Chamber and committees

Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 326 stipulates that council membership must consist of a majority of persons who are registered teachers or college teaching staff. I cannot support that amendment, which I ask members to accept is too prescriptive and would exclude other important voices from the council.

I fully support the involvement of parents and carers in the advisory council, which Miles Briggs’s amendment 172 seeks to achieve. I have some reservations that prescribing that in legislation is not necessarily the best way to achieve a balanced and fully representative council, but it would be possible to do something on that in conjunction with the changes that Mr Greer is looking to make.

The protected characteristics are age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; and sexual orientation. As those are areas on which people can face discrimination in matters such as their employment, it is right that they be protected. However, when we look at those areas, we see that not all of them will translate into having to meet particular communication needs, which I think is the purpose of Ms Duncan-Glancy’s amendment in relation to the format of things such as annual reports. The public sector duty and the 2010 act would be preferable as a catch-all in that regard. We are not of the view that the protected characteristics approach in amendment 286, as drafted, will capture the essence of what she is driving at.

I want to come on to the impact of the 2010 act. The way in which the protected characteristics amendment would interact with the legislation would be quite challenging; indeed, I have given the example of people who are married or have a civil partner, and how you communicate with those groups. It is quite difficult to provide that sort of differentiation. The 2010 act will, of course, apply to qualifications Scotland, including the general and specific public sector equality duties. On that basis, I am not able to support amendment 286.

Mr Greer’s amendments 17, 22 and 23 call for consideration of users of the Scots language by qualifications Scotland and the chief inspector when publishing documents. The amendments align with the objectives of the Scottish Languages Bill, and I am happy to support them.

I move amendment 72.

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?