Chamber and committees

As Shirley-Anne Somerville set out last year, we would look at that on a case-by-case basis. I recognise that, right now, although we are talking about teacher numbers in the round, it is much easier to recruit teachers in Edinburgh than in the Highlands and Islands, for example. We need to be mindful of that and of subject variation, and we need to look at the issue on a case-by-case basis.

The education budget, like every budget in the Scottish Government, is not immune to the impacts of inflationary pressures. We need to be mindful of that.

We increased investment in the SAC programme from £750 million during the last parliamentary year to £1 billion during the course of this parliamentary year. In relation to the question that Pam Duncan-Glancy asked about four-year funding cycles, it is important to give headteachers certainty and to allow them to plan in relation to staffing. Knowing that there will be £520 million of pupil equity funding over four years gives them that certainty.

The additionality that we bring is also shown in the fact that, in Scotland, we spend more per pupil than any other part of the United Kingdom. Our spending per pupil was around £1,300—18 per cent—higher than in other parts of the UK.

We have also had to absorb some of the financial pressures that have surrounded the teachers’ pay deal. I think that the deal was the right thing to do, but I am mindful of its impact across the budget and on other parts of the Scottish Government.

We have the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the UK, and we have a good and strong story to tell about investment from the Government, but I acknowledge the impact that inflation has had in relation to erosion of spending power in the education and skills portfolio.

More broadly, across the Scottish Government there is less money to go round than there was previously. I am not going to make political points about that this morning, because it is important that we talk about the detail of educational outcomes, but we should be mindful that external factors relating to inflationary pressures are having an impact on funding for all cabinet secretaries and on how we have to cut the cake.

I will come back to the work on free school meals, because it is important, given that we are moving to universality in primary schools.

In relation to your first point, we know that we have been increasing our local government spend. Local authorities spent about £6.9 billion on education in Scotland. We need to be mindful of the responsibilities of local authorities in relation to education spend in addition to what is ring fenced from the Scottish Government. In comparison, the amount is relatively small. We have increased spending on education; there was a real-terms increase of 7.2 per cent in 2020-21.

It will be challenging to calculate PEF when free school meals become universal. That will involve us working with Social Security Scotland and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I will bring in Alison Taylor on that, because officials are currently working on the calculation, which will be challenging as we move forward and away from the measure that we currently use. We recognise that universality will necessitate use of a different measure.

If Mr Greer would like to write to Mr Dey—I am now issuing him homework—or to me directly, I will ensure that we get him a response on that issue. I would be keen to hear a bit more about the detail of that specific instance and about the picture nationally and how that is playing out, as I recognise the concerns.

We can selectively choose a year that we want to, I suppose; that would be the answer to Ms Duncan-Glancy’s question. My closest measure here is 2019, but even 2019 and the three years prior to that do not compare to 2023, because our young people have lived through a pandemic. I am not sure that I would accept the suggestion that their outcomes in relation to their academic attainment should be measured bluntly against that.

More generally, we need to be very careful in how we frame some of this, because our young people lived through a pandemic and were out of school for such a long time. We have just heard about issues with attendance. Some young people are not engaging. For many of them, getting them to engage in formal education will be very challenging.

I know that we will come on to talk about behaviour, but I see that as part of the wider challenge in relation to attainment. Do I think that we need to keep going in relation to closing the gap? Absolutely, but we also need to be mindful of that shift in the context. It is not just about Covid; it is also about the cost of living crisis and things getting much harder for families than they were previously—in the three years that Ms Duncan-Glancy spoke about, for example. Inflationary pressures were not where they are now at that time, and it is really important that we all take cognisance of that in relation to the targets that we have set.

We absolutely need to close the poverty-related attainment gap, but we need to be mindful of the new normal that the pandemic has created and that the economic conditions have necessitated in recent years. That is having an impact on our young people before they even enter the school gates, never mind when they are sitting their exams.

I state that headteachers must not have that uncertainty: they must know that the funding will flow in those four-year cycles. As far as I am concerned, in relation to my responsibilities, headteachers should and must have that certainty. The premise behind attaching pupil equity funding to four-yearly funding cycles was about giving certainty—giving headteachers the opportunity to plan and recruit on a non-temporary basis, for example. Any movement away from that would be to the detriment of our young people.

Obviously, I shared with the committee—it would have been late last night—the most up-to-date report that we have on that. When PEF was first introduced and sat more generally as a programme, it was meant to be additional to the system. As time has progressed, the system has evolved and, to be blunt, we are living through very challenging financial times, so there is, within our school system, probably now a degree of reliance on that funding structure. We need to be cognisant of that. At the start, PEF was meant to bring additionality, and I think that it still brings a level of additionality. However, I think that our schools depend on it now and that any movement away from it in the future would be very challenging.

One of the biggest privileges in my job as cabinet secretary is that, pretty much weekly, I go into schools where I see the impact that that spend is having. If you speak to any headteacher—as, I am sure, you all do in your constituencies—they will tell you that the funding is making a real difference where it matters in our schools. It empowers our headteachers and allows additionality to be brought in through additional staff members or people from external organisations—for example, third sector organisations that provide mental health support to our young people. We need to be very clear that the additionality that PEF and SAC originally provided have become intrinsic to our school offer, and I am very keen that we protect that additionality in the system.

Going back to Mike Russell’s time, I am fairly certain that he was cabinet secretary in 2014, which was when we reclassified the FE sector. The status of the college sector is unlike that of our executive agencies and therefore the policy of having no compulsory redundancies does not apply in the same way that it would have done previously.

In 2014?

I thank Mr Rennie for his question. I have not seen the article in question, but I would be happy to write to the member and the committee with more detail. As I understand it, councils will be able to reprofile their planned £7 million contribution to the redress scheme in 2024-25. They will still have to maintain their agreed overall contribution of £100 million, with the Scottish Government ensuring that sufficient savings are available in the interim. As such, the decision will not have a detrimental impact on operation of the scheme.

Nonetheless, I very much recognise the sentiment and the importance of the member’s question. As I have intimated to the member, I would be more than happy to write to him directly on the matter, or to the committee more broadly, because I recognise the sensitivities in this instance.