Chamber and committees

My final question is for Larry Flanagan, given that his union represents college lecturers.

The experience of college students and lecturers is a significantly underexplored aspect of the past two years, but I have had a college student get in touch with me recently to point out what they felt was the inequality of a system in which they were, in the end, graded on the same terms as any school pupil even though they had spent the entire year learning remotely. There were at least periods of time when school students were in school in a classroom, but that was not the experience of college students. How would you reflect on the communication that the SQA issued to both college lecturers and college students? What was their experience relative to that of teachers and pupils in schools?

Tara Lillis, were you in a similar position of representing a union that was not on any of the relevant Government groups?

Given that both processes feed into the same framework, how do we prevent them becoming siloed?

Thank you. I am sure that we will want to revisit that issue.

My next question goes back to Michelle Thomson’s initial line of questioning about the top-line measurements of “improving”, “maintaining” and “worsening”. I accept completely that that is the top line of what is a very detailed process and that there is much more granular data at every level beneath that. However, I am concerned that it might be a touch too simplified even for a top line.

For example, the active travel measurement is classified as “improving”, although it is very far from hitting the targets that the Scottish Government has set: 4 per cent of journeys are now made by cycling, whereas the 2020 target was for 10 per cent. Is there a danger that the “improving” classification simplifies some of the measurements slightly too much, in that a whole range of them could be improving only glacially, and not be on a trajectory towards the targets that have been set?

Thank you for that answer. I have no doubt that ministers are going into this in a far greater level of detail than just that top-line measurement. However, to go back to John Mason’s line of questioning, if we are trying to get wider buy-in from the public, the various levels of the state and the third sector, is there not a question about whether that measurement is a useful presentation for those who are engaging only at a surface level?

My final question is on the role of transport in the NPF. The one obvious transport indicator is the active travel one that we have just mentioned. Transport is tangentially related to a couple of others: greenhouse gas emissions and public satisfaction with public services, for which public transport is mentioned. However, it seems to be the one major area of Government responsibility that is not directly addressed. Health education, environment and economy are all categories under which groups of outcomes are measured. Transport is not one of those categories. It has that one specific indicator on active travel but in everything else it is just tangentially related to an indicator.

Given the importance of transport for our net zero ambitions, in particular, and the challenges in reducing emissions from transport compared with all other sectors, do you have any concern that the NPF is perhaps not taking transport into account to the extent that is needed in order to reach those wider outcomes?

I have a question on the two upcoming processes that will affect the performance framework, one of which is the review of national outcomes. The Government has also confirmed that the proposed wellbeing and sustainable development bill will have some effect on the NPF. Can you explain how those two processes will interact? Will it be sequential, so that drafting of the bill will take place only after the review of national outcomes, or will the processes overlap and interact?

In the earlier part of our meeting, Linda Somerville from the STUC mentioned that its position is that we need to tax not just income, but wealth. Councillor Macgregor talked about other local revenue-raising opportunities, the transient visitor levy being one example. It was derailed by Covid, but there is still a broad appetite to move in that direction. We talked a moment ago about creative policy solutions being adopted in Scotland in the past years. Can other creative solutions for revenue raising be found at a local level?

To clarify, is the work that is being done purely internal to COSLA and the cross-party discussions that you talked about? Have any interim discussions been held with the Scottish Government at this point?

My first question is probably for Gail Macgregor. Your submission makes what sounds like an entirely sensible point about the advantage if the review of the UK’s fiscal framework was to include consideration of the local government fiscal framework that is being developed. However, that begs a question of sequencing. I apologise if the information is already in the public domain and I should know it but, in the first instance, what timescale are you working to with the development of the local government fiscal framework?