Hansard

Good morning, committee. Collectively and individually, the Government amendments in the group will give effect to and support our key priorities of delivering equity and excellence for all children and closing the attainment gap between children from our most deprived communities and those from our least deprived communities. The key Government amendments in the group are amendments 104, 106 and 107, and I will focus mostly on them, as they are interrelated. I will also respond to the non-Government amendments that have been lodged. I thank all the MSPs who have invested time and effort in considering how to enhance this element of the bill. Consequently, the first group of amendments is significant in size as well as in purpose, and I ask for the convener’s and the committee’s forbearance as I speak to it. The Government’s amendments have been framed to take account of the views that a wide range of partners have expressed through both our consultation on the national improvement framework and the constructive evidence that the committee took at stage 1. If the amendments are agreed to and the bill is passed, the amended sections will be part of the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000, which will result in a single coherent piece of legislation that covers all aspects of education improvement—a step that many have welcomed. Amendments 104, 105, 108 and 109 adjust the inequalities of outcome duties that form part 1 of the bill. In line with the committee’s suggestion at stage 1, we are strengthening the due regard duties that are placed on education authorities and ministers. They no longer mention the desirability of narrowing the attainment gap; instead, they recognise that such action is a necessity. The duty on education authorities is also being extended so that it covers not only the making of strategic decisions but the implementation of those decisions. Amendments 105 and 108, which are consequential, remove the inequalities of outcome duties in sections 1 and 2. Those changes represent a significant strengthening of part 1. We have listened to and taken on board the views of others. We have carefully considered Mark Griffin’s amendments 104A and 104D and Malcolm Chisholm’s amendments 104B, 104C and 104F, which seek to extend the inequalities of outcome duties to cover specific groups of children—namely, looked-after children and children with certain health conditions. I absolutely accept that those children can also face challenges in relation to attainment, and for that reason they are already covered by the provisions of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. I have previously made it clear that I am open to future discussions about how the regulation-making power that we are introducing might be used to support such children further. However, I am keen that we use the legislative opportunity of the bill to focus on the particular challenges that children who are impacted by poverty face. We already know that, too often, poverty and additional disadvantage are interlinked. Many of the children for whom we must close the attainment gap are disabled, have a long-term serious health condition or are looked after, and I am confident that our approach and focus will reach them. The regulation-making power also allows us to review and potentially change that approach in the future. Accordingly, I do not consider amendments 104A to 104D or 104F to be necessary. We are all aware of the challenges that children who grow up in poverty face, not least in accessing the whole of school life, and the Government is committed to addressing them. Although I welcome the intent of Mary Scanlon’s amendment 104E, I do not think that it is necessary. I am absolutely clear that, by placing a duty on the Scottish ministers and education authorities to “have due regard to” closing the attainment gap, we are requiring action to address issues that relate to access and participation. Similarly, there is limited value in Mark Griffin’s amendment 161, which seeks to introduce a statutory responsibility on Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education to inspect and report on one particular aspect of the quality of education that primary schools provide. Ministers can already direct inspectors to look at specific issues in a school or an aspect of education under sections 66(1) and 66(1AA) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, and they have done so in the past. Inspectors already consider and report on the differing performance of children from different backgrounds and situations across all stages of education. However, I offer my support for Mark Griffin’s amendment 104G. I am sure that the committee will accept the importance of including all relevant parties in the new decision-making process that amendment 104 will require. Amendment 104G would ensure that our efforts to raise attainment, which is a complex issue, were a shared endeavour, by recognising the crucial contribution that teachers—in this case, represented by their trade unions—can make to such decisions. I turn to amendments 106B and 107A to 107D from Mary Scanlon and amendments 162 and 163 from Mark Griffin, which focus on the setting of targets. I make it clear again that the Government’s stated aim is to close the attainment gap, not to reduce it by a certain amount. That will not happen overnight, but it is the challenge that we must set ourselves. To settle for anything less would be to fail our children and young people. The amendments raise two key questions: how do we most effectively measure the progress that children are making, and how do we assess the effectiveness of our efforts to address inequality? Can either aim be achieved through setting targets that focus on a small number of measures that view success through a narrow prism or focus on one element of learning, which might skew our view of a good education or give us a snapshot for a given group of children at a given time? Our experience with the targets that were set as part of the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000 and the national priorities for education, none of which were achieved, suggests not. Target setting also appears to go against the guiding principles of our education system and of curriculum for excellence, which is designed for every child to reach their full potential. Our approach of creating a national improvement framework aims to build on those guiding principles. We will create a framework that results in improved availability of high-quality data not just in relation to the senior phase, as is currently the case, but at key points throughout a child’s education. The framework will give parents, parliamentarians and the public regular reports on the progress that we are making, to improve standards for all and to raise attainment for children who are disadvantaged in their learning across a range of measures. The reports will provide the information that we need to assess the effectiveness of our collective approach and to identify where further improvement is required. For those reasons, I cannot support the members’ amendments. In my evidence, I advised the committee of my intention to give a statutory underpinning to the national improvement framework, which is what amendment 106 will achieve. It requires ministers to prepare such a framework and review it annually. Amendment 129, which is included in the group, will amend the long title to reflect the establishment of such a framework. Amendment 106 also declutters the current legislative landscape by removing the existing national priorities for education and associated reporting structures in the 2000 act. It is fair to say that our education system has moved on from those significantly. In the future, our priorities for the education system will be contained in the national improvement framework. They will be reviewed annually to reflect emerging trends and any evidence gathered through the framework. That will allow us to respond quickly without the need for secondary legislation, which is a key shortcoming of the existing arrangements under the 2000 act. We will consult and engage with key groups in our annual review, including education authorities, trade unions and—vitally—children and young people and their parents. That continues the approach that we have taken in developing the draft national improvement framework. Since publishing it in September, we have undertaken extensive engagement—we have reached and listened carefully to the views of more than 5,000 children, young people, parents, teachers, education professionals, academics and others. That engagement has identified widespread support for the priorities that are set out in the draft framework and a broad consensus that progress across the six drivers for improvement will deliver the benefits for children in Scotland that we all want. At the same time, questions about a number of issues have been raised. I reiterate my assurances, as well as those of the First Minister, in Parliament and elsewhere on those matters. We intend to avoid the perverse incentives that are associated with narrow and rigid approaches to national testing. We will support teachers’ flexibility and autonomy to exercise their professional judgment, which we acknowledge is key to assessing and supporting children’s progress and their learning, and we are determined to avoid the production of crude league tables. 11:15 Amendment 107 introduces a series of duties on the Scottish ministers and education authorities to produce annual plans and reports that describe past and future activity. The duties will require the Government and education authorities to set out the steps that we will take and to report on those taken, as well as the benefits that we want to achieve and those that we have achieved. That is critical to creating a rigorous evidence-led approach around the framework and to our efforts to close the attainment gap, as appropriate information will be gathered systematically to inform decision making, the allocation of resources and other improvement activity. Given that we are committing to the publication of annual reports at local and national level and to an annual review of the national improvement framework, I cannot see what value would be added by Mark Griffin’s suggestion, made through amendment 160, which seems to call for a one-off review approach to closing the attainment gap, when we are committed to continual improvement. Further, the idea that the review should describe our plans for setting the income tax rate seems to be inappropriate. Revenue that is generated from the Scottish rate resolution or devolved taxes will be added to the total funding that is available to the Scottish ministers. It will then be for ministers to decide how all the resources that are available to them should be allocated. As we have seen, the Government has had no hesitation in finding the necessary additional resources to give effect to our ambition of closing the attainment gap. To assist education authorities to maintain a focus on equity and excellence and on closing the attainment gap, my amendment 107 also requires them to prepare and publish an annual statement on how they will encourage equal opportunities. Those arrangements will replace those previously set out in section 5 of the 2000 act, which is being repealed by amendment 106. The detail to underpin the planning and reporting arrangements that I have described will be set out in the statutory guidance that accompanies the bill. That guidance will be issued under the existing section 13 of the 2000 act, which is why amendment 109 will remove section 3 of the bill. I am happy to support Mary Scanlon’s amendment 159, which puts beyond doubt the need for the guidance to be the subject of appropriate consultation.