Nico McKenzie-Juetten also highlighted the point that, if we took a truncated approach, it might lead to a scenario in which some of the board appointments would be unregulated, which would be highly unusual.

As education secretary, it is always very difficult for me to comment on specific circumstances. If you want to share with me details of the school or the local authority, I will be happy to ask officials to speak to them directly about that.

On the general observation, we know that ASN can sometimes be a hindrance to attendance if the necessary support is not in place. In the debate last night, I spoke about a constituent of mine who had to take her local authority to a tribunal. It ruled in her favour, but the fight to get support that she is legally entitled to under the ASL legislation was an inordinate pressure on her and her family.

You mentioned school buildings. It is difficult for me to comment on them as they belong to local authorities, but no impediment should be put in place to a young person accessing their education. The legislation sets out that it is a legal requirement to send your child or young person to school. I do not want to take away from the challenge that that presents for a number of parents, as has been the case post-pandemic in particular. We want to have a really supportive approach to helping parents with that. Lots of approaches have been used with PEF, which I have spoken about, and headteachers use various approaches.

It is quite difficult for me to speak to the specifics that you have mentioned without knowing a bit more about the background. If you want to share more with me, either after the session or in writing, I will be more than happy to meet you and the parents in order to hear a bit more and to engage with the local authority in question. We want those young people to be in school.

We need attainment to improve across the piece—that is the focus of today’s evidence session—but attainment is particularly important for young people with an identified additional support need. We want them to be in education, and we want no barriers to be in their way to accessing it. I am happy to engage with you more on the issue.

Convener, I am not sure that, in 2016, even you could have anticipated a global pandemic.

We are making progress, and I want to come on to talk about that progress.

I think that you are asking me whether there are things that we could have done differently.

That measure tells us about the totality of the progress that has been made. I go back to how positive destinations were tracked in 2009-10, when a cohort of young people were leaving school with nothing.

The stretch aims have been important to changing our funding model and getting local authorities to buy into the process. We have talked about the challenge and the friction between local and central Government on delivering on the ambition, and the stretch aims tied the funding to delivering improvements. As I mentioned in response to a question from Mr Rennie, if they were achieved, we would see the attainment gap narrow by 30 per cent by 2026, which would be welcome.

I am told that most local authorities are on track to achieve or exceed their stretch aims. Mr Gregory might want to say a bit more about the work of his team. However, I remember being in one of my first meetings when I was appointed as education secretary—Alison Taylor and David Gregory might remember this—and talking about the substantial work that they had to undertake with local authorities to get them to agree to the stretch aims, which was evidence of the partnership approach that we have to have in Scottish education. It has been a success.

I will allow David Gregory to talk about some of the work that his team does to provide support at the local level. We appreciate that this cannot just be a one-way street with local government. We have to give it that additionality and support.

We need to be a wee bit careful with the ACEL data, as I am sure that you will be Mr Rennie, because that data is predicated on teacher judgment and I do not think that any member around this table would question teachers’ judgment.

I do not want to interrupt you. We have already had an episode of that today and I am keen to avoid it.

I do not accept that, Mr Rennie. I go back to the point that I made in relation to the data being informed by teacher judgment. Prior to the Government introducing the ACEL data measurement, there was no way for us to track, nationally, the progress that was being made in our primary schools. The introduction of that measurement has been central to providing us with a data set and a measurement at the national level, so that we can track the progress about which Mr Rennie speaks. For example, in numeracy, a record 80.3 per cent of pupils in P1, P4 and P7 have reached expected levels, while S3 pupils reached a new high of 90.3 per cent. In literacy, achievement is also at a record high in both primary and secondary. I might bring in David Gregory, for an Education Scotland perspective on the rigour of the challenge. Mr Rennie and I could have a political debate about it, but let me pass to a member of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education, who might be able to give his views.