Chamber and committees

Amendments 72, 94 and 108, which I have lodged, will together ensure that qualifications Scotland and the chief inspector, when publishing documents, give consideration to users of British Sign Language. Amendment 108 sets out the definitions to be used when referring to BSL users and BSL education, and they were written in close consultation with the National Deaf Children’s Society. I encourage members to support the amendments.

Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 286 would add two groups to the persons that qualifications Scotland must give consideration to when publishing documents. The first group—users of BSL—is covered by my amendment 72, which I have just discussed; it is accompanied by amendment 108, which clarifies the meaning of BSL with reference to its definition in the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 to include both the visual and tactile forms of BSL. As my amendment includes essential definitions, I ask Ms Duncan-Glancy not to move her amendment and to support my amendments instead.

The second element that would be added by Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 286 is a requirement for consideration to be given to the needs of “persons with protected characteristics” under the Equality Act 2010. That does not quite make sense in this context. Protected characteristics include, for example, being married or in a civil partnership, and it is not clear to me how documents would or could be communicated in a way that best meets the needs of those with a spouse or civil partner. The protected characteristics that I think are most relevant are disability and age and, on that, the bill already makes specific reference to communicating in a way that meets the needs of people with additional support needs and the needs of children and young people.

I am not of the view that this bill is the place for that. A number of risks are associated with doing it by amendment. I have also spoken to some of the issues around determining what advice looks like.

More broadly, Mr Adam spoke to Mr Dey’s work. Mr Dey’s officials in the lifelong learning and skills department are leading on that work, and I am mindful of that and of the complexities in that regard.

I spoke to the committee recently about some of the data-sharing arrangements in relation to free school meals. There is an opportunity for us to learn from that experience, but we need to be mindful that, for example, our universities are independent, autonomous institutions, so a simple lift of the approach that we adopted to share Scottish child payment data for the purposes of providing free school meals is not necessarily applicable in a higher education space.

However—

Yes.

I am happy to have those discussions. I take Ms Duncan-Glancy’s points in relation to her proposals and the role of accreditation, which is a live topic that we will come back to. I am happy to have those discussions with members and to give Mr Briggs that reassurance.

Amendment 290, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 291 to 296 not moved.

I thank members for explaining the purpose of their amendments. Ms Duncan-Glancy and Mr Greer have made similar proposals under amendments 255, 268, 68 and 70, on ensuring that both the charters are prepared and published in collaboration with people taking qualifications and people delivering qualifications.

To give Mr Greer absolute assurance, it has always been the intention that the charters will be co-produced. I want to provide reassurance that the ministerial guidance on the creation of charters that will be issued to qualifications Scotland will ensure that that principle is embedded.

The Government is also working closely with the SQA and the learner and teacher stakeholders to ensure that its guidance, which is being developed in parallel to the bill, takes account of any legislative changes that are made as the bill makes its way through Parliament. The guidance will be issued to the board of qualifications Scotland, prior to the body becoming fully operational, in order to support plans to co-produce the charters. However, I recognise the additional reassurance that a change to the bill could bring.

My concern with how the amendments are presently drafted is that they would require children, young people, adult learners and teachers to co-produce the charters without limiting that to those who want to be part of a co-production process. In order for me to support the principle behind the amendments and avoid any untended consequences, I would like to work with Ms Duncan-Glancy and Mr Greer on an alternative form of words for stage 3, and I ask them not to press or to move those amendments on that basis.

Moving to amendment 256, I fully agree with the need to ensure that children, young people and adult learners are recognised as the different groups that take qualifications. Although they are already captured by the existing provision, I would be content to support the amendment.

Amendments 262 and 263 bring about additional assurances through ensuring that children, young people, adult learners and parents will be consulted in creating the learner charter. However, that intention is met by my amendment 69. I encourage members to support that instead, although I have listened to the discussion this morning.

Amendment 69 would guarantee consultation of the same groups that are covered by amendments 262 and 263, while also, importantly, covering carers as parents, in line with our commitment to the Promise. Although I have listened to the debate, I am content not to move amendment 69 in order to ensure that we can arrive at a position that we can all support, as long as amendments 262 and 263 are also not moved.

Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 264 also seeks to strengthen the requirements for the creation of the learner charter by including learners who are users of British Sign Language, those who have protected characteristics listed in section 4 of the Equality Act 2010 and those with additional support needs. The Government fully supports the intention behind the amendment, and the charter is intended to take full account of the diversity and varying needs and interests of Scotland’s children, young people and adult learners. However, as drafted, I have concerns that the intention of the amendment would not be met. The rationale is to ensure that those from marginalised communities would be consulted. Unfortunately, including protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 does not guarantee that, as protected characteristics include things that we all have, such as age.

As drafted, the amendment does nothing to ensure that, for example, people with a range of different ages are consulted or that people of different races are consulted.

The point that I was making in talking about Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment is that the responsibility is not only for qualifications Scotland. Scotland’s education system is broad and, as we heard from Mr Kerr, there is a variety of actors in it. I am not necessarily sure that there is an overarching responsibility that fits the purpose that Ms Duncan-Glancy is driving at.

We must be mindful that we will talk today about a lot of amendments that do not necessarily fall within the scope of what was originally quite a focused bill to create a new qualifications body. Quite rightly, as the member has done today, members have raised other issues that are relevant and pertinent to educational delivery in Scotland.

More broadly, this might be part of the work that we could look at in a conversation about accreditation and about some of the actors in Scotland’s broader educational landscape. To my mind, as I have said, it is not for qualifications Scotland to undertake that work alone, although the SQA is already undertaking its own rationalisation process, which is well under way. I would be happy to write to the committee to give a further update on how that work is progressing.

Will the member take an intervention?

Yes, I will.

I thank Ms Duncan-Glancy for setting out the purpose of her amendments. The amendments seek to impose duties on the strategic advisory council for qualifications Scotland and on the chief inspector to provide advice on matters relating to tracking learners through the system and a data-sharing system between schools, colleges and universities.

I do not believe that the strategic advisory council would be best placed to advise on such matters. Those issues would not be within the responsibility of either organisation, nor would it be within their gift to implement changes as a result of such advice. Any such responsibility would require the consideration of stakeholders across the whole education and skills sector, including higher and further education institutions, whose autonomy also needs to be recognised, particularly if we were to seek to compel them to share data for Scottish Government purposes.

I have heard that allegation over the past two years, but I invite the member, and colleagues around the table, to observe the number of amendments to the bill that have been lodged; it is quite clear that it is not going to be just about a name change. The bill is about fundamentally changing the culture of our qualifications body, and I think that all the amendments that we have agreed today will help to strengthen it in that regard.