and delivery. In that respect, it strikes at the heart of why reform is not only desirable but necessary.

Amendment 290 would assign two clear responsibilities to Education Scotland: the responsibility to update and maintain the curriculum for children and young people in Scotland; and the responsibility to support persons and bodies that deliver the curriculum, including teachers and practitioners, through professional development and the provision of resources. That is essential because, as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2021 review, “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future”, made clear, the governance of the curriculum for excellence appears to be highly complex and, at times, lacking in clarity and coherence. In short, the system is highly cluttered.

The OECD emphasised the need for clarity on the roles and responsibilities of each actor and the boundaries between them, especially those between Education Scotland, the SQA, regional improvement collaboratives and local authorities, as well as those between schools, local authorities and central Government.

That there is confusion and a lack of clarity is not a technical flaw. It is a structural failure that erodes both confidence and accountability. We cannot hold a public body to account if we cannot say with precision what it is responsible for.

It is clear that there has been a cross-party discussion today on how the proposal can be formalised and on where formal responsibility for maintaining the curriculum is placed. I have not heard from the cabinet secretary that she is willing to take that conversation away from the amendments in this group, beyond considering the future of Education Scotland. That is something that we want, however, even as part of the bill. If the cabinet secretary is willing to pursue that conversation with members across the Parliament, that would be useful. Potentially, a workable amendment to direct or declutter could be produced for stage 3. That is the journey that members are trying to take the Government on.

I will speak to amendment 307, in the name of my colleague Stephen Kerr.

I support the substantial package of amendments in this group in the name of my colleague Sue Webber, which, together, go to the heart of ensuring the true independence of the chief inspector of education in Scotland.

In this group, we are considering a total of more than 40 amendments, from amendment 140 through to amendment 205. Collectively, they seek to establish the chief inspector as an independent, professional and impartial voice at the heart of our national education system.

Let us be clear from the outset that the creation of an independent inspectorate is not a matter of bureaucratic housekeeping; it is a matter of public confidence, professional credibility and constitutional principle. If the chief inspector is to play a pivotal role, as is envisaged in the bill, they must be seen to act free from ministerial direction, they must be immune to political pressure and they must be answerable, ultimately, not to the Government but to the Parliament. I am pleased to support the amendments that provide that the chief inspector must execute their functions independently of the Scottish ministers.

Amendment 307 helpfully provides the option that the Scottish Government would still be able to request an inspection, although there would be no obligation on the chief inspector to comply with such a request. On a number of occasions, the cabinet secretary has raised her concern about the role of chief inspector being completely independent of ministers. If specific concerns were raised with the Scottish Government about an establishment, the Scottish ministers could still request an inspection but, ultimately, it would still be for the chief inspector to decide whether the inspection should take place.

It is vital that the provision that is proposed in amendment 307 is included in the bill, in order to give ministers the ability to request an inspection if they have specific concerns. There is cross-party consensus that ministers need to have that ability, which amendment 307 provides for, alongside the complete—and wanted—independence of the inspector.

The member will be unsurprised to learn that Conservative members are opposed to that view. Would he acknowledge, however, that the presence of the Crown in our institutions is a visible and stabilising expression of democratic accountability and constitutional continuity? The title “His Majesty’s Chief Inspector” reminds us that, while the appointment may be made by ministers, it is made under the King in the interests of the people of Scotland. The current system reflects that balance, with the appointment being made by His Majesty on the recommendation of ministers.

If Ross Greer’s amendments were to be agreed to, it would set a concerning precedent in that the chief inspector of education in Scotland would become the first major public office in modern Scottish history to have the role of sovereign deliberately removed from its appointment process. Therefore, I urge members to reject those amendments. I also have a 20-page speech from Stephen Kerr on the issue. As my voice is starting to go and it is 10 to 8, I will not read that out, but I will give Mr Greer a copy or place it in the Scottish Parliament information centre. We very much oppose these amendments.

That is a good point. The other amendments in the group, which are in Pam Duncan-Glancy’s name, propose the creation of a new agency—curriculum Scotland—to do the work in question. My colleague Stephen Kerr has been trying to improve the bill by defining in it the future role of Education Scotland in education. That is an important aspect, because we have all been looking at that organisation and wondering what it will do in the future and how it can be improved.

At the root of the challenge that we face in reforming the education system is the urgent need to provide clarification of who is responsible for what. As the OECD report rightly reminded us, governance clarity is not simply administrative tidiness; it is a precondition for effective oversight and learner-centred improvement.

I look forward to hearing from Pam Duncan-Glancy and the cabinet secretary.

I move amendment 290.

I am not sure how Pam Duncan-Glancy intends to vote on my colleague Stephen Kerr’s amendment 290, but that amendment would give Education Scotland the formal responsibility that, basically, her amendments would give to a new organisation. The minister is about to comment but I note that, currently, Education Scotland, Government departments and the University of Glasgow are doing work on that. Is there an opportunity, as part of the bill, to bring that into one single organisation, without costing the taxpayer more? That organisation could—and probably should—be Education Scotland.