Chamber and committees

Thank you. That is all from me.

I will continue on the wider issue around local government, because it raises a question about scrutiny. Parliament constantly grapples with whether we scrutinise the Government effectively. It is a single institution, so we can have a national conversation about effective scrutiny of the Scottish Government, but that is not the case with 32 different local authorities.

Is there effective scrutiny of the delivery of public services at individual council level? I do not ask that question to imply criticism of councillors; my concern is that we are full-time elected parliamentarians with considerable staff and resource support, whereas the role of a councillor is part time with almost no support. That raises concerns about how effectively councillors can scrutinise the delivery of public services in their communities. Is that a barrier to delivering on Christie in the way that we have spent the past hour or so talking about?

My second question follows up on Stephen Boyle’s earlier comments about what we are measuring and what data we are collecting. We spend a lot of time focusing on inputs instead of on the outcomes that we are trying to get from these processes. That touches on something in Professor Roy’s written submission about how the national performance framework was supposed to change that. It was supposed to shift us away from a focus on inputs and towards measuring those outcomes and delivering on that aspect of the Christie commission’s recommendations. From your perspective, has the NPF helped? Has it had a tangible impact?

I hope that you are able to hear me. I apologise, but, because of the size of the event, the ventilation is on strong, so if the background noise is—

Yes. I realise that I explained that in the pre-brief but not when the meeting went into public session. I apologise to our witnesses that I have to drop out. I will not go on for too long, because—[Inaudible.]—questions have already been asked. I am interested in the part of your submission that mentions the work that you are planning on the provision of additional support for learning in schools. Could you lay out what you envisage for the scope of that work? Is it a look into the provision for additional support needs in mainstream schools? Will you consider specialist schools or will you look across the board at all ASN provision in tertiary education?

That might be an area of interest for the committee in the future. In so far as the Government has explained it, one of the intended purposes of the SNSAs is to measure our progress in narrowing the attainment gap, given the targeted funding through the attainment challenge fund and so on. If SNSAs are working as intended, we should, in theory, be able to use the data that they produce to measure whether the targeted funding interventions are working. I encourage committee colleagues to consider that area—[Inaudible.] It would be helpful if further thought could be given to whether they are fulfilling that purpose in relation to the targeted funding.

Stephen, I recall that, quite a few years ago now, I met your predecessor to discuss the scope of a potential inquiry into ASN services. My office has built up quite a lot of data on that over the years, with various freedom of information requests, written questions and so on, and I would be more than happy to pass that to you.

My other question concerns a different area. In paragraph 9 of your written submission to the committee, you make a point about measuring against the wider objectives of curriculum for excellence, the lack of data and the lack of systems for measuring against those wider objectives, rather than just considering attainment in assessed subjects. If you could expand on that, I am keen to know what areas of data you think are missing in those wider—[Inaudible.]—health and wellbeing, and other areas, too. In what areas is there a significant lack of data that inhibits your ability to conduct your work?

I have a final question on that theme. You mentioned the similarities between comments that you have made and what is in the OECD report. The OECD report offers another level of detail, and it is specifically critical of the value of the data produced by the Scottish national standardised assessments. I would be interested in your view on that. Do the SNSAs produce data that is useful to you for your objectives at the national level? An area of interest for our predecessor committee was trying to get a handle on the value of SNSAs as individual formative data for teachers interacting with individual pupils versus their value as a national or even a local authority level dataset. Do you find the dataset at either a regional or a national level to be useful? Are there better ways to collect such data?

I want to pick up on Oliver Mundell’s line of questioning about circumstances that might affect the status of a waiver. During the bill process, we amended the provisions to give the Scottish ministers the power to remove an organisation from the contributors list, most obviously if the organisation does not make the contribution that is due. What would happen in the event that an applicant had already signed a waiver in respect of an organisation that was subsequently removed from the list because it had not made a fair and meaningful contribution? Would there be an opportunity to annul waivers in those circumstances, or would they still stand because they had been signed before the decision was made to remove the organisation from the list?

I presume that, if an organisation had been removed from the list because it had not contributed, the payment that was made to the survivor would come from Scottish Government funds.