Chamber and committees

I am sure that this is the group that we have all been waiting for—I can feel an outbreak of consensus coming.

Believe it or not, the presumption behind my amendment is not that I am trying to declare a republic one public body at a time. My views on the monarchy are well known, and I think that it is an antiquated concept to have inspectors and so on serving at the pleasure of His Majesty. However, that is not the motivation behind my amendment; it is about Government efficiency. I do not believe that orders in council and appointments via the head of state, whether that is the King or, if Britain ever becomes a republic, the president, are an efficient process, in particular in relation to a body such as the inspectorate.

On exactly that point, if the King were to refuse consent for the bill on that basis, I think that that would be a constitutional crisis, because we operate on the principle that our monarchy is politically independent. I do not agree that that is the reality, but that is the position that the Crown has set out: that it is independent on political matters. To veto a bill on that basis would, I think, be unprecedented and would cause a constitutional crisis. Much as that may be entertaining for some of my colleagues, I do not think that it is a likely outcome in this case.

I come to my very last point—as you will be glad to hear, convener. Members will note that I am talking about orders in council not being an effective process for appointments. The reason that I have not included all of that here is a simple practical one. Between us all, and those lodging amendments to the Housing (Scotland) Bill and other bills, we have put a heavy burden on Parliament’s legislation team in recent weeks. Therefore, I asked the team to draft a set of amendments that would test the issue in principle, and if the committee were minded to agree to those, I would lodge subsequent amendments at stage 3 to lay out the alternative process to orders in council. That would be the regular appointment process that is used by all other public bodies that are not Crown appointments. At that point, I will conclude.

I move amendment 74.

As I said, I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for the offer to work with me on my amendments. On that basis, I am happy not to proceed with amendments 77, 78 and 91 at this stage.

If Pam Duncan-Glancy were to press amendment 326, which relates to having a majority of teachers or lecturers on the advisory council, I would support it. However, I suggest that, much like our experience in relation to the discussion on the qualifications Scotland board, that amendment will not be agreed to. Perhaps, as an alternative, if Ms Duncan-Glancy wished to work with me and the cabinet secretary on finding an acceptable alternative to what I have proposed in amendment 78, we might be able to get closer towards the position that she and I share on the involvement of teachers and lecturers.

Amendment 77 withdrawn.

Amendment 78 not moved.

Schedule 2 agreed to.

I strongly agree with the principle of amendment 237 and with exactly the point that Pam Duncan-Glancy just made. Does she agree that there would need to be an equal and opposite duty, which could perhaps be included in the Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill, to ensure that those bodies also give due regard to any recommendations from qualifications Scotland, so that there is equality in both directions?

I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for her indications of support. Clearly, the drafting issue with amendment 280 will need to be addressed; the intention is for it to apply not simply to the first corporate plan, but to all corporate plans in perpetuity. Given that, and the cabinet secretary’s indication of her support for the principle, I am happy not to press amendment 280, but I will move amendments 35 and 71 once we come to consider those.

Amendment 280, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 281 not moved.

Good evening, everyone.

My first amendment in this group seeks to address what I see as one of the issues that have led us to the present point as regards the relative passivity of the SQA board. Recently, there have been significant improvements—the board culture has improved, and the new chair has had a transformative effect—but many of the issues that have led us to this point could and should have been effectively scrutinised and, in some cases, prevented by the board of the existing authority. That did not happen. At points in recent years, the board has not played a particularly active role, certainly in relation to decisions about the delivery of qualifications and matters of education policy. I think that the board has been mostly adequate in relation to corporate governance.

In amendment 280, I propose that the board would have to actively approve the corporate plan—it would force the board to hold a vote on the plan. The intention is to give the board a firm nudge and to ensure that, ultimately, it actively agrees to the plan, rather than passively nodding it through.

We absolutely would have been in a better place if learner and teacher charters had been in place in 2020. My concern is that it would inevitably have been the case, given the assumptions that I am making about what will probably end up being in the charters, that it would not have been possible to comply with everything in those circumstances—in some cases, for legitimate reasons.

If amendments 261 and 271 were agreed to, it would leave the organisation in a position in which it would be breaking the law by not complying with the charters, which would be a bit disproportionate. In instances where the organisation has not been able to, or has chosen not to, comply with the charters, there are ways that we can bake in processes to hold it to account that fall short of creating a situation whereby it has broken the law. That is why I like the monitoring compliance aspects, and I hope that they are brought back at stage 3.

I agree with amendment 285, which would provide transparency through an annual report, but I cannot support amendments 261 and 271 as they are, particularly given that we do not yet know what absolutely will be in the charters. At this point, setting such a high threshold and saying that the organisation would be breaking the law by not complying with the charters, even though we do not know what they say yet, goes too far. As I said, I like aspects of the amendments and I hope that they come back at stage 3.

I cannot support amendments 266, 274 and 279, because they undermine the principle of the charters being produced in conjunction with learners, teachers and practitioners. The charters must have their buy-in, regardless of whether we go with co-design or consultation. As much as I want the strategic advisory council to play a powerful role in the organisation, giving the council an effective veto over the charters, which is what those amendments would do, would undermine learners’ and teachers’ voices.

Similarly, I cannot support amendment 273, because the teacher and practitioner charter should be about teachers’ and practitioners’ interests, and there are other ways to bring other voices in. For example, I have proposed that it is appropriate to require qualifications Scotland to consult employers before producing a corporate plan. I do not think that it is appropriate for employers to be involved in the drafting of a charter for teachers and practitioners, which I hope will be produced by teachers and practitioners.

I am happy to move past Katy Clark’s amendments. It sounds as though she is not pressing them, given the discussions that we have had already.

I am sympathetic to the intent of Martin Whitfield’s amendment 258, which goes back to my co-design amendments, Pam Duncan-Glancy’s amendment 255 and the cabinet secretary’s amendment 69. My issue with amendment 258 is that it would preclude co-design, because it would put the charter’s production and drafting entirely in the hands of an individual who was separate from the organisation.

In a broad way, we are all trying to achieve roughly similar goals. If none of us are moving our amendments—I will not press amendments 68 and 70 if I get reassurance from the cabinet secretary around co-design—then I ask Mr Whitfield not to press amendment 258, because, as it stands, it would make it impossible to do co-design. There is probably a way that we can accommodate both of our objectives at stage 3.

I acknowledge the point and I am grateful for the intervention. I argue that, in general, as much as it is not perfect and we all have frustrations about a variety of public bodies, the vast majority of public bodies are more responsive to the Parliament than the SQA has been. It has been a pretty extreme example of disregarding recommendations and the views expressed by the Parliament over a long period. Indeed, if the report that our predecessor committee produced in 2017 or 2018—Liz Smith, the cabinet secretary and I were on the committee at the time—had been fully taken on board by the SQA, the bill might not have been necessary in the first place. It was given multiple opportunities.

I take on board John Mason’s point, but I do not think that it necessarily follows that other public bodies would simply cease having regard to the instructions that are issued by Parliament, because, in practice, they generally do have regard to them. The point that I am trying to address is about this specific body.

It is particularly relevant at the moment, given that the UK Government has framed the changes and cuts to the personal independence payment as being about getting people back into work, when that payment is not premised on people being out of work. Indeed, a lot of people who have PIP are already in work; it cannot get people into work if they are already there. If they are not there, it is not necessarily for reasons related to that payment. That UK Government decision has an effect on Scotland’s public finance decisions on social security, as you say.

My final question is about the extent to which you looked into the urban-rural divide, because I did not see that issue coming out in the report as much as I expected it to come out. We have talked about depopulation, which is a much sharper issue in rural parts of Scotland. It is also more of a west coast issue, so it affects some urban communities on the west coast—Inverclyde is probably the area that is worst affected—but, in general, depopulation is a much sharper issue in rural areas than it is in urban areas.

The provision of health and social care in rural areas is already more expensive. Depopulation makes the situation harder, because it is generally working-age people who are leaving, so it becomes harder to provide social care packages and so on. However, we are probably heading towards a tipping point at which depopulation in rural areas will also start to involve older people, because they will simply have to move to get the care that they need. We should not be getting to that point—it is not a good thing. How much does that issue factor into your thinking?

At the moment, depopulation is pushing up the cost of health and social care provision in rural areas, because working-age people are leaving. However, if we reach the tipping point at which older people, who are more in need of those services, are forced to leave—I am not saying that that will be a good thing, because it will not—that will bring down the cost of provision, because people will have to move to urban areas where provision exists.