Chamber and committees

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to give evidence on Daniel Johnson’s member’s bill and the important issues that it covers.

First, I put on record my thanks to Mr Johnson and his staff for the collegiate approach that they have taken in engaging with the Government over some time on his legislative proposals.

As the committee knows, the legislation does not sit in isolation; rather, it builds on our non-statutory guidance on physical intervention in schools, which was published in November last year. The guidance is part of our “Included, engaged and involved” series that aims to support positive relationships and behaviour in our classrooms. Its non-statutory status mirrors the approach that we have taken to guidance that is delivered as part of our relationships and behaviour in schools national action plan, including our guidance on risk assessments and on promoting positive, inclusive and safe school environments, which we published in June.

The physical intervention guidance was developed with extensive input from many of the witnesses who have provided evidence to the committee, including representatives from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, teachers and other education staff, local government, teaching unions and, of course, parents, who have been instrumental in bringing the bill before Parliament.

Although considerable work has been undertaken to implement the guidance, it is still less than a year old. Full implementation is still at an early stage, and it will take time. Nonetheless, we committed to a one-year review of the guidance and, regardless of the bill’s passage, that work will begin shortly. The review will, of course, be informed by the evidence that is provided of situations in which restraint or seclusion has been used in inappropriate ways. However, it will also consider examples in which the diligence of teachers has created learning environments where children with additional support needs can thrive and are supported without recourse to restraint or seclusion.

The bill presents another opportunity to take further steps in making clear our expectations on the use of restraint and seclusion. We have worked carefully and collaboratively with partners to support our overall aims of protecting children by minimising the use of restraint and seclusion.

I recognise that this sensitive issue requires a measured and proportionate response. I have met Beth Morrison and heard her distressing account of her son Calum’s restraint back in 2010. I have also met Kate Sanger, and I know that the committee has heard about the traumatic effect that seclusion had on her daughter, Laura. Let me be clear that no family should have to experience that. I have also met the teaching trade unions on the issue, and I have appreciated their contributions.

I should be clear that the practices of restraint are not used in most of Scotland’s schools, and it is not a practice that most classroom teachers are trained in. As our physical intervention guidance sets out, and as the committee has heard, the vast majority of our education workforce does not need to be trained in the use of restraint. On those rare occasions when it is deemed necessary, it is important that properly trained staff feel confident in using it, supported by the detailed advice and safeguards that should be followed, as outlined in our guidance on physical intervention.

Having carefully considered the contents of Mr Johnson’s bill, and as I set out in my letter to committee, the Government will support the general principles of the Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill at stage 1.

I met Mr Johnson recently and we have agreed to work collaboratively on the bill to ensure that it delivers on its intended purpose. As the committee has heard, further work will be required in order to fully understand the costs that would be involved in its implementation. I have also set out a number of aspects on which amendments might be required, including on definitions and on national reporting. Although the Scottish Government is supportive of the bill, it is, of course, a member’s bill, and Mr Johnson retains responsibility for its passage through Parliament.

I am happy to take any questions from members.

I completely concur with your views on that, convener. I do not have children myself, but I have three nephews and a niece. My sisters receive regular updates, and information is shared about incidents that might have happened at nursery on a routine basis. You are right to flag that challenge. That is, of course, the other side of the coin, when it comes to sharing information with parents. To my mind, we need to see much better information sharing.

The national guidance that we published last year talks about a requirement to report by the end of the school day and Mr Johnson’s bill includes a provision, which we support, for that to happen within 24 hours. There is an opportunity here for better sharing of information with parents and carers. When incidents occur, the information should, of course, be shared with parents and carers. We would expect that to happen as a matter of course and something is going wrong when that does not happen. I have been very clear that the events that we heard about from Beth Morrison and Kate Sanger should not be happening in our schools as a matter of course.

The national guidance is an opportunity to improve practice, but we have not yet reviewed that guidance and must have certainty and assurance about where we are in the legislative landscape.

Robert Eckhart might want to come in.

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.

At present, all teachers are not trained in restraint. The committee has previously considered the approaches that are used in relation to ASN and teacher training. We cannot mandate individual education providers.

I would have been keen for us to explore the number of hours that are allocated to the teaching of additional support needs in initial teacher education. It is difficult to mandate independent universities, which are autonomous from the Government, as you are about to hear, and tell them that they have to teach X number of hours on autism or dyslexia, for instance.

There are challenges in relation to initial teacher education, but there are also challenges in relation to local government, as local authorities have a responsibility to provide continuing professional development. There are disparate teacher training practices across the country and within local authorities, and they are often dependent on individual teacher needs. At present, we do not mandate; we say that teachers use their professional judgment for their own continuing professional development. They have 35 hours a year—as I recall from the back of my brain—in which to complete CPD activities that they think will benefit their teaching and learning. We do not mandate at the current time.

There are disparate practices, and you are right to say that there will be different approaches to how teacher training is done, but the national list that the bill provides for will give us some certainty. Under the 2024 guidance, only training providers who have achieved Restraint Reduction Network certification should be used, and that approach is mirrored in Daniel Johnson’s approach. Consistency is provided for in the guidance and in the bill, but at present we have different approaches across the country. I think that the committee is taking evidence from local government on that.

Yes—and there are rural dynamics.

They do.

To be fair—as a woman with caveats—this is not a Government bill. I am being candid with the committee here. We published guidance last November; we are not even a year on since the guidance was published. We need to review that guidance, and it would be remiss of me not to say that we need the data to inform good law. That is important. I am supportive of the bill at stage 1, and I understand the aspiration. I have had a lot of engagement with Mr Johnson on that, and I have set out our position on a number of different areas in correspondence to the committee—in relation to the definitions, which we have discussed, and in relation to the duty to record, on which there is an issue in the bill, although I think it can be resolved pretty easily. There is no requirement for education authorities—our councils—or for independent or grant-aided schools to report the use of restraint and seclusion at a national level under the terms of the 2024 guidance. I think that Mr Johnson’s bill has grant-aided schools and independent schools reporting to the individual local authority. Is that correct?

That concern was put to the committee by Mike Corbett of the NASUWT, and I heard again from him last week that better reporting, which the convener has called for and which I support, might put children in danger to some extent. Those are issues that we would need to consider in the round. I was quite taken by Mike Corbett’s point, and we would need to be mindful of it. I am sure that there are ways in which we could work with local government to provide more reassurance around that, but it should not be the case that we are not informing parents about things for fear of other things happening. There might be something in the mix in relation to how we work with schools and parents in individual circumstances where there might be a concern at home about that type of behaviour.

They could be in that situation, but they might not have had training and might be reticent. It is difficult for me to comment on individual examples but, in my experience, teachers are very reticent ever to involve themselves physically in any debates that may ensue in school, because—responding to the points that the convener made at the start of the evidence session—they are fearful of what may happen as a result. That is also part of the trade unions’ position. We need to be careful about that.

The bill stipulates an approach that does not mandate training, although it does provide for a national list of providers, which we are supportive of. We have provided further detail in that regard in our guidance. I think that the approach that Mr Johnson has taken is the right one, and we will work with him further on training. The training that is required of staff can take a number of days, as I understand it—I think that the committee took evidence on that. We are talking about staff going out of school for quite a long time. We need to think about the costs that that will incur in terms of school budgets and what it might mean for people being out of school and for staff cover. All those things will need to be resolved at stage 2.

To my mind, training on restraint is not something that all teachers will want to take part in. In fact, many teachers will not want to be part of it, because it is for teachers who work in specialist provision or perhaps in ELC.

I am always sympathetic to having more money provided to my budget. I have seen the evidence from the EIS and the NASUWT. That is a routine ask from the trade unions—that will not surprise the committee. I accept that pressures on our schools in relation to additional support needs have increased, particularly in recent years. Last year’s budget included £28 million of extra money for additional support needs, which complements the additional £1 billion of spend in the previous financial year.

There is extra money going into the system, but I am sympathetic to the points about resourcing. We need to consider those issues with regard to the financial memorandum. We have raised some challenges in relation to inflation, which has not been accounted for and which I know that the committee will be keen to consider. We need to look at that. If we are looking at a need for extra resourcing, we must consider where that will come from. Of course, we are approaching the budget, so, if members have views on where extra money for education should come from, I am all ears and will engage on a cross-party basis, because I would be supportive of more funding coming to the education portfolio.