 Good morning, everybody. I welcome you to the 17th meeting of the Education and Culture Committee in 2015. I remind everybody to make sure that all electronic devices are switched off at all times. The first item is for us to decide whether to take items 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in private. Is that agreed? Yes. That's agreed. Thank you. Our next item is to continue our evidence-taking on the Education Scotland bill. We will take evidence today from three panels of witnesses. I welcome to the first panel Bruce Robertson OBE and John Stoddter, Association of Directors of Education in Scotland. Good morning, and Councillor Michael Cook and Robert Nicol, both from COSLA. Good morning, gentlemen. Before I move straight to questions, we are all very busy scheduled this morning. Given that you are both representing the same organisations, could I ask one of you to answer for that organisation rather than both of you answering for the organisation? If there is a COSLA representative or an audience representative answering the question, that would be appreciated to try to minimise the amount of time that we have to take up on the questions. I am going to move straight to questions now. I am going to begin the session with George Adam. I would like to ask initially about the attainment part of the bill in particular. I have read all the evidence, and the COSLA submission is quite negative towards the bill in itself, and so much of its policy is very negative with regard to it. My initial question would be to COSLA. Is there not an issue with attainment, and is everything that is happening within your organisation's local government perfect and going forward? Is there not a need to be able to push those ideals forward? Clearly, the world is not perfect. In terms of recognising the importance of attainment as a proposition, that is something that local authorities will understand. There was an organised day recently at the beginning of June, when local authorities gathered together to consider precisely this issue, something that they have been engaged in many years. At the same time, a bill that has been in development here, which originally started its consultation back in 2014, contained no proposition with regard to attainment at that time. Lo and behold, in January of this year, it was proposed that attainment should be included. Unfortunately, that gives us sense that this is a rather hurried proposition. It is over-hasty, it has not been adequately consulted on, and the result is that it looks like it has been parachuted into the bill at last moment. That, I think, is unfortunate. A much more engaged and consultative approach with regard to how we collectively across national government and local government deal with the question of attainment would have been much more appropriate. I can say in terms of my own local authority that I am in no doubt where the real interest is. Like every authority in the land, I want to see that attainment gap in respect of deprivation closed. We are well apprised of that. It is something that we want to push forward. I recognise that the Scottish Government wants to do also, let's have a proper conversation about it rather than doing something that is half baked and half hearted. OK, then. Councillor Cook, you say that it is an issue that has been growing on going for many years, and that is true in my constituency. Fergusley Park is the biggest area of deprivation in certain parts of it in the whole of Scotland, but it has been since my father was born there in the 1940s. There has to be a situation where we all work together to try and get to that stage. This has been a commitment of the Scottish Government to try and say that there is an issue with attainment and we have to deliver it. Now, everything that COSLA has put down in its report has been more or less saying that you guys are dealing with it and you are working with it and you don't need anyone else to work with you to do it. Is it not the case that we should be pushing this forward if we are talking about an area like Fergusley Park in Paisley that has been like that since the 1940s and attainment has been very similar? Should we not be moving forward? I suggest that you, by way of first response, say that clearly those deep-seated problems have got more than to do with simply education. There is a whole range of issues that speak to the fact that there is that deprivation gap. It needs a considered and it needs a holistic approach. What I have said to you already is that, unfortunately, the way the bill has been constructed and consulted on is not reflective of that kind of approach. It would have been much more appropriate had there been a detailed consideration, a proper consultation on the question of attainment and, together—this is really the fundamental proposition—the Scottish Government and local government might have constructed something purposeful, which really does begin to deliver in terms of dealing with this issue. However, as I said to you, this is not merely an education proposition, it is much broader and more fundamental than that. It engages departments across local authorities and it engages a range of departments across Government as well. I agree with that, Councillor Cook, but one of the things that has come from a local government background to myself, I am fully aware that, no matter what the Government says, COSLA just says no at this stage. We are not getting to a stage where we have to actually say that there is constant. That could be very similar to a submission made by COSLA from other things that they have put forward as well. I am sorry, but that is just a misreading of the position. I am not here to be a partisan. Our responsibility is to look at the propositions as they are put in front of us and then to make a sober judgment about that. The fact is that this is not simply us shooting from the hip coming to you because it is Scottish Government, therefore we do not like that. What happens here is the most profound consultation within local government as to what our collective response should be. What you will find for the most part, I suspect, is that ADES colleagues who have professional expertise of generations of experience and education broadly agree with us about some of the problems with the proposition and the bill in general. That brings me to ADES as well, because on the whole, ADES seems to be a little more positive towards the bill as is. I was wondering what we have already discussed. Is there anything, Bruce, that you could maybe chip in at this point? I would start with the fact that this is the most challenging phenomenon in Scottish education and has been for generations, as you said yourself. Statistics demonstrate that if you are a child in Fergusley Park, you start school at a great disadvantage, possibly as much as 18 months behind some of your peers on other parts of Scotland. It needs the system, and that system is about this Parliament, about Scottish Government, local government, the professionals and all those supporters of education to get behind it and try to address this huge challenge. There is far too much of a correlation between where a child lives and is brought up and how well that child will do and is likely to do in education and, obviously, thereafter as they progress through life. That is why ADES is very supportive of a system-led approach to address attainment and achievement in education. It is something that this country must coalesce round. I am looking for a partnership, a genuine partnership, to address this. Will a piece of legislation on its own do that? No, but it is a very important component that we would suggest. The legislation has some way to go. Very well-crafted statutory guidance outlines for the education authorities, the local councils and indeed the national government in terms of what their responsibilities are. The key to that is what happens in the classroom. We need to have the best quality teachers, high-quality teachers in their learning in the classrooms and the best leaders in Scottish schools. That is what makes a difference in raising attainment and breaking that gap between where you live and how well you will do. Excellent teaching, outstanding leadership and the Scottish education system and the expertise in that system begin to prepare a national improvement framework that we can again agree to take forward over the next few years. ADES is very much supportive of any moves to break that gap between attainment and where you live in Scotland. One of the interesting points that you bring up is one that has constantly come up in evidence. The fact that leadership in schools makes all the difference, but some of the evidence that has been received can be pretty patchy. How can we get to a situation where we can make sure that that is the norm? We have community leaders almost working from the schools everywhere. You are absolutely right. Like everything else in life, you can have variations. We know that where there is excellent leadership, where that leader is seen as being a leader in his or her community, not just within the narrow confines of the school, that makes all the difference. As councillor Cook has outlined, that is not just an education issue. It is an issue that we need Scottish society to embrace. That is why, in terms of the Scottish attainment challenge, I would expect in the seven authorities who are leading the way on that have been selected. I would expect them not just to have education plans but to have plans that would help the development of young people. For example, if you come to school hungry in the morning, you are not likely to attain your best. We would be looking for breakfast clubs, if you have no support during the school holidays, if you have no support after school, then you are not likely to attain your best. We need to have some positive interventions in young people's lives outwith the school. That is why a school leader needs to be able to embrace all that. We have a number of programmes in place for the development of excellent leaders in our schools. The new Scottish College for Educational Leadership is absolutely thorough to this priority and has been involved in discussions with ideas on that. We have a number of different networks working. The quality of leadership is absolutely there. Can it be increased? Yes, it can. Can that be done overnight? No, it can't. We need to develop that and take a number of years to it. The first sentence in the bill is that the act of the Scottish Parliament to impose duties in relation to reducing pupils' inequalities of outcome. I wonder if you could help me in pointing to the parts of the bill that reduce pupils' inequalities of outcome. Mr Cook, you look like you. I'm not the sponsor of the bill, clearly. I'm looking for your advice because I'm finding it difficult. I suppose that I'm reflecting that back to you, aren't I? I'm not the sponsor of the bill. If there had been, as I suggested in response to earlier questions, a more considered approach to how we might respond collectively to the matter of attainment, then clearly the bill would have been constructed in a slightly different way. The difficulty that you perhaps are hinting at is the duty that sits in isolation. It doesn't appear to relate to anything else. As we are intimating to you both from the ADES perspective and the COSLA perspective, there is a clear limitation in what is envisaged here. It is reflective, as I was alluding to earlier, to the fact that there seems to have been something that has been added later to the bill. Originally, when the consultation started off in relation to that, it was a bill that was conceived as dealing principally with Gaelic education. Clearly, it has transformed itself over the course of time and it betrays limitations as a consequence of that. Are you saying to me that there are some limits with regard to the proposition that is currently drafted in the bill? Yes. I think that I am saying that I agree with that. I am not saying anything to you. I am seeking your help and guidance here. I will perhaps move on. We are where we are with the bill and the whole raison d'etre is to look at pupils inequalities and reduce the attainment gap. Perhaps I could ask the question in a different way. I am also on the audit committee and I am aware that 27 out of 32 local authorities buy in private tests from England. Should we have a form of national testing? I think that it was Sue Ellis who said that we need a bank of tests and surveys that schools can call on. Professor Lindsay Paterson last week in tests wrote that testing is not alien to the culture of Scottish teaching or Scottish professionalism. Should we make sure that children, particularly in primary school and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, have both acknowledged that we do not have enough information about children in primary school, where they are likely to fall behind and need that support? Can I ask it in perhaps a, hopefully, more positive way? Do we need a form of testing, a national performance framework? Do we need standardised national tests? Would that address what the bill is setting out to do? In terms of what we heard on 5 June at this attainment day, where local government was getting together, what we learned is—I think that most of us knew this—is that we are not data poor, that we have a broad sweep of information in relation to— Well, I think that there is increased consistency. The point that you have made yourself is that local authorities, many of them buy in a very similar system from England, so they are using that kind of approach. There is increasing correlation between gathering that information and driving approaches that deal with attainment within local authorities. There is a deep understanding of what we need to do, and that is ingestation. What you also need to recognise is that the issues are slightly different in different contexts across the country. Deprivation is a pervasive issue. Deprivation exists in my local authority area, Scottish Borders Council, as it does in relation to West Dunbartonshire, or Inverclyde, or Glasgow, but it is composed differently within the school environment. That suggests that some of the approaches that need to be developed in responding to are consequently different. Again, those propositions speak to the fact that what you need is an approach that is reflective of national parameters and trying to deliver something for the country as a whole, but reflective of the local dimension as well, so that there is proper and profound understanding of the context in which kids in individual local authorities operate so that they can build responses that suit their particular needs. Without a proper dialogue on that proposition, we will not get to that point. We need to return to a proposition in which you have an effective compact between central and local government to respond to those issues. I do appreciate that, but I am sorry. Address or claim to come in here on that question. Yes, yes, I am quite happy. Perhaps if they could address the Audit Scotland no consistency of data from P1 to S3, that would be helpful. Chair, that is what I wanted to just come in and augment, Councillor Cook's evidence. We have submitted a paper to the committee that strongly suggests that a national improvement framework should be developed. Within that, we are supportive of the use of standardised assessments as part of that comprehensive framework, as opposed to the blunt instrument of national testing. We certainly have a lot of data, it is important that we use data positively, but certainly a national improvement framework, which has as its basis curriculum for excellence, which is very clear on levels of numeracy and literacy. Incidentally, when we talk about literacy, it is important that we talk about digital literacy as part of a child's suite of gifts, if you like, in terms of the skills that they develop in school. We are very much in favour of that. That national improvement framework should be developed between the national agencies in Scotland, the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, the local authorities and our own association. In our 2020 vision, we said a little bit about that. We support a national improvement framework in Scotland, but we would like to see that in a comprehensive manner, not just the blunt instrument of national testing, and we would also prefer that there be a Scottish suite of assessments, as opposed to the 27 authorities that are buying us in, and that is something that we can improve on. My final question is partly for Adas, but you talked about suggesting that the bill should replace and supersede the national priorities. Does that mean that the attainment gap should be the only statutory priority? Perhaps you could say that, but I am not sure that I am totally understanding your submission. You mentioned the national performance improvement framework, and you said that, based on what can be used to account for improvement, what actually works in schools, it sounds to me more like an instrument of what is good practice. I thought that attainment was about identifying the child that needs a bit of additional support at the earliest opportunity, so that it is preferably preschool, the earliest stage of primary, and what you are talking about. I am not totally understanding it. The Audit Scotland report said that some east-ren do testing four times in primary and again before they come to do national force and fires. I do not know what you are talking about in this national improvement framework. Is it a document of good practice, or does it identify what each child needs to have an equal opportunity? If I could take the first point, you mentioned the 2000 act. We certainly think that the 2000 act needs to be reviewed. There are aspects of the 2000 act that directly relate and refer to national priorities. Those were the national priorities of the day, and there was a reporting mechanism that was included in the 2000 act that we think needs some review by this body here. As far as the national improvement framework is concerned, it is important that a teacher has access to information about how well her children are progressing at each stage. I think that the national improvement framework that we are looking for would certainly have standardised assessments at key stages of a child's development. At key stages of a child's development, there is mixed practice across the country, the 27 authorities that you mentioned. One authority has standardised assessments at the end of each year of a child's progress, and others are far less frequent in that. That is where we need to have the discussion. The system needs to get around the table and I agree how best to do that. We need information about each individual learner, but we also need information about the cohort in a school and the cohort nationally. That will help us, intelligent use of data will help us to improve Scottish education. We agree that there should be a national framework, but there needs to be thought in terms of development of that process. Liam McArthur, with a quick supplementary question, if you do not mind. On the issue of attainment to Councillor Cook, Paul Coesla, as George Adam suggested, has been quite sceptical of this aspect of the bill. It is nothing to the scepticism of Keir Bloomer, who suggested that the have regard to the desirability requirement within the bill could lead to what he said, what we will get is competition among authorities to produce reports that make them look as good as possible. Would you agree? To add this, could I perhaps ask in terms of the attainment fund? Mr Robertson, you backed up what was in your written evidence that said that the strong correlation that currently exists between social deprivation and poverty on the one hand in poor educational attainment and the other such that success too often depends on where a child lives. You will be aware of the concerns that by focusing on seven local authorities there is a risk that we ignore that 60 plus per cent of those living in poverty outwith those seven areas. Therefore, how we address the need to close the attainment gap there would be good. I welcome your observations. It was not as quick a supplementary as I had hoped, but if you could be as quick as possible, so we can move on. Thank you. Clearly you are asking a loaded question. I think that it is suffice to say that there are the some repetition between the 2000 act in terms of the reporting duty in relation to attainment and what is proposed now and the utility of some of that reporting proposition, given the fact that we already have a responsibility to do that, must be in some doubt. Can I just very quickly touch on the point that you have raised with ADES as well, which is to make the point that the attainment challenge fund welcomes us, though that is, as a proposition, again reflects unfortunately a failure to discuss and consult. That was announced as being targeted at seven local authorities without there being any consideration or indeed consultation or discussion in relation to how you address the broad sweep of deprivation across the country. As we have already discussed, to some extent, deprivation is a pervasive issue and even in apparently comparatively wealthy areas there are issues of deprivation. We need to understand that and, through a process of dialogue, one hopes that we would get there. The seven local authorities that have been identified in the first tranche for the fund are obviously in some detail in terms of formulating their plans. I think that it is important that we remind ourselves that a child living in poverty is a child living in poverty, no matter where that child is in Scotland. We are acutely aware of that and we have reflected that to the Scottish Government. I was a director in two large rural authorities and I am very aware of what rural deprivation is like. That is why the association is in discussion with the local and Scottish Government on what we are calling the universal offer. What is it that every school in Scotland can get from this attainment challenge, from the funds that have been set aside, very helpfully set aside, to deal with what I described as the biggest single challenge in Scottish education. I think that there is a lot of learning that we can share across the country. There are resources that we can share across the country. We can also develop through our association the inter-authority partnerships where, in fact, what is happening in one good practice and one authority can be shared on another. I know that that was some of the discussion at the recent causal event as well. We are acutely aware of the seven local authorities that have been selected, but there are challenges elsewhere and we are working with Government and Education Scotland on this universal offer that we are describing for all children who are living in difficult circumstances. I want to move on to the subject of Gallic medium education. Since 2007, there has been a 44 per cent increase in primary 1 pupils entering Gallic medium education. There are now 11,500 pupils receiving some form of Gallic medium education across Scotland. Clearly, there is a demand from parents for their children to be educated in Gallic. Will the bill assist the progress that is resulting in more local authorities providing that Gallic medium education? The answer to that is probably not. I think that other reservations with the bill are primarily of a practical nature, but there is something else that we want to do. There are no new resources associated with the bill, so that is a potential issue. There is also a major supply issue, so there are local authorities in the north-east who have been seeking to recruit teachers from Canada. That is part of the difficulty here. An expectation is being constructed which local authorities are going to be extremely hard-pressed to satisfy. On top of that, the bill has a degree of complexity about it. It is a pretty blunt instrument which sets a series of propositions on how local authorities should take their initial approach and subsequent assessment approaches. One needs to recognise, as I am sure members here absolutely do, that the Western Isles is not the same as the Scottish Borders. The Scottish Borders has absolutely no cultural history of Gallic whatsoever, and the same approach that is proposed is used at this juncture with, one has to say at the very end, a potential ministerial intrusion in relation to how they judge it. If they do not like the conclusions that local authorities have drawn, they can basically subvert that and come to a different position. Probably at the back of this, there is a question about resourcing, the practicality of how it will work and there is an issue about what you might call proportionality. As I said, not all such places are the same, but there is a fairly blunt and crude approach that assumes that they are. I think that there should be a much stronger discretionary element in relation to how local authorities respond to that, recognising the differences in which they exist across the country. That should not be about responding to parents' demands. Clearly, the demand is an important part of that. One needs to recognise that there is a balance to be struck here in terms of demand and the appropriate direction of resources. In the Scottish Borders, if you get five requests from Burnmouth Co-Path, Newcastleton, Peaboles and Lauder, that is a huge geographic area. The implication of that perhaps in resourcing implications is very significant. At the same time, you have to balance that with other priorities such as attainment, where we have considerations there, as we have previously discussed in the bill. There is a balancing judgment to be made there. Parameters should be more flexible, I think, to allow local authorities to do that appropriately, depending on the circumstances that exist. As I said, what you have is a fairly crude approach, which is not reflective of that. On top of that, you have an additional ministerial power, which allows them simply to subvert that local discretion. I mean, as somebody who has had to respond over the years to requests for gallant medium education, I am well aware of some of the sentiments that lie behind the bill. I think that it is important to share that we remind ourselves that over the last 20 years there has been slow and steady growth to arrive at the statistics. However, as Councillor Cook has pointed out, there are significant challenges. The most significant one is the supply of qualified gallant teachers. What the bill tries to do is ensure that, when parents make a request, they are treated in a similar way across the country, no matter which council it is who is receiving that request. That seems to be a reasonable request, and we would be very happy to work with local government to arrive at good practice. There is some very good practice in that across the country. Chair, I think that there is an opportunity through this legislation, and more likely the statutory guidance that would back it up for local authorities to work more collaboratively in gallant medium education. I am thinking particularly of those who are in close proximity, maybe in the periphery of Glasgow and Edinburgh, where they are more likely to get the larger numbers of requests. I think that looking at that in a collaborative manner and planning it on that sort of basis is a way forward. In this particular one, the development of good practice and statutory guidance is something that will be helpful for local authorities. Now, although parents should be treated in the same way across the country, it does not mean to say that their request will always be successful, because there is a whole variety of criteria that they need to apply. That is why, in the evidence in the bill, we are being quite cautious about having a blunt instrument of five pupils before you have a successful application. What happens in a rural authority compared to an urban authority can be very different? You have touched on a number of the topics that I was going to come on and ask about, but just on that question of consistency, you said in your evidence that there are requests to be clarity and consistency of expectation of education authorities in relation to Gallic medium education and Gallic education generally. We certainly heard last week in regard to section 10 that there were too many handicaps that would make it difficult for parents to get the education that they want and which could be used as an excuse by local authorities not to deliver that form of education. How much of a problem do you think that is? The biggest single problem is the workforce. I think that this committee has heard evidence to that effect already, and the statistics have backed that up. Having said that, the workforce is increasing, but the location of the workforce is a challenge as well. It is far easier, ironically, to recruit a Gallic medium teacher in Glasgow than it is in some parts of the Highlands, and you may think that it would be the other way around. Mrs Carlin is well aware of that from her constituency. However, I think that if we had a good practice in terms of how those requests are received and assessed, there is actually some very good practice out there. Another piece of legislation that this Parliament has already crafted is the legislation that deals with changes to school provision, school closures, changes of school boundaries and things like that. If there is consistency a practice, then I think that that is the strength of local authorities and the benefit of local authorities. That does not mean that every request share that you get for Gallic medium provision can be positively acknowledged. The subject of possibly local authorities' sharing resources is possibly the use of digital learning a realistic way forward? Again, we have mentioned that. I am very much in favour of the development of digital learning, particularly for secondary education, for Gallic secondary education, where there is a huge challenge chair in terms of what the curriculum is provided through the medium of Gallic and the development of a digital solution to a Gallic secondary curriculum is long overdue and something that ADES has asked for for a number of years now. One thing that I would point out, Mr McDonald, is that this provision is for Gallic medium primary education. Again, in our submission, we have indicated that it is not normally the case that a parent would want to look at just the primary provision for their child. It is the 3 to 18 provision, if you like, and therein lies the conundrum for Gallic, because there is such a shortage of teachers who can teach a specialised subject through the medium of Gallic, therefore the digital solution. My final question is what is the way forward, because the evidence that we heard last week was that the extension of the Gallic education provisions that are billed to early years and secondary education is essential to ensure a secure future for the Gallic language. If we are going to do some kind of piecemeal approach to this, where should the focus be? Should it be in nursery, should it be in secondary school provision or should it be across the board? I personally think that if we are looking at education in the round, that is a 3 to 18 perspective that we should be taking. There is some outstanding Gallic early years provision across the country, and it has led to increasing numbers into the primary schools. That is to be commended. I would suggest that it is important for local authorities to look at their provision in the round and to plan collaboratively as often as they can. One local authority may not be able to sustain Gallic medium provision in one small part of their area, but two or three working together, sharing resources and getting additional resources through the Gallic specific grant, something that we have not mentioned, and perhaps a review of the specific grant to target that is something that I would advise. There is desirability in that and consistency of practice. I think that we would be sympathetic to that. In terms of thresholds, however, it is worth reminding ourselves that we might talk about consistency of practice. Ministers will have the power to ultimately vary thresholds. If that is used in a more positive way, which reflects local dimensions, I would perhaps be less anxious about it, but I think that the local aspect of that has been lost. If an area like mine was to take the view that there should not be Gallic teaching, people would be rightly affronted. We are supportive of Gallic teaching, but I do not think that the bill is necessarily reflective of the cultural realities that exist in our area. That needs to be better understood. The local dimension to decision making is quite important, but the rather crude approach to the one-size-fits-all has lost that. In terms of revenue, it needs to be appreciated that the revenue stream that you have talked about is currently utilised by local authorities. There is no additional revenue provision here, so you take it away from the current resource that is provided. That is a diversion of resource. Something else needs to be found to make that up, so there is a resource pressure here. The most fundamental pressure clearly is the supply. In section 13 of the bill, particularly Councillor Cook, every education authority must promote the potential provision of Gallic major education. Are you content with that part of the bill that you must promote Gallic major education in learning? I think that there is a question about what that precisely means. Clearly, as a local authority, I am not here to answer for Scottish Borders Council, although I am aware that it has put in a submission that is reflective of some of the comments that I have made. I think that there is a kind of cultural sensitivity to some propositions contained in the bill because of our particular heritage. Broadly speaking, we would be supportive of Gallic education as is COSLA. Again, had there been a better consideration of some of the propositions as they were developed for the bill, the greater sensitivity and proportionality might have been achieved, and I think that those things have been overlooked somewhat. The issue of additional support needs, the bill looks at expanding rights in this respect. There has been, however, a concern raised that, if I quote, inclusion Scotland, it seems illogical that an education authority that is being challenged about additional support needs should have a right to determine whether the person who is making that challenge has a right to make it that, does not seem to be natural justice. I think that there the concern is that the judgment over capacity and best interests is made by the local education authority. Is that a fair reflection of a potential conflict and, if so, how might it be addressed through the bill? I think that the proposition, as you have laid out, is fair. We have not come today, I have to say, with particular representations to make on this aspect of the bill. Our focus has primarily been in relation to the attainment of Gallic education and, obviously, chief education officer. In the case of this part of the bill, I think that it is a very difficult situation that must be reflected on an individual case-by-case basis. I think that Scotland should be very proud of its additional support needs legislation, which has been developed particularly through this Parliament in the 2004 act, which is very, very significant. I think that the capacity and best interests test is very important. Unfortunately, there are some young people who cannot advocate on their own behalf, so that is why ADES is supportive of this element. How can we try to address the issues that Inclusion Scotland raised with you last week? It is important that, as the legislation has developed, we have good working practice guidance and good statutory guidance that can help local authorities and those who look after the interests of individual young people who work through this. Unfortunately, some children may not have the capacity to represent themselves. We do not want to get into a situation where, for example, a young person finds himself or herself in conflict with her parents or carers because of capacity issues. It is a very difficult situation with checks and balances along the way and good advice for those who are involved. I think that that is part of the way to answering your question. The Government has been reluctant to try and put a number or an estimate of those who are likely to require this sort of support and utilise those provisions in the efforts that are not reflected in additional resources within the financial memorandum. Is that your expectation that the numbers are likely to be very limited and therefore the resource implications fairly limited as a result? I am slightly disappointed by your answer to Liam McArthur's first point. Given that the conflict will have a detrimental effect, as we have heard on evidence, particularly from Inclusion Scotland, it might take us into some legal aspects. The UN writes to the child that, because I do not have a firm view as to what that will mean for children with additional needs and they are not concerned that you can find yourself in a situation where you are determining someone's capacity or not. I think that it is unfortunate that you have come with views on every other subject, but not this one. Can I answer that? Occasionally, I represent Coslin. On this issue— I am speaking for Coslin now. Yes, we occasionally are asked to— Just for clarity's sake, because obviously you represent Addison. It is a very technical question. It is a very technical issue, so you would not necessarily expect elected members to be briefed on the legal technicalities of capacity and best interest. There is a conflict between the issue of capacity and best interest. The technical issue is at what stage you decide capacity, and if you have already decided capacity, do you then separately have to determine best interest? I think that the discussion is at what point in the process do you decide in whose best place to do that? It is not the case that authorities would find it unusual in having to balance two competing priorities and two competing interests. In relation to additional support needs, quite often they separate out the different perspectives. They have psychologists, for example, who often do the technical assessment and would make a judgment on issues such as capacity or interest, but there might be another pressure in terms of the budget. If you are looking at where to place a child, you will look at the very best interests of the child, but you have to operate within the council parameters, and there might be a budget issue there. It is quite a technical issue. It comes down to the procedure behind how this is encapsulated, but authorities often are in a situation where they are trying to balance the best interests of the child and other legal requirements and other pressures. If you are looking at a school exclusion, if you are looking at place and requests, a whole number of areas where you are dealing with individual cases and individual children involve that balance. However, the overriding principle has to be the best interests of the child. If you are looking at a complaint against a teacher or against a school, you could argue that there is a conflict of interest there, but it is the duty of local authorities to ensure that they meet their obligations towards the staff, but they also put the interests of the child absolutely first. I am not trying to be political, but I am just saying that it is quite a technical and specialised issue that probably justifies our position on the need to have a chief education officer. I am not sure that the cause will allow you to speak on that particular issue for them, but I am moving swiftly on. Schedule introduced by section 17 of the act talks about modifying the Education Act 2004 with regard to capacity and the approach to the additional support needs tribunals in Scotland. In 2012, there was some concern that expressed about the relationship between the Government and ASTNS in terms of the process. I wonder whether COSLA believes that the bill makes absolutely clear now the respective roles of the Scottish Government and ASTNS in relation to section 70 complaints. I can try to answer that, and perhaps colleagues in our desk can pick up on any gaps that I have left off. On the understanding of section 70 from Scottish reforms that have been proposed, it is effective to tidy up some anomalies that might exist, whereby they are effectively able to some decisions that would normally go to the additional support needs tribunal could additionally be taken through a section 70 procedure. Our understanding is that it is tidying up to say that if something should appropriately go to the ASTN tribunal, then that should be the appropriate route, and it should be handled in the best possible way to resolve the issue. On those circumstances, in your view, you have clearly defined the overall role of the ASTNS. From our point of view, we would consider that it is defined enough that if it should go to the ASTN tribunal, that is the best way for handling additional support needs through requests. Is there anything more that local authorities could do to ensure that people are more aware, better aware of their rights to complain under section 70? I think that we would argue that we have reached a point where we can do no more. I think that section 70, and I do not have the numbers, are relatively small. There are ways in which it can be promoted, but it should be seen as a last resort as well. Other complaints handling processes within the authority should be used as a first way of dealing with any form of issue before it really gets to the issue of requiring section 70. I want to ask Mr Robison or Mr Stotter. Clearly, we have had a discussion around the capacity and interests of children and how their capacity is secured or determined. Who determines the parent's capacity in any issue of conflict? The parent, presumably, is the legal one. That assumes that all parents have that capacity. Who secures the interests of the child, for example, who may have the ability to determine their needs better than the parents? Who determines the parent's capacity? If there was any doubt about the parent's capacity, presumably social work colleagues would have a view on that. The reason for giving rights to children is that they can represent themselves. It does raise the interesting possibility that a child could decide to represent themselves and advocate for an issue that was not in their best interests. That is why all the parties need an avenue, whether it is the individual child or the parent of that child, or whether it is the authority that will have a legal obligation. Any assessment of a parent's capacity does not go on just how it does it. It might do, in terms of social work involvement. It might well do. The children's healing system can kick in there as well. Moving on to the subject that was just mentioned a few moments ago, Colin. I would like to explore a little bit about the role of the chief education officer. The bill requires education authorities to appoint a chief education officer. It does not give the CEO any particular function, but the role is to advise the authority on carrying out its functions under relevant legislation. Qualifications are to be set with the Scottish ministers, but the experience is to be determined by the local authority. Do we need a chief education officer? The view of COSLA is that we do not. I think that we have two specific difficulties with the proposition as it currently stands. One is the purpose of this proposition. I highlighted to you earlier the passage of consultation that took place in relation to the various different elements that construct this bill. This was one of the propositions, which was a late entry as it were. It was something that was first broached with us on 13 January this year, and it is still not clear what the utility of the proposition is. Comparisons have been made with chief social work officers and chief education officers, if you like. Our understanding of the role as it is currently posited for chief education officer is that it is primarily an advice role. Clearly, that is very different from what you are talking about in relation to a chief social worker role. It has very specific statutory responsibilities in relation to adoption, secure care and things of that nature. It is a very specific role. This is a much more generalist proposition where it sits and its utility, as I say, is open to question. There is a further problem with it from our perspective. It is something that has been thought up, which is now being consulted on in relation to its inclusion in the bill. What it does is that it usurps local discretion in relation to the construction of management structures that local authorities consider appropriate to the management of their responsibilities and, in so doing, it usurps local democratic accountability. I appreciate the members sitting round the table who are democratically elected, so do I. As every other member in my local authority, we have an absolute responsibility to look at the affairs of the local authority, to make judgments about that, and we have to agree the governance model that we deploy to achieve that. That basically usurps this without evident purpose. I disagree with that. The fact that there is not a requirement to have such a post is an anomaly, and it was created by Michael Forsyth in the run-up to local government reorganisation. The 1980 education act required authorities to have such a post, and the fact that the whole of the 1988 act is predicated on the fact that you have somebody who is experienced and qualified who can advise the education authority. That is the important point that councils act as education authorities. The fact that they do not have a person who is appropriately qualified and experienced to advise them in that capacity seems to us to be strange. At that time, there was a different political context. Schools were being encouraged to opt out of local authority and control and to self-govern. Cossill was strongly opposed to that, and they used the same argument at that stage. It was a political interference. The only thing that has changed since then has actually been the political context. In 1996, new councils were set out. They continued as if there were a requirement to have the post. They ignored the fact that there was not a requirement, and for 10 years that held unilaterally across Scotland in 32 authorities. One council in 2006 tried to operate without one, but it was a disastrous failure, and it involved external intervention from HMIE, Audit Commission and a task force with COSLA and government. Two years later, it reverted to having the post. What is worrying for us is that in the past three years, we have seen four councils beginning to move away from that post and not to have that post. Two of those councils have submitted evidence to us coincidentally, and two of them are in favour of having the post, although, strangely, one of them thinks that the post should not have any qualifications or experience attached to it. There are a couple of equivalents, and the others who are negative about it say that they already do it anyway. The work of the committee over the years has covered a huge range of very significant issues for Scotland, very complex issues and issues in which you have asked for advice. Adez often provides advice and guidance, and we always provide somebody who is appropriately qualified and experienced. There is a whole range of issues, and I could spend all morning reading them. You have big issues such as teacher workforce, curriculum for excellence, qualifications, education finance, rural schools—those are the ones that I remember being here with colleagues to give evidence and additional support needs. As I have said, you cannot imagine a Parliament or an education authority operating without that advice from a qualified and experienced person. The Parlias with the chief social work officer are relevant in Germain. I have the specifications for the chief social work officer, and every single one of them, apart from one, would relate to that kind of post. You are talking about establishing standards and values, making sure that staff meet standards of the regulatory bodies, to support and advise managers, to use registered workers, and we have teachers and other staff who have various requirements. The governance arrangements, the balance of risks, workforce planning, professional development and leadership for the managers in the organisation, all apply equally to the post of chief education officer. The one that does not apply is a specific piece of legislation on adoption and guardianship. However, as I have already indicated, there is a whole plethora of legal requirements within an education authority that would certainly be equivalent and, in fact, greater than that legal responsibility. Attendance, exclusion, zoning issues, education at home, additional support needs, placing requests, school closures and so on—the list is a long one. One of the issues that COSLA has raised is the issue that this is an interference with structures. We do not think that it is telling councils what structures they have to have. It is simply a requirement that a specific level of post is incorporated in that structure. You can think of the example of children's services. In some cases, a social work director runs a children's services, but they do not have access to a single person who is the education officer who would advise them. On the other hand, there are some councils where an education person runs the children's services. They do have access to a chief social work officer to ensure that anything that they do complies with relevant legislation. We think that there are significant benefits to councils and to the Scottish Government in having appropriately qualified and experienced people at that post in terms of ensuring that policy decisions and strategy decisions are fit for purpose. Even in the evidence that you have heard on the bill, I am sure that you will have recognised the need for qualified, experienced advice. Would the panel agree that in a normally efficient council that all the expertise that we are talking about here would exist already and that it would actually make sense, in some ways, for there to be one point of contact in order to be able to tap into that expertise rather than having a number of different areas to go to? Does that make sense? Absolutely, that makes sense. You are making the point very well, in fact. As far as work is concerned, that raises the question about the utility of the proposition, because it is not as seem to be intimated as though that kind of professional advice does not exist within local authorities. Plainly it does exist within local authorities. The fact is, if that proposition, even though it is not properly fleshed out in this juncture, does come to pass, is the reality is that someone exists in practically every local authority in the land. I think that perhaps one local authority would need to deal with its approach differently and look to appoint someone who could carry out this role. I suspect that for most local authorities there would be someone who would be slotted into that role directly. In which case, of course, you might reasonably say to me, why then is this a problem? Well, it is a problem because actually getting that advice, determining who gives that advice, really is a matter of my discretion and my local authority, and the other 33 members who inhabit that local authority. We judge that we can make that kind of determination that it is not appropriate for Scottish Government to overreach that and make a judgment about what the structure or the relationship should be in our individual local authority. That is largely what the issue is. I am grateful to John that he acknowledged that our position on this has been consistent throughout, even from some years ago. Indeed, it has, but what I think is different from our perspective perhaps is that local authority has a much stronger view of its own responsibility and accountability in relation to those issues. It is being doing work on that. It may be seen that we are being slightly precious about it, but I do not think that this is just a view of elected members in local authorities. Chief executives, I think clearly, certainly in terms of my dialogue with them, are somewhat unhappy with what they see as an interference here. They would certainly see the structure of their management teams as being a matter that they are ultimately responsible for. That is some subversion of that. As for the advice, that clearly exists already. In fact, there clearly are some councils that are inconsistent in their approach in this, perhaps resulting in this proposition. Where is the evidence for that? There was evidence given earlier in this. Can I ask that we are only one authority? I think that it is important to recognise that that is merely a matter of evidence. The evidence that I am giving you is quite clear. Professional advice of the kind provided by those guys is available in every local authority. There is one local authority that we need to make an appointment to respond to the proposition in the bill on chief education. Who currently wouldn't have somebody with the requisite qualifications, what they have said is that they do have systems in place that allows their managers to work collegiately with all the headteachers so that they can actually determine educational advice for the authority. There is a system in place, even though the manager in charge does not have an education qualification. I was arguing that they have been inconsistent. They strongly opposed the removal of the post in 1994 for local government act. Now they are using the same arguments to say that the post should remain removed. Local councils have a number of statutory posts. We are surely not arguing that it is important that they have somebody responsible for the finances of a finance officer. That could be a very small council with a very small total budget, which could be less than the whole of the education budget. We should not have a statutory officer for education. There is a symbolic value in having a person who is appropriately qualified at the right level to advise the education authority. We believe that there are four recent developments that potentially do not have the appropriate post in the structure. It is not to say where in the structure, it is just that they should have somebody that they can rely on that is the port for that statutory legal advice. The issue quite often is that you can get anybody to give advice, you can get anybody to understand the law, you can get anybody to know the business, but there is professional judgment often involved in some of the tricky issues that we talked about earlier in terms of capacity, the interests of the child and so on. There are professional judgment issues and it is best if that comes from somebody suitably qualifying the experience and it comes from a single port, because no doubt there will be a range of views within different post holders within a council. I know that I said at the beginning not two answers from the same organisation, but I did allow two answers from the cause last time. I will do the same for us. I think that it is important that we remind ourselves that this is a £4 billion operation that we are talking about across the country. That is what state education relates to across the 32 local authorities. We come here today having thought this through very carefully, understanding what is happening out there. We genuinely think that this post will add value to the work of Parliament through statute, for example, to have reports from education authorities, it will add value to the work of Parliament, to the Scottish Government and it will add value to the work of local councils. You have seen the list of the duties and the roles that we have submitted in evidence. It is to their advantage to have people in positions to discharge those. Liam, has your question been answered? Could you be very, very brief and I can have a brief answer as well? I am listening to what has been said on this issue. Since we had the evidence from the bill team and throughout the other witnesses we have heard, whether they support it or not, I have not heard anybody identify a problem that we are being asked to address through the bill. It looks to me that we have a solution that is in desperate search of a problem and we only legislate when we absolutely need to. Despite the use of Michael Forsyth's name, which I recognise as political catnip for colleagues, I do not identify a problem here that we are being asked to resolve. You surely do not want to legislate at the point when you have a problem. I will not reach for the legislative lever until it has been demonstrated to me that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. There is a risk that something is about to go astray, that we need to rectify proactively and in neither sense have I heard evidence of that. I agree with that. Can I just have a quick answer from Addis? We believe that there is a risk in not having such a person advising local authorities. We probably could bring forward evidence, but it would be inappropriate to do so at this point. It is a recent phenomenon that some authorities do not have such a post. We anticipate and advise that there could be difficulties in that respect in some of the decisions that authorities have to make. I am going to leave it there, because we are very pushed for time. We are already running late this morning. I thank you all very much for coming along this morning. I thank you for your time. I am going to suspend briefly while we change witness panels. I welcome Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, and her accompanying officials. Good morning to all of you. The cabinet secretary will answer questions about all parts of the bill, except for visions on garlic and additional support needs. Those will be addressed by the minister, Alasdair Allan, in the next panel. However, I believe that the cabinet secretary will make some opening remarks on the bill as a whole, if that is correct, cabinet secretary. Yes, it is, convener. Thank you very much, and good morning to committee. Convener, there is much to be proud of in Scottish education, particularly the achievements of our children and our young people. We have record exam passes, a record proportion of young people going into positive destinations after leaving school, and youth unemployment is the lowest that it has been in several years. However, there is always much more to do in terms of making improvements, and we must do more to raise the platform for all children and do more to raise the attainment of those children and young people who are doing less well in school. We know that there is an attainment gap in Scotland between the children from the least and most disadvantaged backgrounds, and that is what I and this Government are absolutely determined to tackle. The bill was already in development when I became the cabinet secretary for education and lifelong learning. It contains a wide and diverse range of important measures as part of an overall improvement agenda. For me, the big gap was that the bill contained nothing on narrowing the attainment gap and nothing on reducing the inequalities of educational outcomes that we know exist. Therefore, I introduced to the bill duties on councils and on ministers to reduce the inequalities of outcome that we see as a result of socioeconomic disadvantage and for councils and ministers to report on progress made. I believe, convener, that the bill will have a positive impact and that it will make a difference. It makes a clear and emphatic statement that Scotland will no longer accept that a child's background or circumstances matter more than their talent or their efforts. However, the bill, as we know, is not on its own. It will not, in isolation, deliver the improvements that we all want to see. That is why the provisions in the bill are just one element of a package of measures in place to narrow the attainment gap. For example, we have the attainment challenge and reason attainment for all programme. The bill also addresses a number of areas that the Government wants to see improvements in. Specifically, firstly, supporting and promoting Gallic education. The Gallic language is a key part of both our heritage and cultural life, and it is right that we do more to secure a future for Gallic. Dr Allan will speak more about that later. Secondly, we want to ensure that children have a stronger voice in their learning, especially those children with additional support needs. Again, Dr Allan will address that in his evidence this morning. Thirdly, we want to ensure that we provide a measure of consistency in terms of standards and quality of teaching staff, regardless of where they teach. Fourthly, the appointment of appropriately qualified chief education officers across Scotland is something that the bill will introduce. Finally, we want to see a more robust process for when complaints are made to ministers, because we want to ensure that an appropriate process exists, which will allow disagreements about a child's education to be resolved in a timely manner. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today, convener. I welcome the opportunity that I now have with the committee and with Parliament to scrutinise this wide-ranging bill further. I am sure that we can all have an open and honest debate about how the bill can help us to continue to improve education in Scotland. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Thank you for your statement. I was going to move to questions now and begin with George Adam. Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary. You will be aware of some of the submissions that we have already received with regard to COSLA and ADES, in particular. COSLA, just before you came here, I regarded some of the submissions quite negative. In fact, I could have probably cut and pasted them from previous submissions. I have made other issues, but, on the whole, we need to address, as you have already mentioned, the attainment issue. ADES and the air written submission have said clearly that the legislation of itself will not ensure improvement but will provide a clear strategic focus. You said something very similar in your opening remarks. To what extent can legislation reduce the attainment gap? I think that legislation is very important. As I said, Mr Adam, in my opening statement, you cannot view legislation in isolation. Legislation has to be part of the overall jigsaw, and I alluded to the other aspects of action that have to be taken, namely around the Scottish attainment challenge, the attainment Scotland fund, but there are things like the early years' collaborative, the reason attainment for all programme as well. Where legislation is important, it provides a strong signal that, locally and nationally, we are committed to improvement and that, locally and nationally, we recognise the importance of all our children reaching their full potential and that we are not accepting that our children's background or circumstances is more important than their talents or efforts. It is a strong signal about the Scotland that we seek. Our proposals are also about strengthening accountability of both Scottish ministers and our partners in local government. It is only fair and reasonable that we account for the actions that we have taken to address the attainment gap and to map out the actions that we will take to map out the attainment gap. It is also about having visibility of what action is being taken and to continue that to be based on what works and what is effective. It is important that we strengthen accountability of both ministers and local authority. As I said, we know that legislation in itself will not work in isolation, and it is important that it is seen in the context of the wider package of improvement that we are undertaking. The nuts and bolts of it are what kind of resource and actions we need to weaken the link between disadvantage and educational attainment. We have already discussed that this is deep-seated in generations, if not decades, on the problem. What level of resource would that require? In terms of the quite discreet provisions that have been placed in the bill, in terms of placing a very clear duty on Scottish ministers and local government, and the duties to report on progress, there is a cost in terms of the guidance to be produced that underpins those duties. The costs associated with the bill are quite discreet. The financial memorandum from memory talks in the region of £50,000. There is a broader debate and discussion about how we use our resources to close the attainment gap. The overall level of resources is important, but, as we have seen from the work from Audit Scotland in its report last year, it is also about how resources are deployed and how resources are used. Some of our resources need to be applied at a universal level, but I certainly see that in some of the evidence and commentary around the bill and some of the evidence that committee has had that there is a need to target more effectively. You can see how that has informed the Government's thinking in and around the Scottish attainment challenge. There is the debate and the decisions that we make in terms of resources that are applied to be used within the classroom. It is how we use resources to tackle some of the broader issues that are very real outside of a classroom in terms of addressing poverty and supporting parents. I listen carefully to the opening statements, but there were some serious issues that I am sure the cabinet secretary would identify that were raised in the Audit Scotland report last year, and I will not repeat them on over time. However, given that there are four sections in the bill, the first four sections on attainment and the first sentences of the bill impose duties in relation to reducing pupils' inequality of outcome, can the cabinet secretary point to which part of the first four sections in the bill will achieve that reduction in the inequalities of outcome? It is very important the work that Mrs Garland often refers to in terms of Audit Scotland, in terms of that debate about how we apply our resources. In terms of the actual bill, it is important that we place a very clear legislative responsibility on ourselves as well as our partners in local government, because that is about clarity of purpose. One of the things that we have learnt from educational systems across the world is that clarity of purpose is very important and that it is central. I know that some of your evidence from ADES spoke about having that strategic overview and having very clear strategic objectives. I think that tackling inequality should be our number one objective and that we need to be increasingly focused in our attentions to close the attainment gap that arises as a result of socio-economic advantage. I think that reporting is making it very visible and accounting for what we do and why we do it and what we plan to do in the future is very pragmatic. As I said, the legislation is not in itself going to resolve the attainment gap, but it is a very important foundation, particularly given that clarity of purpose. I mean, perfectly well, you have my party's support in anything to address inequalities and to address attainment. If we can just move on perhaps to implementation, obviously it can only be implemented successfully and it can only achieve what we all want it to achieve with goodwill, partnership and respectful working with local government. So, can you tell me why was there no consultation on the attainment prior to the bill coming forward? We heard that it was just added in January. If I can move on to actual implementation, ADES and COSLA both spoke and also Sue Ellis in this committee. We need a national bank of tests and surveys. Schools can call on and Lindsay Parterson testing is not alien to the culture of Scottish teaching or Scottish teacher professionalism. In order to implement this successfully to achieve the outcomes that we all want and give every child in Scotland that equal opportunity, are we looking at a form of national assessment along the lines that East Renfrew does at different stages of primary education? If I can focus on primary education, because the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister both said that that is where the absence of data is. Do we need a form of assessments or tests or something that we can implement successfully to achieve what we all want to achieve? Let me deal with the issue that Mrs Scanlon reads about consultation first and foremost. Yes, there has been no formal consultation on this part of the bill. As I hope that I explained in my opening remarks, when I took up this position as Cabinet Secretary for Education at the end of November in December, the wide-ranging and quite eclectic bill was already in progress. However, I make no apologies for inserting what I believe to be some important provisions in and around attainment, given the focus that attainment and tackling inequality has within the programme for government. I am conscious of the fact that there was no formal consultation. Therefore, it is important that, from the introduction of the bill to stage 2, there is a Government that we continue to liaise with stakeholders. I do think that, in contrast, I would not have been happy to come into this committee with a bill without specific powers in relation to attainment, because I think that committee would have rightly asked, given the priority that is shared across Parliament and the political parties and given the priority within the programme for government, to raise attainment and to tackle inequality within our education system. I think that committee would have been rightly critical and demanding of the Government if I had come to committee with an education bill that is wide-ranging if there was no particular sections in relation to tackling inequality in education. However, as I said, convener, I am conscious that we will have to work hard to continue the dialogue with stakeholders. We have had various discussions and dialogue, whether it is with COSLA, ADES, national parent forum for Scotland, and we will continue to have those discussions to ensure that we get the best bill possible. In terms of your other very important issues, what I think Mary Scanlon is touching on in essence is the work that we are doing around the national improvement framework. The national improvement framework should not be confused with the national performance framework, which we already have as a Government, and that is about the overall performance of the Government and the country. We are talking about a national improvement framework in relation to education. We know that most local authorities do some sort of standardised assessment, but what we really need that line of sight on is in terms of what is happening in a classroom, to what is happening in the school, to what is happening in a local authority, to what is happening at a national level. We know that various local authorities have different forms of standardised assessment. What we really need now to do is to have an agreement on standardised assessment so that we can get that line of sight about what is happening at a very local level, to what is happening at a national level. The work that the Government is pursuing in and around the national improvement framework is progressing at a pace. Of course, we look forward to coming back to committee to appraise you of the detail of that work in due course. I just talked about national performance improvement framework, and Cabinet Secretary talks about national improvement framework. It could be forgiven for dropping the word performance and how relevant that is. However, my final question is, 27 out of 32 local authorities spy in private sector tests from England. They cannot even compare one local authority to another. That was raised by the Auditor General in her report. Keir Bloomer said to us that this was Pious thinking masquerading its legislation. I would like to think that he was wrong, and I am looking for that nub that is in here that is going to make a difference. My final question, convener, if I can just, in Keir Bloomer's point, Pious thinking masquerading its legislation. Section 1, paragraph 2, pupils experiencing inequalities of income. It says that it has to have due regard to the desirability of exercising the powers in a way mentioned in subsection, etc. I wonder if I can ask respectfully, Cabinet Secretary, do you understand why I am struggling to find where is this little golden bullet that is going to make a difference here, having due regard to a desirability? That is addressing inequalities of income. There are a number of important issues, convener, that Mrs Scanlon raises, and I will try to go through them as timidly as possible. Comparisons between local authorities are indeed difficult, because different local authorities are using different forms of standardised assessments. I therefore do not consider it Pious for the Government to be working towards a national improvement framework so that we get a clear line of sight that tells us how well we are doing in terms of tracking the monitor in the progress of individual children, about what is happening within a classroom, a school, local authority and to be able to have that real good, clear national picture. I would consider that purposeful and pragmatic. In terms of the wording of the bill, in terms of having due regard, the way in which the bill has been drafted reflects the policy intention that we are in the business of raising attainment for all children. We want to raise the platform for all children, but we need to be increasingly focused on the children that are doing less well, the children who have been held back as a result of socioeconomic disadvantage and how we can target our efforts and the resources to ensure that those children get the best possible start to life and that performance increases at a faster rate than the overall improvement. We are not trying to do just one thing in isolation. That said, convener, if there are ways in which we can strengthen the wording of the legislation without having any unintended consequences, we are, of course, open to the evidence and advice from committee. We will certainly take that back to the legal draftsmen and women. I have two quick supplementaries, first from Mark Griffin and second from Liam McArthur. In section 1 of the bill, Paragraph 3 asks local authorities to reduce inequalities of outcome experienced by pupils that result from socioeconomic disadvantage. In part B, ministers regulate powers to set out other circumstances. In those regulations, will there be reference made to inequalities of educational outcome experienced by pupils who have a sensory impairment? I think that there are a full range of issues that contribute to educational inequalities and, of course, there will be a full consultation on the regulations that come forth in due course. The reason that we have started with socioeconomic disadvantage is that it makes sense to do there. If you are tackling socioeconomic disadvantage, you will also tackle other forms of disadvantage, but that does not mean to say that, in the fullness of time, we will not need to consider putting in regulation other forms of educational inequality and disadvantage. In terms of a very clear starting point, the biggest issue is socioeconomic advantage. If we can tackle that, that will help us to deal with other types of educational disadvantage, but it may be as we come forward with the regulation that there needs to be some thinness on that, so I do not want to be ruling anything in and out at this precise moment. It will not be entirely brief after the last session. First of all, you talked about a eclectic and wide-ranging bill, which all of us would accept. As we get to the end of a Parliament, that is possibly inevitable. You make no apology for inserting the provisions in terms of attainment, rather late in the day, but the problem that I have is that there are a number of elements of that that appear to have arrived fairly late in the day. We have had the concerns from the cause about attainment, where concerns last week from Inclusion Scotland about some of the provisions in terms of additional support needs, concerns about the late addition of the chief education officer appointment, concerns from SCIS in relation to the GTCS requirements for independent schools inserted without much consultation. We have now got a letter that we will be dealing with later about the insertion of the standard for headship provision in the bill. Now, some of those things command a degree of support. Some of them were problematic, but there appears to be a route through in terms of finding a workable solution. All of that creates the impression that this is a bill that has been cobbled together as we went along. As a Parliament that has prided itself on pre-registered scrutiny and consultation in the absence of a revising chamber, there is an uncomfortable position in which I think this committee is being put because it is dealing with a piece of legislation that has not been properly consulted upon. We are doing some of the work now through our stage 1 consideration that really should have been done by the Government prior to the bill being introduced. Would that be fair? No, not entirely. I would accept that there are aspects of the bill that there has been no formal consultation, but in terms of the issues around the chief education officer, GTCS registration, the implementation of the standard for headship, there is a process in terms of regulation where there will be full consultation and debate. Some of what we are dealing with is a consequence of quite a wide-ranging bill. We have provisions in relation to Gaelic education, additional support needs, section 70 complaints. I feel that some of that is inevitable, but in terms of proper scrutiny and consultation over subsequent regulations, there will be ample opportunity. We may need to disagree on the basis that, if things are left solely to secondary legislation and consultation thereafter, it does rather bypass the processes that this Parliament has in place to kick the tyres before things are spat out at the other end. In relation to attainment, you talked and jutted it down clarity of purpose, a clear duty on local government, a clear legislative responsibility for partners in local government. I think that the concern is the way that the duty is framed with regard to the desirability. Keir Bloomer put it rather well that what we will get is competition among authorities to produce reports that make them look as good as possible, rather than necessarily any change in practice or procedure on the ground. Would you accept that as a potential risk? I think that we have to ensure that everything that we do in and around reporting that is purposeful and that we always need to recognise what people do in response to the reports and the evidence. It is pragmatic and reasonable to expect the Scottish Government and local authorities—I am not asking local authorities to do anything that I do not think that Scottish ministers should be doing—to be visible and to be accountable for what they are doing and the evaluation process in terms of what works, what does not work and what are the remaining challenges. I do not think that any of that is bureaucratic. I do not think that any of that is unreasonable. In terms of the parts of the bill that I have asked to be inserted since I became Cabinet Secretary for Education, I mean that they are quite purposeful and quite discreet in terms of placing a duty on both ourselves and our partners in local government and in terms of regular reporting because we need that visibility and we need that accountability and we need that leadership in terms of being prepared to account for what we are doing, what we will do and that debate that is based on evidence and what works. I do not see anything unreasonable or wildly bureaucratic about that. With respect, Cabinet Secretary, you have talked about with regard to the desirability. It almost sounds like that is what you want to do, but you have held back from putting in a firm or a duty for perhaps very laudable reasons. We are now betwix in between. It is not going to require local government or central government anything other than a reporting mechanism on the desirability rather than something that is likely to change purpose and action on the ground. That would seem to be a very reasonable point to be made by Keir Bloomer and others. If you are reporting on the progress that you have made or progress that you have not made, there is then democratic scrutiny and expectation and an increased onus on whether it is Scottish ministers, parliamentarians or local authority to act on that information. I accept that legislation in isolation is not the be all and the end all. It is what we do in response to our duties and our findings. As I said earlier, if there is a better form of wording, we will certainly look at that because what we have been clear about as a Government is that we do not want to hold the highest performing children back until other children catch up. As a Government, as an education sector, that has to be about continuous improvement and ensuring that those children and young people that are doing less well are enabled to improve their performance at a quicker rate. That is what we mean by closing the gap. We are not holding people back until others catch up. We want to be continuously improving the platform and closing the gap by ensuring that those children from the more disadvantaged backgrounds are improving at a faster rate. That means that we have many statutory obligations as well as closing the gap. However, if there is a way to strengthen the wording and to always get that increased clarity of purpose, we are open to that because there is no monopoly in wisdom. Even the Government would concede that. We have known about the problem for decades. We have a fair amount of data on how it manifests itself. I am struggling to understand what the bill is about moving us forward without additional resources to back that up or going some way further than it appears to want to go at the moment in terms of the obligation that it applies to local councils. It is not that I am advocating that that is what should be done, but it seems to be mascarading as something that it clearly is not. It simply requires a reporting structure on local authorities who will then be free to continue doing what they are doing and leaving it in the too difficult box if that is what they are minded to do. Strong signal. Legislation is important because it gives a strong signal about the Scotland that we seek. It gives a clarity of purpose and it is about increasing visibility of what we are collectively and individually doing and it increases our accountability for what we are doing. I do not see anything pious or unworkable with that. If Mr MacArthur has one point in terms of his question, I was wondering if he was going to come forward with further suggestions for future amendment on how he is strengthening the work, and we are always open and welcoming of other ideas and other aspects of the debate. Stage 2. I still need some convincing that what has been asked to legislate here is to make a practical difference. You would rather that we did not have duties on ourselves as Scottish ministers and on local authorities. I would rather that we have duties that have a meaningful effect rather than a duty that allows us to say, look, we have put this into legislation, haven't we done well? We are, as a Parliament, fairly guilty at not going back and in terms of post-legis that was scrutiny seeing if it has the effect that we were anticipating. My concern is here that what we are proposing is not necessarily going to have any marked effect on the behaviour of individual local authorities and simply creates a reporting requirement that will divert resource into preparing a report, which may be made to look very, very good, even if what has actually happened on the ground is no different from what it was last year, 10 years ago or whatever. There is a role for guidance to ensure that there are some comparisons and reports. There is no point in producing 32 varieties of a report that cannot be compared to creating that national picture. The guidance in ensuring that we have very purposeful reportings and that we are not just getting on some bureaucratic wheel is very important. In addition to the duty to tackle inequality, there is an action. That action is that for Scottish ministers and local authorities that we have to report every two years, now there may well be a debate whether that reporting cycle should be shorter or longer. As a Government, we are interested in hearing the arguments about that debate, but the fact that we are requiring ourselves and local authorities to report on the progress I think is an action that, of course, there are further actions on what you do following up from that report. However, if you are having to report every two years, the Government and local authorities are being held to account for what they have done in the past two years and for what they intend to do in the next two years. Of course, local Governments have that statutory responsibility for delivering education. I would contend that the purpose of the reporting duties is to enhance visibility and accountability and to ensure that we act on what the evidence tells us. I wonder whether I may address the schedule that was introduced by section 17 on the increased complaint availability to children of proven capacity and clearly the complaints of the arrays. It may go beyond that and we face section 70 complaints. Can I ask the Government Secretary in terms of the S70 if you believe that the bill needs further clarification on the respective roles of the Scottish ministers and the additional support needs tribunal for Scotland in dealing with what might be increased complaints? The intention is that there is no duplication or confusion between section 70 complaints that can be raised with Scottish ministers in terms of where not just an individual is making a complaint, but whether it is a committee or a trade union or a response to report where there is been a belief that a statutory responsibility has not been carried out. We have section 70 complaints on the one hand, but there needs to be that clarity of purpose about the function of additional support for needs tribunal. It is not right that people can make a complaint that either goes down the section 70 route first and then the additional support for needs tribunal, I mean the route for complaints or concerns and in relation to additional support for needs or additional support for learning should be down the additional support for needs tribunal, which we have legislation on. I believe that the bill in relation to section 4 is very clear, it has very specific restrictions, it is clearly stating what types of issues should be going down the additional support for needs tribunal. We do not want that duplication and we need that clarity about when issues should go down the additional support for needs tribunal and when something should be a section 70 complaint. We did consult on this back in December 2013. We consulted on proposals to repeal section 70, but as a result of that consultation there was a feeling that it was still considered to be important that there should be a role for ministers, but we do not want any duplication or confusion between the role of ministers in terms of section 70 complaints and the additional support for needs tribunal. We are relating back to your predecessor in some three years ago when there were complaints about the confusion that existed. I wonder if I may just move on to something else, because there is a stated period by which complaints should be answered. The public sector ombudsman said that, if I were a child or a parent with a complaint, I would be confused about where I should go. That cannot be right. Either we have to be clear signposting about where to go for what or we have to have a simplified system. We have just talked about a clearer process between section 70 and the complaints to the ASDNS. What can we do to ensure, particularly children? The emphasis seems to be on the right of the parents to make the views known, but what can we do to ensure that where children who have ASN know where to go to make a complaint and ensure that we can fulfil the answers to that within the prescribed 112 days? In terms of the issues about children and their rights, I am going to leave that to Dr Allan, because I am sure that the convener does not want any duplication of evidence. Where Mr Brody is correct is that we always need to strive for better signposting. I contend that, with the bill, we have a clarity about what is a section 70 issue to stroke complaint and what is additional support for needs issue or complaint. In terms of ensuring that children and their families know which is which, that is an important point. We have a code of practice around children's learning. There are various materials that are produced by additional support for needs tribunal. There is the national information and advice service through inquire and also let's talk. I think that there is always scope at a national and local level to ensure that signposting is better. I am certainly aware of that as a constituency MSP, a lot of my work in terms of my surgery work when I meet parents of children with additional support for learning needs is often signposting them to the right process. It begs the question about how we can ensure that parents at an earlier stage get that information more routinely. The issue about timescales is important. There are not many sections 70 complaints a few a year. The work that we did to analyse that between 2009 and 2012 showed that there were 20 sections 70 complaints. The majority of them took over six months. As a Government, we are saying that that is not good enough. Therefore, the bill is introducing the upper limit of 112 work-working days. It is welcome that the amendments are made so that the children over 12 who have a broken capacity can raise complaints that may cause conflict with parents. The question that I asked the previous witnesses was, who determines the parents capacity? The preponderance seems to be in favour of the parents and yet at the end of the day the main user is the child. There is nothing in the bill that determines how that situation is resolved. That is an important point, convener, and a very interesting one. I think that that is a matter for Dr Allan's evidence later on. Cabinet Secretary, we have had a number of discussions on the role of the chief education officer. We had in the previous panel a lively discussion with COSLA, who are against it. Looking at some of the issues that have arisen over this, comments such as the lack of formal consultation in advance of the bill's publication were cited. Questions about staffing of local employees should be a matter for the local authority and not the Government. There were concerns about who should carry out the post, what sort of qualifications. EIS said that the CEO should be GTCS registered, while East Lothian Council said that it was not essential that the CEO even have an educational background, which is perhaps a little extreme. However, there are clearly a number of concerns about it. I would appreciate your views on that. That touches on a number of important issues. As many members of the committee will know, I am a former social worker, so I am well acquainted with the responsibilities of the chief social work officer. If I can be completely up front with the committee, I am quite appalled and quite shocked to discover that the chief education officer role had been removed from statute over 20 years ago. The situation between the chief social work officer is not directly comparable with a chief education officer. There are some very specific statutory responsibilities that the chief social work officer has over and above that of advising the local authority. However, there are a number of roles in the statute, which is called head of paid service, which effectively is the chief executive officer of the council chief executive. The statute states that there needs to be a finance officer, and we have the chief social work officer as advised. Essentially, for me over and above my shock that we did not have chief education officers in statute, there are three reasons that I believe that there should be a chief education officer. One is that the landscape over the past 20 years for education departments, education services and local government as a whole, has changed quite significantly. The way in which services are delivered, the way in which services are integrated, much of that is positive. However, as we heard from the written evidence from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where they pointed to examples where not just a director but a head of service in education was not someone from an education background. What I want to guard against is that becoming the norm. I want to ensure that as part of the senior management team of an education service that there is someone from an education background in terms of qualifications and experiences, there is a lot of money spent on education so that the voice of education should be heard when those decisions are being enacted. In terms of who, there will be full consultation on the regulations that describe the qualifications around the chief education officer, full consultation 2016 for that part of the act to be implemented 2017. I do not want to pre-empt that consultation, but I have to say to committee that I am minded along with the teaching trade unions that within the senior management team of an education service there should indeed be someone who has experience of working with children, teaching with children and who knows what it is actually like at the chalk face. Some of the comments that have been made seem to indicate that that is going to be necessarily an additional post. Would your view be that this could in fact be carried out by an existing member of staff? In the vast, vast majority of cases it will not be an additional post because there will be someone within the senior management team and an education service within a local authority with the appropriate level of experience and qualifications that matches the regulations that this Parliament will collectively shape. What I want to guard against, given that we have some examples, according to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of someone being in charge of an education service without the appropriate experience and qualification, and given that the landscape in local government and children's services and education services has changed and will probably continue to change, I want to ensure that for now and in the future that we always have an appropriately qualified educationless within that senior education management team. Again, I would hope that that would be welcomed and reassuring, not least to parents among others. The bill states that the CEO would advise the local authority. Do you envisage any role other than just advising? I guess what I'm saying here is that advice sounds like a more passive role. Would that post have any proactive role in ensuring that the advice given was carried out? The role would be advisory, but it's also about how local authorities discharge their legal duties, how they discharge their functions and responsibilities, whether that's in relation to additional support for needs legislation, how good is your school, school improvement inspections, raising attainment. Given the focus that we across this Parliament are having on closing the equity gap and raising attainment for all children, it's important that we have an appropriately qualified and experienced person within the management team. There are other parts of the duties and responsibilities of a chief education officer that would be about overseeing the interaction with children's services general, about how we engage with parents, about how councillors respond to the best research and evidence. It would be wider than an advisory role, because ultimately it's about how an authority discharges its various roles and responsibilities and how those are implemented to the best effect for our children. Would you envisage the possibility that the post could operate across more than one local authority boundary? That might take in two or three local authorities, do you think that that's feasible? The purpose of this part of the bill is not in any shape or manner to restrict local authorities from making decisions and choices as they see fit in and around shared services. That is about ensuring that, however, that education service is configured, that someone in the senior management team knows what it's like in the chalk face. Following on from one of the questions that Colin Beattie just asked, the bill at the moment says that an education authority must appoint an officer to advise the authority. You've laid out your view on that. The evidence that we got in writing from ADES gives examples of the roles that ADES envisages a chief education officer around their take. It gives nine examples. The first one is to advise the education authority on matters relating to statutory responsibilities. Fine, that seems to fit in with what it says in the bill in terms of the role of an advisory. The other eight all say to ensure that. That doesn't sound like an advisory role, it sounds like a role where the chief education officer would have a role where they have a responsibility and an authority to ensure that something is done rather than advising the council that something should be done. Can you clarify whether your view is, as per the bill that is currently stated, or is it closer to what ADES has put in the average ever is? Of course, that is something that will have to be fleshed out in the regulations, but it is not just about advising as intimating my response to Mr Beattie, it is about ensuring that there is action and follow-through from advice. I would stress that this is not about the accountability of one person, it is about increasing the accountability of the entire education system. That is an interesting line of question for the convener. The cabinet secretary talked earlier on about not wanting to second-guest the way in which local authorities discharge their duties, but, to some extent, having not identified a problem that exists at the moment, we appear to be wading in with legislative levers to solve a problem that does not exist, and are actually telling local authorities how it is that we expect them to discharge their duties and structure their organisation? I am not telling local authorities how they should structure their organisations or deliver their services, but is it at the end of the day unreasonable to expect there to be someone within a senior management team in an education service that is appropriately qualified and experienced? I think that most people, if they want to apply common sense, would expect there to be someone within that team who has first-hand experience of education and that, by definition, they are educationless. We know that there are many people who make up the breadth and strength of any management team, but, surely to goodness, having someone who is, by definition, an expert in education has to also have a seat at that table. Do you expect the same requirement of the Scottish Government that, in terms of the policy development within your own organisation, there would have to be a background in education or any other area of policymaking? I will restrict my remarks to education, if you do not mind, but in terms of civil servants, in terms of education Scotland, there are a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds, but, of course, there are people who are educationless, particularly when you look at educational Scotland. There has to be that risk. Be trusted to take that advice and secure that advice on the basis of what your requirements are. Without the need to have a chief education officer within the Scottish Government with a background and list of experience that needs to be set down in statute anyway, you can be relied upon to secure that advice and support of your own free will. If you have suggestions, we will always look at them fairly and squarely. I am just saying the terms of partnership relationship between yourself and local authority. The difference is that local authorities, as they stand, have the legal responsibility, they have the operational responsibility to deliver education. I have been entirely candid and upfront with the committee as a former social worker. I am well appraised of the role and responsibilities of the chief social work officer, and I was shocked that we no longer have provision to ensure that each and every local authority has a chief educational officer. I think that it is pragmatic and sensible. You came as a shock to me because, presumably, you had not identified a problem that had arisen from the fact that there was not a requirement in statute that local authorities had, in fact, been discharging their duties of educational provision without the requirement for a chief education officer to be written into statute. When I became education secretary and was immediately appraised of the situation, I was candid and I am telling you that I was shocked. I have been educated. You have been in MSKeeves since 2007. Yes, there are a range of issues. You are in a relationship with a range of issues. I think that we have done that one. I want to move on. Time is tight. I do not want to start a spat between members and the cabinet secretary when we have a shot of time. The next issue is the registration of independent schools. The policy memorandum says that there is a clear relationship between poor teacher quality and weaknesses in the provision of education. Can I ask the cabinet secretary why was there no consultation undertaken on this issue in advance of the bill's publication? What was the driver for the legal requirement that all teachers have to be GTCS registered on? There was consultation. There was a very specific consultation with the sector. There was not widespread consultation, but the Government has been in discussions with the seven grant-aided special schools, the GTCS and the Scottish Council for Independent Schools. That is an issue that the sector has been working with the Government on for 15 years. You can look at a wealth of evidence from people such as the OECD, which talks about teachers having the most direct influence on student performance and on improving learning outcomes. There is a consensus in the literature that teacher quality is the most important school variable influencing student achievements. That comes from PISA 2012. Again, it is a desirable thing that, when you consider our education system as a whole, teachers are registered. One of the strengths of the Scottish education system, certainly in the state sector, is that we have a graduate teaching workforce that teachers have a teaching qualification and that they are registered. The issue in and around registration is that teaching is a learning profession. Therefore, teachers are subject to continuous professional development and the professional update process. My question was about poor teacher quality, but we will move on from there. My next question is that you have notified the committee today that there will be a requirement for headteachers to hold a standard for headship. That would again be a Scottish qualification. We heard last week from several witnesses that highly qualified and highly experienced teachers coming up from England had to wait some nine months and more in order to get through the GTC. The registration for people coming from England in terms of teachers coming to Scotland to teach, but also for this new Scottish qualification for headship, anyone coming from England would be unlikely to have the Scottish headship qualification just as they would be unlikely to be registered with the GTCS. Does that fulfil the European free movement of people? My understanding is that a qualification in England or Scotland would mean that you could go and teach in France or Germany. Why is it so difficult for a teacher to come from England to Scotland? Why is there such a delay? I am just really thinking about schools such as Gordonston that take pupils from all over the world, and they are a very large employer in the Murray constituency, but it seems that they can only get a headteacher who would have a Scottish qualification. As we move forward and introduce the mandatory headteacher qualification, the GTCS could and would ensure that there were equivalency processes, so they would look for what was equivalent to that. Of course, if we introduce specific qualifications for headteachers in Scotland and the headteachers coming from outwith, they would not necessarily have those qualifications, so they would have to look at some sort of equivalency in the GTCS. Mrs Scanlon touches on the issue of teacher shortages in some subjects in some parts of the country, and there is a range of actions that are under going to address that. In terms of GTCS registration and how that process is improved, that is just one aspect of that overall work to address the issues that Mary Scanlon raises. It is important to recognise that the GTCS registered more than 500 teachers last year, and that nearly half of them were from England. I think that the committee has given evidence that, if there are ways to ensure better processes that do not dilute standards, we are always open to improving the processes around East Mars. I am pleased to hear that an equivalency will apply to the headship if someone has an equivalent qualification in England. Let's say that they will be able to apply for a post in Scotland. Why does not the same equivalency apply to teachers who are qualified to teach in England? The GTCS spoke in detail at your last committee meeting around that. It takes a long time. The GTCS does have processes that are not always possible. Some of the issues for people who are employed as teachers south of the border are the fact that they do not always have a teaching qualification. Again, looking at some of the evidence that the committee had last week, where is the suggestion that MSPs would be suitable people to teach modern studies, I beg to differ about that strongly. It is not that people who, for example, teach who are immensely talented musicians can have an input in schools, but that does not mean that they are well prepared to take a young person through their higher music. I do not know many MSPs who would be well qualified to take a young person through their higher modern studies. It is a strength of our system that we expect teachers not only to have a degree, but we expect them to have a teaching qualification. That is not unreasonable far from it. There are issues for some teachers coming from elsewhere where we have to look closely at whether they have a teaching qualification and what qualifications they have. There are ways in which people can top up their qualifications. The GTCS has done a lot of work with the University of Northampton and the University of Buckingham with regard to that. There are also aptitude tests that are currently used where it is difficult to get that equivalency of qualifications. Not all teachers in further education are GTCS registered. Does that mean that there is poor teacher quality there and university lecturers? None of them are GTCS-trained. Are there issues in further and higher education as well? We are talking about children and our children's education and our strength of how we teach children in Scotland, as we have a graduate workforce. We have teachers who are qualified to teach, because the teaching bit is not the easy bit by any stretch of the imagination. If Mrs Scanlon has proposals on further education or university lecturers, we will wait and see them. We are talking about children. I am talking about children too, but the Wood commission looks at children 14 and over, possibly going to further education and FV lecturers coming into schools. As a FV lecturer for two decades before coming in here, I was never GTCS registered. I do not think that anyone complained about my teaching abilities or quality in that sense. I am just trying to, Liam McArthur raised earlier, look for a problem. We have a solution, but I am looking for the problem here. I am just trying to be consistent. I think that the fact that we have a graduate workforce with teaching qualifications and that are registered does not remove all problems, but I would certainly contend that it minimises problems. On the young workforce agenda, there is scope for better collaboration between schools and colleges. We do indeed, as happens in my constituency, young people go and receive part of their education in college if they are doing a vocational course. That is right and proper, but in terms of teachers who are teaching to the curriculum and supporting young people through national qualifications, I will stick to my guns. Thank you very much. We expect our teachers to have a teaching qualification and to be registered, and that should apply throughout the education system. We heard in evidence that the vast majority of teachers in Scotland were GTCS registered, and that included more than 90 per cent of teachers in the private independent sector. Are you satisfied that the working group that has been set up between the Scottish Council of Independent Schools and the GTCS will be able to address all the concerns raised by the sector regarding the small number of teachers who are not GTCS registered? My recollection of the statistics convener is that there are over 4,000 teachers in the independent sector. There are currently, in terms of the most up-to-date information, 645 that are not registered. 265 of those who are in terms of the information that they currently have would be likely to meet registration. There is an issue about music teachers, and there are 115 of them who tend to be instrumental instructors. The GTCS, as I said in the evidence committee, is looking at whether registrations are appropriate or not. There is an issue over a remaining 265 people who have a range of qualifications, not all degree qualified, not all with teaching qualifications, and there is a range of options. We will work very hard with the sector to reach pragmatic conclusions. What about the specialist schools such as the Steiner schools or, for that matter, the international school in Aberdeen, where they might not necessarily teach the Scottish curriculum? Certainly for those smaller schools such as Steiner and the international school in Aberdeen, we can see that registration would be more of a challenge for those schools. We want to find solutions that will be helpful, but solutions without the delusion of standards. In terms of the grant aid specialist schools, I think that there are only two teachers across the seven schools that are not registered. That ends the questions for this morning to the Cabinet Secretary and her officials. I thank you all very much for your attendance this morning and for giving your time to come to committee. I am going to suspend briefly to allow the panel to change over. I welcome to committee this afternoon. Alasdair Allan, Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland's Languages and his accompanying officials. As we said earlier, Dr Allan is here to answer questions on the Gaelic section of the bill and, indeed, the additional support needs part of the bill. I am going to move straight to questions. Minister, if you do not mind, I am going to start with Gordon MacDonald. Thank you very much, convener. We heard evidence in the first session from COSLA that they thought that there was going to be difficulties because there was a lack of available Gaelic language teachers and, in their view, there was a lack of new Scottish Government funding for this process. In addition, last week, Margaret Wentworth said that parents needed a process because some local authorities are not supportive. It was also suggested that the list of factors in section 10 might be used as an excuse not to do anything. Will the bill achieve anything? Will it encourage more local authorities to provide Gaelic medium primary education, or is it just about expanding the existing provision? Well, there is a list of very good questions. I will do my best to work my way through them, convener. In terms of your final point there, is it about developing Gaelic medium education or just making it bigger? I suppose that the two things are interconnected. Obviously, the size or the numbers of going through Gaelic medium primary particular has been increasing in recent years, and that is part of a very deliberate effort. Obviously, people will know my strong views about maintaining the existence of the Gaelic language. The limiting factor on it is the one that I am sure that you will have identified, which is the number of available teachers. Likewise, it is something that the Scottish Government and Board of Gaelic are working with, and they have increased the numbers coming through in this year, which does not sound like a big number, but 28 is coming out of the teacher training course. The points about how strong is the bill, how workable is the bill, or the bit of the bill that relates to Gaelic medium education. I think that there is a balance to be struck here. We have been talking about our right to primary Gaelic medium education for quite a long time in Scotland. I can remember the concept of reasonable demand and the need for a right being talked about for a long time. I have been involved and the Government has been involved in coming up with a bill that we think is reasonably balanced in the sense that it provides people with a process, provides them with something approaching the entitlement that we have all been talking about, but an entitlement to something that exists rather than an entitlement to something that does not exist. All of that said, I am very willing, and I am happy to indicate here today, that I am willing to listen to those voices who would like the Government to go further. I am willing to listen to what they have to say about the concept of entitlement and how that might be strengthened in the bill. It is a balancing act, but I am more than willing today to talk about that and to hear about people's views on it. You have talked about this balancing act and that it is about a reasonable demand, but given the concerns that I read out to you from Margaret Wentworth, should it be more of a legal right within the bill for Gallic medium education, or is that not your view? The focus of this part of the bill is on having a right to a process, if you like, to having the demand for Gallic medium education within a community assessed. I think that the question, if I recall correctly, that Ms Wentworth and others were raising was what happens at the end of that process, what is the entitlement at the end of that process. There has been much discussion of this online, there has been much discussion of this within the Gallic world. As I have indicated, I am willing to listen if I can to this, to respond to this as much as I can, and if there are ways forward that we can work together on that. I am happy to try to do that. It is not an open-ended commitment, as I say. There is little point in creating an entitlement to things that do not exist, but I think that, working together, we may be able to find a way to strengthen parts of this bill. I think that you mentioned section 10. Section 10 deals in part with that, but in part I may be corrected with the kind of reasons that local authorities can produce for counting against, if you like, the case for provision of Gallic medium education being put forward by parents. Again, that is something that I am sure that I will be able to work with the Gallic community on. In the previous panel, Addis highlighted that the educational focus was on 3 to 18 learning. Given that there are nearly 4,000 secondary pupils either in Gallic medium education or in Gallic learning classes, is the Government considering extending the bill to include secondary education? There is no doubt that, for Gallic medium education to be a success in the future, we have to look to where secondary fits into that. There is a very important distinction to be made between people who are learning in Gallic and people who are learning in Gallic. The bill deals with children who are learning in Gallic. That is, at the moment, predominantly a feature of primary school. That is why the bill deals with that primarily. There are powers in it to deal with, potentially, in the future preschool, but the focus is very much on primary. That is where the focus of Gallic medium education has been to date. I would like to see more schools develop more courses available through the medium of Gallic at secondary. That really does, however, depend on us having secondary teachers who are able and qualified to teach through the medium of Gallic. I would not like to give the committee any false impression of how many of those there are. My final question is just that previous Gallic bills have arrested the decline in the language. Do you see this bill helping to restore the level of Gallic speakers back to the 2001 level? That is the target that we have set ourselves as a Government. It sounds very modest to try and get back to the level of Gallic speakers that there were in 2001, until you consider that every census bar, one or two flukes in the 1890s and 1970s from memory, every single census in the last 100-150 years has shown a decline. What we have managed to do in the last census is overall the number of Gallic speakers that the decline has been almost arrested. Now we have to try and get back to the number of Gallic speakers that there were in 2001. Why do I say that? Because unless we can do that, then the trajectory is not that of a healthy thriving language. We do need to get back to those figures. A lot has been done on that. Front-border Gallic has been tasked very specifically with that. The increase in the numbers coming through Gallic medium education is part of that. This bill is part of that, but also part of that is the role of Gallic in the community as well. We must not gain the impression that Gallic is something that happens in school and nowhere else. Most people recognise that what we have here is the balance between an outright right to Gallic medium primary education and the demand that exists. You have said that you are open to strengthening the legislation. I wonder whether you would be open to an amendment in section 11 of the bill to allow for an appeal by parents where local authorities have decided against providing Gallic medium education. My initial reaction to that would be that creating an appeal structure into that would be a fairly disproportionate and complex thing to introduce. Perhaps what others have been pointing to here is the question of what happens at the end of the assessment process. If there is room for us to strengthen the bill, more centres around questions like what happens at the end of the assessment process and what are the kinds of reasons that local authorities can give against the creation of a Gallic medium unit. Those are more proportionate ways to strengthen the bill, but if people have specific proposals, I am more than happy to listen to them. On that point, SNP manifesto in 2007 and 2011 stated that there would be an entitlement to Gallic medium education. Given that there are 11 out of 23 sections in the bill, there is plenty room for it. Why did an entitlement to Gallic medium education become an entitlement for parental requests to be processed in a consistent manner? I wonder whether you keep saying, and in Angus MacDonald's business, that you also said that members want to come and talk to you. You will listen and the bill can be strengthened. Given the history of the bill so far, when you say that you are willing to strengthen the bill, will you go back to honouring your manifesto commitments in 2007 and 2011? To create any kind of entitlement, wherever on the spectrum of entitlements, there must be a process. There must be some kind of process introduced through the bill to measure demand, the need that there is in community and to measure the extent to which a local authority is willing and able to engage with that. I do not think that there is any need for me to apologise for the fact that there is a process introduced in the bill. I understand the point that the member is making, and I have already referred to it, which is around what happens at the end of the process, to what degree is there entitlement to see that go a step further at the end of the assessment of the need. As is said in Gaelic, we may all be on the same ore, if I can use that analogy. To some degree, we are all pointing in the same direction. There may be opportunities at that point in the bill that go further along the line of entitlement, as the member alludes to. The process is just saying the administrative means of processing a parental request. It could be, for example, that we heard from Borders this morning, so that process can be, well, your demand for Borders Council to provide Gaelic is not reasonable or we cannot afford it. It is just an administrative process. It is not an administrative process—well, correct me if I am wrong. Are you saying that this process will lead to an increase in the demand for Gaelic? That process is 50 per cent of the way to the entitlement. We know what the demand is for Gaelic. We have more information from the census that Gordon MacDonald has given the figures for Gaelic education, the increase in demand and the increase in supply in recent years. I am trying to understand why an entitlement to Gaelic medium education becomes an entitlement to a process. I quite agree with what you said about the demand for Gaelic medium education nationally. One of the obstacles that have been suggested to me by communities looking for Gaelic medium education in their community is that there is not an easily demonstrable way of showing what demand is locally. There is not a formal means by which local authorities have to have to see and acknowledge and accept what demand is locally. There is not a means of putting that in the public record. I think that most people campaigning for Gaelic medium education would see that as strengthening their hand within the community and strengthening their hand with the local authority. As I have said a few times now, and I appreciate the motives behind the member's point because I understand our commitment to that. I think that there is room for us to look at what happens at the end of that process to see if they can be strengthened further. Do you promise the entitlement? You have a majority Government and you can bring forward that entitlement, but instead it becomes an administrative process. As I have indicated to the committee, I do not think that there is much dispute on the fact that I would like to see a fairly dramatic increase in the scale of Gaelic medium education in Scotland. Indeed, there has to be that to happen for the language to survive and flourish in the future. However, we have to do in legislation to make sure that what we do actually leads somewhere. It has to be more than a slogan. It has to be a right to something that is going to happen. It has to be a right to something that we have the means and the teachers, crucially, amongst that to provide. There are lots of things that are happening on the front of providing more teachers and keeping up with demand. However, for instance, as you have looked at the evidence that was received, I am very pleased to say that much of it has been looking for the bill to go. Further, the demand has been there to see Gaelic medium education increase. However, some of the evidence has been from COSLA that suggests that the bill goes too far. I think that there is a question of proportionality, but I want to listen and see whether there is room to strengthen the bill. MacArthur I am no expert oarsman, but if everybody is on the same order, do we not just end up going round in circles? The point that I was going to make was that you suggest that you are open to ideas about how we might go further. I think that I have put on record before that I am very supportive of the work that you have been doing in relation to supporting the development promotion of Scots language. Therefore, for areas like Orkney Shetland, we heard from Borders Council this morning a similar concern in areas where there is not really a tradition in Gaelic speaking, there may be traditions of other language teaching. I think that I would be looking for an insurance here that you are not minded to go round the route of putting in place a bill that could have the consequences of diverting resource away from the work that is going on to support language development and promotion of Scots language and dialect in order to, in a sense, promote Gaelic where there has not really been that tradition in the past. The bill is not about forcing local authorities, as it were, to provide Gaelic, but if there is no demand for Gaelic medium within a local community, then there will be nobody making use of the bill. However, the bill provides a mechanism for communities where there is a demand for Gaelic medium education to put that forward. On resources, I agree with the member that I agree that there is a need to ensure that the Scots language, which you will know as well, has been very involved in, is promoted. The appointment of Scots language co-ordinators in schools, which includes both in Orkney and Shetlander, indicates that there is a need to explain and promote that linguistic tradition in Scotland as well. I just wanted to ask questions about the additional support needs. Regarding submissions from organisations, I welcome the principle of extending the ASL rights to children and the introduction of support services. However, there have been a number of criticisms, in particular that the definition of capacity should be aligned with that in existing legislation. A child of 12 or over is presumed to have capacity and a child under 12 could potentially have capacity. We have also heard that the definition of capacity may not be compatible with the UN Convention. We heard that in evidence a few weeks ago on the rights of the child and the rights of persons with disabilities. Why the standard principle on capacity was not applied in that instance, minister? The issue of capacity, as you indicate, is a very important one. By no means a simple one in this piece of legislation. If we had gone down the route, for instance, of presuming capacity, as you have indicated, it was one way forward. That would have had a whole range of unintended consequences, potentially. There are wider issues about the use of rights. The very purpose of the legislation is to increase young people's rights, but that is no simple piece of legislation because it refers back to the 2004 legislation, which, for instance, includes—I am not going to list them unless members want me to—some 18 potential scenarios around the use of those rights. There is also a question about ensuring that we do not rather have situations that put children in a particularly difficult situation. For instance, rights have not been extended around the issue of school placement requests, which could lead in some situations to children and young people seeking, essentially, not just to be removed from their family but from their community or even country. It is by no means simple, but it refers back to a piece of legislation, which is by no means simple. There are simpler solutions that could have been found, and you point to one of them. However, I am not convinced that that would have been the best solution in the best interests of young people. As I have indicated—I can mention, for instance, some of the scenarios that we are talking about—we are talking about things such as requests for assessment of additional support needs, making the formal request for the assessment, taking part in the assessment process, agreeing information about what can be shared in order to support transition planning, requesting a co-ordinated support plan or requesting a review of that plan, applying to independent adjudication or making a reference to the additional support needs tribunals. Those are a whole series of scenarios, some of which, as I say, you are suggesting that a presumed consent could have been used for all of those, but I would take the view that, if that line had been taken, there would be unintended consequences in several of the areas that I have just mentioned. With the convener's permission, can I ask if you are able to talk a bit more about some of those scenarios? Absolutely. When we were developing the proposals for this amendment to the legislation, we started from a slightly different position, which was, what does the child have to do in order to access their rights? We worked that way forward, so we mapped the processes that the child would have to use and what support would be required to use them. Part of that consideration, right from the start, became apparent that capacity and best interests were going to be a significant part and concern around that extension. Therefore, we have taken a slightly different approach from the approach that Iain Smith suggested, which was to include safeguards to enable parents and others to check that the child is able to use their rights and that the use of those rights are in their best interests. As Dr Allan has said, that is in recognition of the fact that there are at least 18 different rights and 18 different assessments of capacity, depending on the process that the child will go through, which makes it very complex. Therefore, the presumption of capacity in relation to those rights might not be appropriate. We do not want to end up with a situation where we are trying to avoid the situation in which we give a child rights and, as a result of them using the rights, they come under pressure and are unable to cope with the process that they are going through. The example that Dr Allan gave of assessment is probably a very good one, in that the child would then have to go through the process of assessment but receive their diagnosis, for example, themselves. Are they able to cope with that or do they understand what that means for them as part of that process? On balance, we felt that if we were to go for a presumption, we would be potentially causing harm to children and that was not what we wanted. Therefore, we took a different approach, which was around an assessment of capacity and then an assessment of best interests, and that was the reason for it. Come back to the best interests test, particularly Ian Smith, that you have brought up. I just want to go back to the capacity part. You have answered the main parts of it about the UN conventions. Do you see it as against that or will it be compatible? I do not accept the suggestion that it has been put that it is incompatible. One of the reasons why I am confident of that is that, for instance, the entitlement here is for all children to have their needs assessed. Obviously, only those young people who are assessed as having additional support needs will then go on to use some of those rights. However, I am confident that, not least because of the fact that the right exists for all young people to have their needs assessed, I believe that it is something that is equitable to all young people. You might be aware of the Government Law Centre's criticism of the best interests test. Again, it goes on to Ian Smith's interpretation of your quote that he gave us. I remember the exchange that we had and the evidence that we had from those bodies. They said—and it is their words, not mine—that you might have misunderstood the best interests. The Government Law Centre said that, if a child has the capacity to exercise their rights, it is for them to determine whether it is in their best interests to do so. That is the part of what it means to have the right to decide whether and how to use them. What is the view on that? Obviously, I am talking about minister, if you wish, but the simple basis is that the Government Law Centre said clearly that we are not meeting the test of best interests and, on evidence, we have heard that the Government officials might not be interpreting it in the best way. I understand the argument that, if someone gives a child a right, they should be able to exercise that right or not. That is the end of the matter. For this group of children and young people, we recognise that it is a very broad spectrum of differing additional support needs. As I said, going through the processes that we would require them to undertake in order to access those rights, we introduced the best interests element. I recognise that it is a departure, but I firmly believe that the fact that it then allows access to an appeal for parents in particular to ensure that the rights are being used in the best interests of their child. I gave the example at the time of where a child, for very good reasons in their own right, would want to remove part of the provision that is there to meet their assessed needs. I think that that stands. It comes from the process of working through what would be required to do in order to use their rights. I recognise that others view that as a barrier to those rights. For us, we would view that as a safeguard to make sure that we are not putting children into difficult situations. I do absolutely recognise that there are two different perspectives on the same issue. To pick up on that again, I think that the existence of the right to appeals acts as an important backstop, but I think that there is also an important feature, which is the fact that, through guidance, local authorities are assessing capacity, they cannot do so within a vacuum, they have to do so within rules that are laid down. As I say, I believe that the existence of a right to an appeal acts as an important feature, an important backstop to help bolster rights in that area, too. You have said how complicated the issue is and the tests that are applied. I completely understand that. Therefore, are local authorities the best place organisation to deal with the issues of best interest and capacity, given that the young people that might be exercising those rights are doing so against that local authority? I have asked Cosla for the opinion, but they do not seem to have one, which is quite bizarre on that. You have an opinion, Cosla. I have found that they usually have a very well-informed opinion. Perhaps it is relevant to say that, because, in this instance, local authorities are in a position to be well-informed, not just about children's rights but also about the services that children will be making use of. In some cases, it is possible to have a dialogue with a young person who has a relationship with somebody who works for the council. Notwithstanding everything that I have said about the objective parameters in which local authorities will have to work when they are doing those assessments, I think that they are best placed and have the relationships in place to carry those assessments out. We are talking about the assessment of children's needs and where they fall in the spectrum of demonstrating that they have got capacity. Of course, we have extended that. A question that I have asked in the previous session before last week is whether we wish to avoid conflict of interest with parents. Who assesses the parents' capacity to address the issues? The children raise an issue and exercise their rights, and has the capacity to exercise their rights, which does not necessarily meet the requirements. Who assesses the parents? You point to an important area around why we are having this piece of legislation, which is that there are parents who, in most cases, through no fault of their own, are not in a position to stand up for their children's interests. As things currently stand under the additional support for learning act, there is no requirement of assessment of parental capacity, so there is no body identified to assess that. Instead, the act requires that parents or carers act on their child's behalf. As I have said, part of the burden of this piece of legislation and part of the reasoning behind it is that there are circumstances in which parents do not do that. The bill itself or this part of the bill is intended to fill some of those gaps. It is a problem. In current legislation, it is. I can, with convener's permission, call upon Laura Meagle to say more on that. I think that there are circumstances where, as a result of capacity, parents may not be able to act on their children's behalf and ask about who makes that assessment. Those are the types of matters that would be considered, for example, in relation to other matters around children's hearings and around social work services, so that it would not fall particularly to the education authority to make that type of consideration as part of the additional support for learning framework particularly. I am not sure if that is helpful. It is helpful, but it still does not fill the black hole that might arise. At the end of the day, it is the children's rights and needs and where they want to go, I am sure that we and what the bill wants to do is to protect. You are rightly pointing to those problems. I think that the fact that the bill seeks to extend rights to an older group of children with young people with capacity is an attempt, and I believe that it is quite a far-reaching attempt, to address some of those concerns. Thank you very much, minister, and I thank you and your officials for attending this morning, but I can ask you to just stay in place for one moment while we deal with the next item business, which will be fairly quick, I hope. The next item is to consider three pieces of subordinate legislation as they are listed on the agenda. Do members have any comments that they wish to make on any of those instruments? No comments. Therefore, the question is, does the committee agree to make no recommendation to the Parliament on the instruments? That is agreed. Thank you very much. As the committee has agreed to hold the next items in private, I now close the meeting to the public.