Chamber and committees

I agree that it is not about every single complaint being investigated. The petitioners would certainly point out serious complaints that have not been investigated. As an Edinburgh MSP, I am concerned about Edinburgh schools, but this is not just an Edinburgh issue—it is an issue across Scotland.

I hope that, at stage 3, there will be a workable way of giving the inspectorate a new opportunity to hear concerns and decide which ones it should take forward under the complaints procedure. That is why I have tried to keep the amendments open for the inspectorate to be able to do that. I am happy to hear the cabinet secretary’s view on the matter. The petitioners have a specific ask, and the amendments are just one step towards improving the whistleblowing and safeguarding culture in Scotland.

I move amendment 157.

That goes back to Willie Rennie’s point about the local authority’s responsibility around inspection. Through the wording of the amendment—I wait to hear what the cabinet secretary has to say on it—we could look towards that documentation being included. To go back to my earlier point, it is about transparency, so that we can see whether any concerns have been raised. I do not think that it should take a freedom of information request to find out that there have been 150 concerning incidents—as was the case back in 2018—and to get full transparency.

The bill has no targets or minimum levels of rights, either for apprentices or for employers. Is that something that your members have highlighted and fed back to you on?

The Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board is to be shut down, but we have no details of what will replace it. It has a key function in looking at the skills that we should be developing and having a voice about those.

The problem on the table is that we have 25,000 apprenticeships when 40,000 could have been delivered. Focusing on why that is, and the resources needed, seems to have caused a completely new restructuring, which will not necessarily help to deliver a solution to the problem of resourcing for apprenticeship places.

I take on board those points. The amendments would expand the new inspectorate regime to include what people want, which should be welcome. We know that there are on-going issues with the school estate, with RAAC being one of those issues. It is welcome that the vast majority of schools have now, I think, corrected that, but parents will want to be confident that there is an on-going inspection regime and that the certificates, which are sometimes provided by private companies, will not be lost, because they will be asked for when an inspection takes place.

I take the member’s point, and given my colleague Stephen Kerr’s point about when inspections take place, there might be a different or better framework for making that documentation available from local authorities. I understand that, and I am sure that Liz Smith will be open to discussing and developing that further.

As with Liz Smith’s amendments, amendments 165 and 209 in my name are probing amendments to consider the opportunity to explore how we can improve child protection and safeguarding in educational establishments. Given what the cabinet secretary has said, I do not intend to move them.

Given the cabinet secretary's comments, I will not press amendment 181.

Amendment 181, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 40 moved—[Ross Greer].

Colleagues will remember that the committee recently completed our evidence sessions on my colleague Liz Smith MSP’s Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill, which has now completed stage 1. The general principles of that bill have been supported by the Parliament. Amendment 25, in the name of Liz Smith, is designed to ensure that, where a relevant educational establishment provides outdoor education as part of its curricular or extracurricular programme, that provision will be part of the inspection process.

My amendment 176 seeks to improve how recommendations are made to a school and how that establishment can respond. My colleague Sue Webber eloquently outlined that it is about what we do with an inspection when it is delivered and what quality it provides. The bill presents an opportunity for teachers and the wider school community to have more understanding of where they can take recommendations forward as well as responding to them, so that we do not see inspections left hanging. I hope that that is a positive step forward.

For the many teachers and others who work in our schools that I have spoken to, an inspection could be a career-defining moment, but in some cases inspections are not providing that detail in what they offer parents, guardians and carers. My amendment therefore specifies what would be expected, how the independent inspections may be responded to, and a more constructive way of taking them forward.

I also support Sue Webber’s amendments in the group.

As with my amendment 176, amendment 181 seeks to improve inspection reports by requiring the chief inspector’s annual report not only to describe inspections and other activities but to cover any recommendations made as a result of those inspections. Allowing the public to see the wider role that the inspectorate plays would, as other members have outlined, add value, and such an approach would ensure that we highlight not just the inspectorate’s role but what is covered in an inspection. I should say, too, that amendment 181 complements amendments that have already been agreed to.

I move amendment 181.

Amendment 168 would expand the list of matters that the chief inspector must have regard to when exercising their functions. As I have outlined in regard to previous amendments, those include safeguarding children’s rights and welfare, specifically in relation to issues raised by the children’s commissioner and in relation to the views and satisfaction levels of “relevant persons”.

My amendment 171 provides the definition of “relevant persons”. Given the previous conversation on child protection and, I hope, constructive discussion going forward, I will not move amendments 168 or 171.

Why would it then take until September for the reports to be published? That is the question that most of us would ask. Once you have received those forecasts, the work will have been done on that.