Chamber and committees

I have to ask this in response. The committee backed the principles of the bill at stage 1. Is that a position that you do not now support?

I have accepted that, as I did in the chamber.

I have accepted that there are areas in which the Government will willingly work on a cross-party basis to strengthen some of the key provisions, but there is an on-going need to reform our qualifications body. As I said, standing still on the issue is not acceptable to Scotland’s teachers, our children and young people, or parents and carers.

It is vitally important that the legislation moves forward so that we can deliver on that ask from the country in relation to how we deliver qualifications, especially post-pandemic.

One of the interesting points of the budget agreement that the Government struck with local authorities was the establishment of an education assurance board that will allow us to hold the Government to account for things that we are responsible for, and will also hold local government to account. The partnership approach that has been spoken about today is really important. I am keen to take the issue that Mr Briggs raised about identification and support to the education assurance board, which should meet for the first time in the coming weeks.

Incidentally, convener, if there are any other hot topics or issues that the committee would like me to address at the first meeting, I am more than happy to do that.

We must get to a place of understanding that, without local government buy-in in education, we will not drive the improvements that we all want to see. We have a number of willing partners in local government. Dave Gregory spoke about the quads work that is being led by ADES, which is showing real tangible results. That is the headspace that we need to get to. I accept Mr Briggs’s point about care-experienced young people, and I will raise that at the first meeting of the education assurance board.

I will defer to Nico on that.

Earlier, we touched on initial leavers’ destinations. The gap between the proportion of school leavers from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland moving into positive destinations is 4.3 percentage points, which is an increase on the previous year. I gave a figure of 3.7 per cent in response to Mr Mason—

I responded to Alexander Stewart’s members’ business debate yesterday evening—some members of the committee were there, although I do not think that Ms Duncan-Glancy was. In that debate, I gave an update on the Government’s response, which is—as I said in responding to a point about the Audit Scotland report—that I want to engage with the Auditor General on that. We need to provide a substantive response to that report, including on the recommendation that the member referred to.

The member spoke about ASN in relation to spend. More broadly—again, I put this on the record in the debate last night—we see an improving picture in relation to the attainment of children with an identified additional support need. We know that, historically, many of those young people were prevented from attaining in the ways that they should have done because of the way in which our school system was structured, which often excluded them from mainstream education.

We have an inclusive education system. There was some challenge to that last night from Conservative members with regard to the presumption of mainstreaming—Ms Duncan-Glancy will have her own views on that—but I think that that is the strength of our education system in Scotland. The national discussion on education, the results of which were published in 2023 in “All Learners in Scotland Matter—national discussion on education: final report”, welcomed that as being unique to the Scottish education system. However, the challenge is always about delivery, and that is another point that came out in the debate last night.

National policy and local implementation are parts of all that I do as education secretary, whether it be on teacher numbers, ASN or responding to mental health challenges. This week, I answered a parliamentary question on that, which the member might be interested in. I cannot recall which member of the Education, Children and Young People Committee asked the question—it night have been Mr Briggs—but the response lays out additional support for learning spend per local authority. I encourage you to interrogate that data, because spending per pupil varies across the country.

I can protect ASN spend at the national level, but there is a level of local political decision making on how the funding gets to those who need it most, which is cited as a challenge in the Audit Scotland report.

The other challenge is transparency, which is why I welcome the report. I would like greater transparency in spend. I can talk about the record £1 billion of investment that is going to ASN, but we need to track how that spend is getting to those who need it most.

I do not have my diary in front of me, but I know that I and my officials are scheduled to meet the Auditor General in the coming weeks. I am more than happy to write to the committee with a fulsome update on that point.

It is not about Education Scotland.

It could change at stage 2; however, if we do not start the process now, we will have to lead an alternative appointments process, and I have been advised that that would be truncated, far less robust and more open to challenge.