I do not want to put an arbitrary date on it, but I think that we would have expected them some time before now. If we wind back the clock to the end of June and my announcement to the Parliament then, we were pretty clear about the announcement of funding and what it was going to provide for. We then had a pretty quick change of leadership team, with an interim leadership team being installed, and we subsequently engaged with the SFC over the summer period. We then had correspondence that the committee is aware of in relation to the SFC setting out requirements regarding what the university was proposing. We have had to work with the university on that, which has taken longer than we had originally anticipated, going back to my announcement in June.

Yes.

All our institutions are currently facing inordinate pressure; I was in front of the committee to discuss the issue earlier this year. There are pressures relating to changes in the United Kingdom Government’s approach to immigration, which has harmed some of our institutions. There are issues in relation to employer national insurance contributions—Universities Scotland put a figure of around £50 million on the cost to the sector in Scotland.

There are broader inflationary pressures that mean that staff wages have gone up, so things are more expensive. All those things are compounding factors, but the issues at Dundee university are unique and relate to the financial challenges that we have spoken about previously with regard to Pamela Gillies’s investigation, and governance issues. That is why the Government was able to use a section 25 order for Dundee university and not for other institutions.

On the point in relation to the budget, we will continue to engage with Universities Scotland in the run-up to the budget. I am mindful of the issues that Mr Briggs puts to me, because our institutions in Scotland are extremely precious and we want to continue to ensure that they are supported.

I think that part of the issue—this does not apply only to restraint—is that there might be reticence on the part of teachers to report, as they might be concerned about or fearful of doing so. We hear that quite often in relation to behaviour in schools, and we have debated some of those issues. In my time as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, I have been clear in calling for better and more consistent reporting, which I think has helped to shift the dial a bit.

However, fundamentally, teachers are often scared to report. The committee heard evidence from the NASUWT to that end—I spoke to Mike Corbett about that last week—and the Educational Institute of Scotland. Committees therefore need to be mindful of that and provide reassurance to the teaching profession, because they might be fearful about how reporting comes across.

As I think that the committee has also heard evidence on, local government is fearful that, were we to have greater reporting, that might lead to the creation of league tables, for example, and it is fearful of what that might mean for individual schools. I think that those issues can be dealt with more sensitively in the round. For example, the NASUWT has asked that we do not publish school-based data, which would certainly be a position that I would support. We need to be careful about how that is done.

However, in my experience, there is a reticence, and perhaps a fear, in the profession when it comes to reporting and what the use of restraint says about them. We need better reporting across the board. That is not true only in relation to restraint; I would highlight that we also need much better reporting on and recording of additional support needs.

My view on the bill is that it speaks to the relationship between local government and national Government in carrying out their responsibilities on education. There is an opportunity for us to learn from that experience and provide for better accountability and transparency, which is an issue that the committee has been pursuing in evidence sessions.

Ms Don-Innes leads on the children’s rights scheme. I think that it is part of the Promise—is that right? [Interruption.] I am being told that it relates just to children’s rights. However, I think that the timing of the guidance being published in November is quite complementary to the passage of the bill. We are nearly in November, and we are only at stage 1 of the bill. The committee might or might not be content with that update when it is published, so feel free to come back to the Government to probe us on the issues. However, we are strengthening children’s rights through our approach.

I will come back to the point that the member raised with Denise McKay about the 1980 act, because it goes back to the points that Pam Gosal made about mandating certain aspects of the curriculum. If you were to open up the 1980 act, you would see that there are lots of things that we could do. We would not have a five-page bill in that case, and some big, serious questions would potentially have to be asked about the delivery of education.

If the committee is interested to know—probably not for the purposes of the bill before us, but in the education space generally—I have commissioned John Wilson, a former headteacher in Edinburgh, to lead a piece of work for us on school governance and what comes next in how we fund our schools after the Scottish attainment challenge, which is meant to come to an end. We have extended it for a year, but such things need to be considered in the round. Indeed, Pam Gosal’s parliamentary colleague Oliver Mundell is very interested in how we provide support to our schools and local authorities. We have 32 councils, and we have heard today about some of the challenges that that can create. We should not separate those issues from wider considerations on public policy.

I am sorry, but I thought that the question was about compatibility.

It has not, at the current time, but that is not to say that it might not be used in the future.

I will come to your second question first. I was struck by some of the evidence that the committee heard on that point, because a number of stakeholders said that parents are perhaps not aware of that legal right, which has existed for many years. In the guidance that will sit alongside the bill, if it is passed, we will provide further clarity on that.

One of the parental organisations that the committee took evidence from—it might have been Connect—talked about disparate approaches to school handbooks and the situation not being communicated in the way in which it would have expected. I am happy to reflect on that. The passage of the bill will, in itself, draw parents’ attention to the fact that they have that right, and that will foster better understanding. The guidance, which has also been raised by stakeholders in evidence given to the committee, will provide further clarity on parental rights.

On how the guidance works at the current time, we have very low rates of withdrawal. The committee took evidence on that from Barbara Coupar from the Scottish Catholic Education Service, and I spoke to her yesterday. We are looking at very low percentages for withdrawal rates. Lewis Hedge might want to give the committee the specific numbers. I think that there is a 0.59 per cent withdrawal rate overall—that is 0.56 per cent from religious observance and 0.19 per cent from RE. Is that correct, Lewis?

Forgive me, Ms Chapman, but are you talking about the independent right to withdraw?

Okay.