Chamber and committees

At that point, I was not privy to the internal dialogue on that between the chief social work adviser and Alexis Jay. I was making the point that a clarification—

I will bring in Mr Macpherson to speak about the wider work, but two members have now referred to the University of Dundee and members need to be mindful of the fact that it was a unique institution in relation to some of its financial decisions. The uniqueness of what happened at the University of Dundee justified the Government’s use of the section 25 powers. It is important to note that.

Mr Briggs is quite right to say that there are pressures across the sector and that a range of external factors are at play. We have heard this morning about the impact on international students of immigration rules, employer national insurance contributions and the inflationary pressures that are making staff wages go up—it is quite right that they do so, but those pressures also mean that it is much more expensive to heat buildings, for example. Universities and colleges are having to contend with a lot of things that they did not have to contend with five years ago.

We should be mindful of the fact that the University of Dundee is a bit of an outlier in relation to some of the financial decisions that that institution made, which were all documented in the report by Pamela Gillies that was published before the end of the summer recess.

I ask Mr Macpherson to talk about the wider work in the sector.

Sorry, I missed the final sentence. Could you just repeat the—

There is quite a lot in there, Mr O’Kane, but I will try to touch on it all.

I do not recall flat out saying that attendance is purely a matter for local authorities. Of course the Government has a role to play in that. We have shared legal responsibilities that are set out in statute in that regard. Ministers have a clear responsibility, but the statutory responsibility rests with local authorities. We can provide advice and guidance, and we do that on a range of different things such as behaviour, for example, and I am sure that we will come on to talk about that.

Mr O’Kane cited a number of areas in attendance and, if I was to draw out the attainment statistics for those areas, they would look impressive. There is a correlation between poverty and attendance and that is accounted for in the data that was published last week, which shows that pupils from poorer communities struggle more with their attendance than those who do not come from those communities. We need to be mindful of that gap.

Mr O’Kane also mentioned the RICs, on which I took a decision two years ago. I know that Mr O’Kane is new to his role, and I encourage him to go out and speak to teachers about their experiences with the RICs. Most teachers that I have engaged with have varying views of them. Some of the RICs—

I am not going to comment on Michael Marra, because he is not here this afternoon, Mr Rennie.

I am very sorry that Mr Rennie cannot welcome the progress in Scottish education that we have seen in the past 12 months.

I set out to Parliament some of the work in this space last week, but going back to Mr Mason’s reference to children in Glasgow, I just want to touch briefly on ASN data. About a month ago, we had a really interesting summit at Murrayfield stadium with a range of partners, looking at ASN measurements across the country. There is variance in what we mean by ASN and, in the context of that measurement, what that looks like in individual local authorities, and that does not give me confidence in the consistency of application or in how we are recording these things. Therefore, we are working with local authorities to audit this space, essentially, and help drive improvement in it. I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on that, because it is a key part of the work that we are taking forward.

The other key part of our work, which follows a suggestion from Mr Rennie that came through the cross-party round table, is a national event that will, I hope, be hosted in February. Again, I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on that; indeed, I want to invite committee members to attend it.

The approach taken in the event will be to share good practice on what works. We know that across the country just now there are lots of good examples of support for children with additional support needs. Some of that direction—in fact, much of it—will not come from central Government; it will not come from me, and nor will it come from local authorities. As I saw in a secondary school in Edinburgh very recently, individual headteachers will very often use their own ingenuity to plan approaches that best meet the needs of their children and young people.

A headteacher in Edinburgh—whom I would encourage the committee to engage with; I can share details with the committee after the meeting—essentially restructured the staffing in his school, and his approach has led to better support for all young people, not just those with additional support needs. I found my interaction with him to be extremely informative; we might want to share learning from that at the national event—I do not have any detail on which schools we will be looking at there—and I am certain that there is learning that the committee will be interested in.

There is, of course, the review work, too. I do want to say more about the review that the Government has committed to carrying out, and I am happy to write to the committee with more detail on those aspects in due course.

I remember the 2014 tackling bureaucracy report, as I chaired a departmental meeting to look at it and what it meant for my department at that time.

When we talk about bureaucracy, it is important to note that it differs at local authority level and at school level. I am sure that others would contend that this is not the case, but I would argue that the Government has not asked for the majority of administrative and bureaucratic tasks that are asked of teachers, so we do not collect lots of educational data nationally. You all know that, because various parties have made freedom of information requests of local authorities. That is not necessarily particularly helpful, but it is the case that we have different policies for how things are recorded and the administrative tasks that are asked of teachers.

One of the announcements that I made, alongside how we might deliver on reducing class contact, was about our plans for independent work on how we can reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. In the summer, I commissioned work that will look at driving some of that, particularly given the possibility of using artificial intelligence to reduce the workload of teachers’ administrative tasks—

It is. You make a fair point, Mr Greer.

On the SNSAs, I remember sitting in this room, where Ms Dunbar is sitting now, and debating these exact issues with COSLA, because we have 32 different approaches to the monitoring of progress and assessment. As you will recall, local authorities were meant to use the SNSAs as a diagnostic tool, and they should not add to teachers’ workload. Beyond the SNSAs, the Government asked for very little in terms of teachers’ workload. As Mr Greer has alluded, much of it is driven by local authority practices.

On the 2014 report, our schools now exist in a different era. What is happening in our schools now is not what was happening when I was last in a classroom. If we consider poverty and the ways in which schools are meeting needs, a lot of the workload might be not necessarily administrative but about support for families and broader social support. It is quite difficult to quantify some of that.

Although I accept some of Mr Greer’s points in principle, we need to look at new ways of reducing teachers’ workload, and the work on AI reducing unnecessary bureaucracy is important. However, to my mind, reducing class contact will make the biggest difference. I am pleased that we have seen some real progress in recent weeks, and I hope that we will see further progress following tomorrow’s meeting. That work, accompanied by the work on reducing bureaucracy for teachers, will be the game changer.

I am mindful of the fact that much of the bureaucracy is related to the increase in additional support needs, which we might come on to talk about. We need to be mindful of the ASN review and what that means for teachers’ workload and administrative tasks.

I will give a crude example from my experience of teaching in Edinburgh. We had a pupil support assistant who would come to the department once every two weeks, and her job was to input pupils’ grades from their test results and so on. Having somebody in the department to undertake those administrative tasks meant that fulfilling our reporting requirements for year groups was far easier. It reduced the bureaucracy for teachers and the time that we had to spend on those tasks. That is a crude example of one local authority using additional budget to employ a pupil support assistant.

Mr Greer alluded to a wider challenge in Scottish education, which I have tasked John Wilson with, which is to look at how we deliver education in Scotland’s schools post-pandemic. Is it sustainable to have 32 different approaches to that? We need to ask ourselves such big, challenging questions at the current time. Budgets are challenging—we will come on to talk about that in January, I am sure—and there are perhaps more sustainable ways in which we could deliver an equitable education system for all our children and young people.

I do not think that any of us want another strike by teachers. I certainly do not want one on my watch, so I am keen to avoid that. Two or three weeks ago, in the Parliament, I met the EIS and the other professional associations to talk about those issues in more detail, and we have to resolve those challenges.

One point that I will put on record—I have said this publicly previously—is that the trade unions have a view that pay and conditions should be negotiated separately, which is entirely in their gift. However, I observe that, when I was transport minister, the transport unions did not necessarily take the view that such matters should be negotiated separately—they wanted to negotiate them together. The separation means that we could perhaps have seen a resolution to the issue more timeously than we did, because teachers have had successive pay increases each year. That means that teachers are more expensive to employ and the budget, which Mr Greer rightly talked about, becomes more constricted. However, we will have to work on those issues through the SNCT.

On how changes will be implemented, I have spoken to all the professional associations, and I am very keen to work with them to establish pilots based on what works. We have to work with the profession to understand its needs and the practical requirements of timetabling. I speak as a secondary specialist, but changes will look different in primary schools, which have other challenges as well. However, we also need to provide some reassurance because our independent modelling shows that, if local authorities had gone back to 2023 levels, there would be enough primary school teachers in the system to deliver the reduction in class contact. I welcome Mr Rennie’s party’s support for last year’s budget, which allowed for an increase in funding to be provided for teacher numbers and for ASN. That will make the difference when it comes to delivering a reduction in class contact.

We also have to give teachers time. We have looked at international comparisons in relation to how many hours teachers are working. I know that teachers are currently stressed and struggling. We have talked about ASN before in this committee, and we agree that we have to create the necessary headspace for teachers. We are trying to reform our education system, which we cannot do if we do not give teachers time to engage with the process. It is important not only for our children and young people but for our teachers, who are professionals, to have the headspace and time to engage in the work of education reform.