Chamber and committees

I have had a lot of engagement with the trade unions. As the committee might be aware, I have done that deliberately over a number of months to ensure that we had a ready flow of information coming from the staff in relation to their experience of what was happening in the institution, because not knowing what is happening continues to cause an inordinate amount of stress to staff and students, and, as cabinet secretary, I am very mindful of that. That being said, the recovery plan does not belong to the Government; it belongs to Dundee university, so the university has to engage with staff and students, and it is a matter for the current management team to undertake that.

With regard to the conditions, I think that Ms Duncan-Glancy said that she understands that one of the conditions is that the university will engage with staff and students. I think that that was an ask from the SFC in the correspondence, but in relation to the conditions that the Government will attach directly to the funding, I have not yet been provided with that advice from the SFC. I suspect that I will hear more after this meeting.

We have not yet reviewed the guidance, so it would be pre-emptive of me to say that we have learned lessons from it. The guidance has not even been in place for a year, so the review will allow us to learn lessons. It is important that we allow the review to be conducted, regardless of the passage of this legislation.

I am live to the concerns that have been raised by the NASUWT. However, the committee also heard from Mike Corbett—I discussed the issue with him only last week—that his preference is that we look again at the guidance and, for example, at the approach that we have adopted in relation to the national behaviour action plan, on which the NASUWT has played a key role. The NASUWT was also involved in the publication of the guidance. I know that it was critical of the guidance, but it was also involved in its formation.

As I understand it, the view of the NASUWT is that we should look again at the non-statutory guidance and make improvements to it, working with the professional associations, parents, carers and others, as opposed to putting it on a statutory footing. I am sure that Mike Corbett will correct me if I am wrong in that interpretation. We discussed the guidance last week, and he is critical of it, but his view—certainly, the view that was expressed to me—is that the preference of the NASUWT is that the guidance be improved, as opposed to moving it on to a statutory footing.

To go back to the points that I made to the convener, Mike Corbett has concerns about teachers and there are fears in the profession about what the guidance might say if it were to be put on a statutory footing.

No.

Look, it has been challenging, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

Yes, but I think that it will be challenging to do that. As the committee will know, local government will have a strong view on the creation of league tables. In education, whether it is about behaviour or exclusion rates, there is often a real reticence on the part of local government partners to have an approach that measures them against one another.

I also think that such an approach—which I do not support—would not be helpful. Reporting might increase in a local authority, which would be a good thing, but then it might feel under the spotlight, simply because of that increase. We have seen that with some local authorities with regard to behaviour—I think that it is quite interesting.

I hear the point that Ms Duncan-Glancy is making, but I think that we need to deal with these issues very carefully. Moreover, it should not take away from the fact that, individually, parents and carers should know of incidents of restraint as and when they happen, and that they should be informed as a matter of course. Our national guidance sets that out, and it is certainly our expectation, but I think that the bill will put it beyond doubt, because it will put it on a statutory footing.

I agree with your view, convener, that it should be prioritised, and the national guidance sets out that approach. I do not think that we are going to move away from that view.

Yes. With regard to children attending a school outwith their own area, we are of the view that the report should be made to their local authority. For example, if the placing request caame from, say, the Highland Council for a young person to be placed in Moray, the report should go to where the placing request—[Interruption.] I am just checking that with officials, but yes, there is a bit of an issue in that respect.

As for the independent sector, I know that the Scottish Council of Independent Schools is broadly supportive of the bill, but there are issues there. For example, we do not want dual reporting. However, we think that amendments could be lodged at stage 2 that would resolve such issues.

I think that it is fair to say that the trade unions are not supportive of the legislation, so the Parliament needs to be mindful of that. There is quite a lot of support in the committee for the bill, and, of course, the Government is supporting it at stage 1, too, but we need to work with the trade unions on it.

There is more that we can do in this space to provide reassurance, and I would want to work with Mr Johnson in engaging with the professional associations. They are clear that they do not want the guidance to be put on a statutory footing. For all the reasons that Mike Corbett has set out to the committee, their preference would be for us to work with them on improving the guidance and perhaps making it a bit stronger, as we have done with behaviour. We can give more concrete examples and more support to the profession in that kind of non-statutory space, but that is not where we are here.

I am more than happy to engage with the trade unions on this. However, they have a number of concerns, and I come back to Mr Rennie’s point about the bill creating a chilling effect and, as a result, teachers not using restraint. An alternative view is the evidence that the committee took from Barnardo’s, which said that, on the contrary, there might be an increase in the use of restraint as a result of the legislation. We need to be mindful of those views.

I would hope that our engagement with the professional associations will not create challenges, but I have met them and have listened to their challenge. We need to do that as the bill progresses.

Well, anything can happen in Scottish education, Mr Greer. Thinking of the most recent conversation that I had with the NASUWT and the EIS, which was last week, I would say no, but that does not preclude it from happening in the future.

I sat in the stage 1 debate, which Mr Macpherson was thrown into in his first week after being appointed as the Minister for Higher and Further Education. There are a lot of things happening in tertiary education, which Government needs to reflect on and respond to as a result of the stage 1 debate. I am not going to answer the specific points that Mr Greer made, but we are considering those things in the round. I cannot think of where there has been a legislative block to ministerial action in relation to what has happened at Dundee, but I think that there is a need for greater reassurance.

The issue is that these are independent and autonomous institutions, and we need to be mindful of the Office for National Statistics classification and what bringing any institution closer to Government might do to those institutions. In my view, it would be extremely dangerous if that were to take place; I am sure that Professor Seaton and others will have a view on that when the committee hears from them shortly.

We need to be careful about the role of Government and the role of our independent institutions, but we also need reassurance. That is the point that Mr Briggs was pursuing, and I am in firm agreement with it. We have been raising these issues with the SFC, and the outcome of the Gillies review gives us some pause for thought about how there can be better transparency with regard to some of the financial issues that arose at Dundee university.