Chamber and committees

I discussed that with the chief executive of the GTCS very recently—I think that it was last week or the week before—and I have agreed to meet Disclosure Scotland to discuss it. If it would be helpful, I could write to update the committee on that, because I share the concern that has been raised.

That relates to the point that I made previously about the perception—real or otherwise—that joining the inspectorate with Education Scotland was not good for independence or accountability. Separating the role and legislating for the post gives it objectivity and clarifies roles and accountability for improvement. That is a pretty significant shift.

I was also quite taken by some of the evidence that the committee had from Fife Council—it might have been written evidence—about there being a gap in the system, in that without the annual reports that the chief inspector would have published previously, local authorities do not necessarily have national guidance on their improvement priorities such as used to exist in the system. It is important that we bring that back.

I was also quite taken by evidence that the committee heard from Professor Graham Donaldson, who essentially talked about the challenges in the system just now, and how the role of inspection is meant to address them—it is meant to flag up areas of concern.

Let us take attendance and behaviour: those issues should have been known about and flagged up through inspection reports. There is a wider challenge. It is not necessarily about the legislation but about the purpose of inspection, which is why Janie McManus, the interim chief inspector, is carrying out a review of the inspection framework to ensure that our inspection reports are challenging the system robustly and giving it support where it is needed, and that they are flagging up to the Scottish Government, and to me as cabinet secretary, where the challenges are in the system.

This time last year, we had a range of debates on behaviour. Throughout that time, from the Government’s perspective, the evidence base was quite reliant on the “Behaviour in Scottish Schools 2023” research that was published last November. The most recent report before that was undertaken in 2016, so there was a gap. In that time, I would have expected that inspection reports would have provided challenge and advice to ministers, but that is not necessarily captured in how we currently inspect schools. I suppose that there is a wider question about whether our inspection reports are asking the right things. That is why Janie McManus’s work on the framework is really important.

To go back to Mr Kidd’s original question, legislating to create the post sends a message to the system that we have an independent and impartial chief inspector who will challenge me, as cabinet secretary, and will challenge local authorities, which have the statutory responsibility for education.

The process is very technical. It is also quite unique because, although the post of chief inspector existed previously, it was not legislated for. I am therefore required to complete the process under section 126 of the Scotland Act 1998. We need to work with the United Kingdom Government on that, because it is outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament. We propose that that will be done via a section 104 order, so I need to write to and engage on that with the Secretary of State for Education and with other devolved Administrations. The order is being prepared, alongside passage of the bill, in order to have it ready to be laid in Westminster after the act receives royal assent. We expect completion of the bill process to be in the summer, which will allow the chief inspector’s office to be operational by autumn next year.

As committee members will be aware, we are already undertaking appointment for the chief inspector’s substantive role. It is important to say that Janie McManus is currently in the interim role.

The chief inspector will be accountable to Parliament in the same way as other public roles are accountable to Parliament—for example, through their being called to give evidence at the committee. Additionally, the chief inspector will be required to lay the inspection plan in Parliament. It is a senior civil service appointment, so the approach is very similar to that for other appointments in that space. The Civil Service Commission will also be involved in the process.

No. In my experience, direction is very rarely deployed. I think that I have deployed it only once. We discussed this yesterday: it has been used only eight times, I think. Direction is very rarely used and, when it is used, it is usually at the behest of a senior member of HMIE, who would provide the cabinet secretary with advice.

It might be that a cabinet secretary takes a decision—I think that it has happened in the past—to direct inspection, if issues have been raised with them directly. However, in my experience, the evidence base comes from the inspectorate, which raises concerns with me, and we then act to provide it with the powers to carry out an inspection.

We will still be able to request that inspections be carried out by the chief inspector, but there is quite a significant movement away from ministerial power and towards the chief inspector providing the main thrust of direction.

Yes.

We did not need to legislate for the office of chief inspector, but I chose to do so in order to enhance the inspectorate’s independence from ministers. That independent role and the challenge to Government are really important. If anything, the bill takes ministerial power away and empowers the chief inspector to lead on direction of inspection. They will no longer, for example, as is the case at the current time, need to come to me for permission if they think that they need to carry out an inspection for whatever reason. Therefore, the bill actually dilutes ministerial power.

All of that was considered by the previous cabinet secretary prior to my time in office. On reforming the SQA, we could have made administrative changes to the body, which might not have needed primary legislation. We could have changed what it is called and how some of the governance structure looks. However, the bill is fundamentally about rebuilding trust and saying that things have to be different. I am of the view that, if we had not taken this approach, we would not have taken people with us.

We will probably come on to talk about the people who are involved. The committee will be aware that we have a new chair in Shirley Rogers, which has been key to driving some changes in the organisation. Shirley has been tasked with taking a range of measures in relation to looking at our leadership structures, for example, which we might come on to talk about later. We also have a range of new board appointments, which officials assure me will be announced and confirmed imminently, which is important in shifting some of the balance.

I go back to the point that I made to George Adam: we still need a qualifications body to exist at the end of the process, but the test will be how it engages with parents, teachers and pupils, and how that will be different. That takes me to the governance structures. Embedding the learner and teacher voices in the governance structures is really important. For too long, in my experience—having worked in schools—it often felt as though the SQA was quite detached from the reality of what went on in our schools. For example, changes might be made to a qualifications requirement in the middle of the academic year, which was deeply frustrating for teachers. That does not happen any more. There is much more engagement, as the committee has heard.

However, we need to continue that improvement journey. Mr Kerr is right that we will be judged on that. That cultural change will not happen overnight with legislative change, so we need to continue to embed it through the governance structures and the right people. The appointment of Shirley Rogers is really important in that regard, as are the appointments of the new board members that I referenced and the work that she is undertaking in relation to whether the current leadership structures in the organisation are fit for purpose for a new qualifications body.

That is an interesting point. I gave Parliament the update on Professor Hayward’s recommendations a couple of weeks ago. In that statement, I set out my intention to come back before the end of the year to set out our updated national improvement framework, which will look at that longer-term strategic vision—which, to my mind, pulls together the strings from all those reports.

It is really important that the approach is not siloed. We need to reform the qualifications body. I also need to deliver on the aspirations of Professor Hayward’s review, but I cannot do so without that reform of the qualifications body, so the chronology is important. As the committee will be aware, I built in an extra year. Committee members might argue that that was the wrong thing to do, but I believe that it was important because hearing the voices of teachers is really important.

Mr Dey is leading on the wider work in relation to post-school reform. That work needs to sit together with our wider qualifications reform, which is linked to the work on accreditation. We might come on to talk about the latter. Fiona Robertson gave an update on her work in relation to accreditation. It is really important that we consider the matter holistically across our education system.

My final point in response to your question concerns our governance structure in relation to post-school and education reform. I have brought those two pieces together in Government. This might not be of interest to the committee, but we were previously quite siloed—I sat on one side with my responsibilities as cabinet secretary and Mr Dey sat on the other. I brought the two teams together in the overall governance structure of education reform in order to avoid the siloed approach that Mr Kerr has spoken to.