 The next item of business is a statement by John Swinney on the Scottish Government's improvement plan for education. At the end, we will be taking questions—there will be no interruptions during the statement. Can I encourage and exhort all members to keep their questions short? The opening of the two questioners get additional time. After all those questions should be succinct wherever possible. The statement goes for the minister's answers where possible. John Swinney The Government has published data from the school census today. Statistical information on the achievement of curriculum for excellence levels by children and young people at school, local authority and national level and the 2016 national improvement framework evidence report. The school census first—the statistics for 2016 tell us that there were 253 more full-time equivalent teachers than last year. Of those, 160 were directly funded by the Scottish Government's attainment Scotland fund. Class sizes in pre-1-to-p3 are the same as last year and broadly static across primary school. The pupil-teacher ratio remains unchanged for the third successive year at 13.7 in line with the Scottish Government's agreement with local authorities. Most children are achieving the expected curriculum for excellence level for their stage based on teacher professional judgment. All young people are expected to have achieved at least third level by the end of S3. A record, 666 school buildings are in the top condition category of good and 84 per cent of school buildings in the good or satisfactory condition. I very much welcome the rise in teacher numbers compared to last year, the fact that class sizes are broadly stable and that the pupil-teacher ratio has been maintained. That is all good news, particularly when Parliament considers the teacher recruitment challenge as being faced in some areas of the country. Secondly, the statistical information on the achievement of curriculum for excellence levels by children and young people at school, local authority and national level is published today for the very first time. That data is in direct response to the OECD recommendation last year that we develop a more robust evidence base available right across the system, especially about learning outcomes and progress. That illuminates where excellence already exists and where there is more to do, both to target resources where they are needed most and to ensure that children are getting the right support at the right time. As this is the first time that we have gathered that data, it is being published under the official label of experimental statistics. As with many new data collections, it will need further development before its accuracy and quality can be guaranteed. It is also clear, for example, that some issues remain around the consistency of teachers' professional judgments across different local authority areas. Most notably, it is clear from the S3 data that there are differing approaches to the assessment of third and fourth level. Education Scotland and local authorities have a vital role to play in providing the support that is needed to deliver greater consistency in that area. A national programme of moderation activity is under way to build a shared understanding on those questions. Even taking those inconsistencies into account, the data shows that significant improvements are required in some local authorities and real challenges exist in delivering the progress in literacy and numeracy that we seek. I would encourage parents to consider the school level information that is now available and to discuss it with their child's school. The data provides a basis on which to build our knowledge about how children are progressing at school. The variation in some of the data does, however, highlight the value that standardised assessment will bring, providing teachers with nationally consistent data to help to inform their professional judgment. The data reinforces the messages that we took from the PISA results and is consistent with what we already know from the Scottish Survey of the Learning of Literacy and Numeracy. Most children and young people are progressing well through the school system, but for some, overall performance drops and the poverty-related attainment gap widens. There is much to be proud of in Scottish education. We need to remain focused on and committed to curriculum for excellence, and we need to continue to implement the forms that we are putting in place. That is the course that we established after the SSLN data, and that is the course that we intend to continue to take. It follows therefore that the 2017 national improvement framework and improvement plan, the third document that I am publishing today, reinforces that approach. The vision, the key priorities and the drivers for improvement that we identified in January this year have stakeholder support and remain as true and as important now as they did then. The improvement plan sets out what we need to do at all levels in the system to deliver better outcomes for our children and young people. It brings together in one place all of the improvement activity from the delivery plan that I published last summer and the curriculum for excellence implementation plan published in the autumn. It takes into account the information published today in the evidence report and sets out our plans for improvement. It will serve as the single definitive plan for securing educational improvement, providing absolute clarity of purpose for all who are involved in education. To drive improvement for children and young people, we need a shared understanding across all parts of the education system of our key strengths and the key challenges that we face and of the actions that we are taking forward to deliver improvement. I encourage everyone involved in school education to make the priorities of the national improvement framework a reality in their school. Teachers have a key role to play in closing the attainment gap and are central to achieving our vision of excellence and equity in Scottish education. I am committed to ensuring that we have the right number of teachers with the right skills in the right places to educate our young people. We know that the quality of teaching is a key factor in improving children's learning and the outcomes that they achieve. I want teachers to have time to teach, to plan their working lives and to reflect on their own professional learning needs. I want teachers to be able to enjoy their jobs and I want teaching to be seen as an attractive and a rewarding career choice. I have already moved decisively to free teachers to teach by removing unnecessary bureaucracy and workload. We have set out clearly and concisely what teachers should and shouldn't focus on, but I will continue to take all possible measures to lessen workloads, tackle bureaucracy and enable more time for learning and teaching for the benefit of all. As part of that work, next week Education Scotland will release their new websites, which radically streamline the level of guidance, resources and materials available to teachers and other practitioners to support improvement. That equates to a reduction of 90 per cent in terms of volume, and all materials have been reviewed and updated to meet current needs, enabling teachers to have ready access to the support, information and guidance that they need. I recognise that some councils still face challenges in teacher recruitment as do universities in recruiting teaching students. I am focused on addressing any barriers to the recruitment of teachers and will work with our partners to address issues of staffing supply and capacity at a national level, while maintaining Scottish teaching as a graduate profession. On 30 November, I announced a package of innovative new routes into teaching, and those will be ready for an intake of students in 2017. That includes accelerated routes, more distance learning opportunities and an increase in joint degrees combining primary teaching with specialism-like chemistry. We will build on last year's successful recruitment campaign to encourage more people into teaching, with a particular focus on hard-to-fill subjects and areas that have difficulty in recruiting. We are also continuing to support teachers' professional learning through further investment of £1 million in 2016-17 in masters-level learning. In considering any new routes into teaching, I can assure the Parliament that I will work with the General Teaching Council for Scotland to ensure that quality is assured and that the next generation of teachers will be qualified, skilled, motivated and ready to teach. I have visited many schools and spoken to hundreds of teachers and children since I took up this post. I know that in Scottish education today we have hundreds of thousands of good pupils being taught by tens of thousands of good teachers in thousands of good schools. I want to build on that and invite everyone in this chamber to join us in that effort. There is, for all of us, a moral imperative to deliver excellence and equity, and we have the clear policy framework in place to deliver that approach. The principles of curriculum for excellence are the right ones. Throughout its development there has been unanimous agreement within the Parliament and across the education sector that it is the right approach. In its review of curriculum for excellence in 2015, the OECD recognised the strong, powerful and enduring characteristics of our curriculum, commended the bold reform that we are driving forward and urged us to continue on our reform journey. Our international council of education advisers have further endorsed our approach to education in Scotland and have provided advice about where we need to improve. We are on course to deliver those improvements through our current actions. The collaboration in our education system is one of its great strengths, and it is essential that we work together to deliver the improvements that are required to make Scotland's education world class. There is much to be proud of in Scottish education, but more must also be done, with pace and with urgency, with every single one of our teachers around the country, with our professional associations, with our parent organisations, with Government agencies and with our local authority partners, to ensure that we close the attainment gap that has so long blighted our country in Scottish education. I thank the cabinet secretary for a prior site of a statement, which follows statistics published this morning, which were further proof that the attainment gap is as wide as ever despite the promises that have been made by the Scottish Government. Do the cabinet secretary tell this Parliament exactly why some of the top-performing local authorities can get around 70 per cent of their S3 pupils to level 4 in the curriculum for excellence, whereas many other local authorities that have been performing well in the past can only get very low levels to level 4? If that is to do with their structures and timings of CFE implementation being so different, why is it that that is happening? Is that not more evidence of the problems that the SNP has allowed to develop about the delivery of curriculum for excellence in the middle to senior phases? Would he not agree that many parents have a right to be very angry about those differences? Secondly, would he accept that the long-term decline in teacher numbers in secondary school is a big part of the reason why so many schools are finding the delivery of CFE in its middle and senior years phases so very difficult? First of all, on the question of the attainment gap, the statistics that have been published this morning confirm what we have long known is the existence of the attainment gap and the fact that it becomes more acute as young people proceed through the education system. That is precisely why the Government is taking the steps that it is taking in such a focused way to tackle the attainment gap. For completeness, Liz Smith should recognise that the data that was published by PISA last week confirmed that the progress that had been made in the early part of this administration to close the attainment gap has been sustained in the most recent PISA data. For completeness, I am sure that Liz Smith would want to make sure that her point to Parliament was made completely. I make that point. The second point is about differential performance between schools and local authorities. With the greatest respect, I think that Liz Smith has got the tone of her question entirely wrong. What the statistics and the data demonstrate is the need for us to be focused on a culture of perpetual improvement. That is what drives my thinking about Scottish education. That is why that information has been published to enable us to have a focused discussion about how we can deliver progress. What the data demonstrates is that there are areas of the country that can deliver stronger performance than other areas of the country. Schools within authorities that can deliver more progress than other schools of a comparable background within local authority areas. It is vital that we focus on the improvement journey to ensure that all young people are able to experience excellence and equity in their education. That point gets to the heart of one of the fundamental contradictions of Liz Smith's arguments on education. Liz Smith argues for variability and flexibility among schools, but when the schools exercise that flexibility and variability, Liz Smith comes to this Parliament and asks me to lay down the law and to stop them doing so. I invite Liz Smith to reflect on the fact that she has put forward an utterly inconsistent proposition in her arguments today. The third point that I would make is this. On a day like this, the number of teachers in our schools has increased, and some of it has increased because of the direct investment of the Scottish Government through the attainment fund. I would have thought that this would be a day for Liz Smith to welcome the fact that there has been a growth in teacher numbers across Scotland. Ian Gray is followed by Patrick Harvie. Thank you and thanks to the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement. Let me indeed welcome the increase in primary teacher numbers, but remind the cabinet secretary that we are still 4,000 teachers down and he has a long way to go to reverse the damage of the past 10 years. That is the message, surely, of the attainment data too. One quarter of children leave primary school unable to read at the expected level, one third fail to achieve the expected numeracy levels, the attainment gap between the rich and the rest rises at every stage. That is the measure of 10 years of SNP failure, as were last week's PISA results. We have an improvement framework, an implementation plan, a delivery plan, a governance review and now a performance improvement plan. No doubt there is a delivery performance framework review report in the pipeline, but what we need is a promise to stop the cuts and an apology to children, parents and teachers for the past 10 years. Can we have that? First of all, on the question of teacher numbers, I am glad that Ian Gray has managed to get somewhere close to acknowledging the fact that teacher numbers have actually gone up today, and that is welcome. It is a significant progress that Mr Gray was even able to acknowledge that. Even he managed to get further ahead than the Conservatives managed to get today. I would make the point to Ian Gray that much of the reason why the teacher numbers have increased is because of the stance that I took in my former role to protect teacher numbers despite the protestations of many Labour local authorities who wanted to reduce teacher numbers further, and I would not allow them to do so. Perhaps Mr Gray would get some clarity and consistency in his party's arguments, because when I meet local authority leaders from the Labour Party, they moan about the way in which the parliamentary Labour Party agitates about teacher numbers when they want to be given a free hand to reduce teacher numbers. Perhaps Mr Gray would get that point straight. Mr Gray accurately explains the data at P7, and he is correct in the data that he puts forward. Again, for completeness, I would have thought that Mr Gray would have then looked at what are the achievement levels at S3. At S3, what we see is that young people are able to achieve third and fourth level combined is that 86 per cent in reading, 86 per cent in numeracy, 87 per cent in listening and talking and 84 per cent in writing. As an illustration of young people progressing through the education system, I would have thought that that would have been a more complete measure to put in place. Finally, Mr Gray made reference to a series of documents. What I have done, if he was listening to my statement, he would have heard me say that I have consolidated into one document as a simple reference point for everybody involved in education, the measures that are required to be taken on improvement. It is what is called trying to focus the agenda to make sure that we can unite around that agenda of progress and improvement. That is exactly what the Government is focused on doing, and that is what we are going to deliver for Scottish education. Patrick Harvie, to be followed by Tavish Scott, and please succinct questions and succinct answers from now on, please. Thank you. The Government said that it does not want to return to crude league tables, but as it moves ahead with standardised assessment, is it inevitable that that is the way that the data will end up being used? Does it not stand in contradiction to the goal of trusting teachers to know who in their class needs a bit of extra help? On the last point, I want to trust teachers to meet those judgments in the classroom, because that is the only place that those judgments can be made. I want teachers to be well informed by reliable and consistent mechanisms of assessment to inform that judgment. That is what standardised assessment is all about. I certainly value, and I think that teachers will value, the information that is now available around comparative performance to identify how improvement can be strengthened in individual schools. That is what this agenda is about. I am not interested in crude league tables and I have not presented them in that fashion. What I am interested in doing is giving the information that can drive an agenda of improvement within Scottish education, and the parents and pupils of Scotland would expect nothing less of their Government. Is the Government's answer to the international figures that were published last week showing Scotland's educational performance is falling? National standardised assessments for pupils that the cabinet secretary just talked about and reformed to schools and local government, but not to the Government's own quangos who have had policy and implementation responsibility, along with ministers, for nine years for curriculum for excellence. Does the OECD not conduct a review in curriculum for excellence rather than an evaluation? Finally, on the improvement framework that the cabinet secretary just talked about, I can find 30 new improvement activities. How is that consistent with the very points that have been made about simplification and easing bureaucracy? I am sure that Mr Scott has looked at the Government's review material—I know what he has—but he will find in it that the Government poses questions about the role of all the bodies involved in education, including the bodies such as Education Scotland and the Scottish Qualifications Authority. It is a comprehensive review of governance in education. In relation to Mr Scott's point about the responsibility for implementing curriculum for excellence, I totally acknowledge and accept the Government's role in the delivery and implementation of curriculum for excellence. However, one of the points that is missed in the debate frequently is that, in the submission to the Government's review that was published last week by the Educational Institute of Scotland, the approach to Scottish education has always been taken forward as a partnership approach, in which professional associations, local authorities and professional bodies are all involved in the discussions about the delivery of curriculum changes and educational improvements. Yes, I am prepared to accept my share of the responsibility as a Government minister, but I simply point out that that responsibility has been exercised in a collaborative fashion across many organisations in Scotland. The final point is about the issue around the OECD and how that relates to the improvement framework. Mr Scott is literally correct that the OECD carried out a review and not an evaluation. It told us that we needed to get more data in place to enable us to undertake that evaluation, which is precisely what I have done this morning with the publication of the school-based assessment approach. However, what the OECD also said to us was that we had to take a number of steps to strengthen Scottish education, which is what is in the improvement plan. I am not going to make any apology for having—some people are criticising me for applying far too much peace to the reform agenda in Scottish education. I make no apology for that, because we have to get on with this. We have to get on with taking the necessary steps to improve Scottish education and the improvement plan that enables us to do that. I remind members that I am the parliamentary liaison officer for education before asking my question. As a former teacher, I welcome the moves taken to reduce workload and bureaucracy, and I am sure that the new Education Scotland websites, which streamline guidance, will be very welcome by teachers. Could the cabinet secretary outline how Education Scotland will monitor the uptake of the guidance, resources and materials that will be available to teachers next week? The reduction in the volume of material has been at my request to ensure that the materials that are available to enhance educational development around the country are visible and compelling to members of the teaching profession. I hope that those reforms are of assistance in that respect. On the monitoring, Education Scotland track significant use of the materials, and it will also form part of its dialogue with schools in relation to encouraging and improving educational practice around the country. In the most recent guidance that I issued to schools in August, Education Scotland was able to advise me of the very significant levels of interest that were taken in those materials by the teaching profession from the data that was available, and I look forward to that being replicated with the reforms that were undertaken. On page 3 of his statement, the cabinet secretary referred to the scheme that he announced on 30 November. For clarity, could the cabinet secretary advise the chamber how many of the current level of teacher vacancies he expects that scheme to fill, and, with an accelerated or fast-track route into teaching, what measures will be put in place to ensure that teachers are sufficiently qualified, given that teachers have already expressed concern that there has not been enough focus on literacy and numeracy as part of the current teacher training? The first point in relation to Mr Thomson's questions is that my expectation would be that approximately 200 places would be filled by the new routes into teaching that I announced on 30 November. The design of the approaches to encourage a swifter route into teaching will be designed by the colleges of education who are independent bodies that are not controlled by the Government. They are independent educational bodies, but they have to design those courses to the satisfaction of the General Teaching Council for Scotland that they will produce graduates that will be able to satisfy the standards that would be expected by the General Teaching Council for Proficiency within Scottish education. Those issues will be entirely in the hands of the General Teaching Council and the colleges of education to be assured that the quality of individuals that emerge from those particular routes meet the standards that we would expect. James Dornan, followed by Monica Lennon. While the news that so many young people are achieving their expected curriculum for excellence level is welcome, we want a world-leading education system to do with more schools and local authorities to support young people to achieve beyond their expected level. I would appreciate if the cabinet secretary could outline to me both as a constituency MSP and as a convener of the Education and Skills Committee what evidence he has that that is happening. What we have put in place is a framework of data that will enable us to see on a sustained basis the progress that young people are making. It is more data that is more visibly available than has ever been the case in the past. We will be able to see the progress that young people are making at a school level, and that will help to inform the steps that are necessary to improve performance at local level. The data demonstrates some significant variation in the performance of different local authority areas. That should be the subject and the focus for improvement, and the national improvement plan is designed to assist in enabling schools to be able to tackle that performance and to ensure that young people are able to fulfil their potential. There are almost 72,000 more primary pupils with additional support needs than in 2007. A better understanding of the individual needs of pupils is welcome, but the number of learning support and additional support need teachers in primary schools in this period has decreased by 31 per cent. A fact that the cabinet secretary did not highlight in his statement, but he said that he is committed to ensuring the right number of teachers with the right skills in the right places. When can children with additional support needs expect to see this commitment fulfilled? As part of the Government's agenda to ensure that we get it right for every child, we focus on the needs and the requirements of individual children as they present themselves in the system. As I have discussed with Parliament before, we have a presumption about mainstreaming, but we are looking to ensure that the correct judgments have been made about the educational situations for young people being appropriate to meet their needs. The one other point that Monica Lennon has made is that between 2007 and the current period, there was a significant change to the legislative framework in place in relation to children with additional support needs, which broadened significantly the definitions of those young people who would be defined as having additional support needs. Those additional support needs will vary across a much broader range than would have been the case under the previous arrangements that Monica Lennon set out. Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I take this opportunity to thank the cabinet secretary and the ministers for recent visits to my constituency and seeing first hand some of the innovative work that goes on around the schools in Coatbridge and Crescent? Could the cabinet secretary outline how many schools have been built or refurbished since 2007 and 2008 and how that compares with the previous administration and explain what impact it expects us to have on attainment? Over 600 schools have either been rebuilt or refurbished since the Government came to office in 2007, which has delivered the type of improvements and enhancements in the learning environment that is experienced by young people the length and breadth of the country. We are now in a situation in which well over 80 per cent of young people are being taught in either good or satisfactory educational environments. That is testament to the investment that has been made by the Government. The cabinet secretary said in his statement that the data shows that significant improvements are required in some local authorities and real challenges exist in delivering the progress of literacy and numeracy. That is definitely a statement that we would agree with. What will the cabinet secretary do in practical terms to give that support to local authorities and local schools? The Government has set out the steps that we consider to be appropriate in improving performance within education. They are set out in the national improvement framework, and we would encourage all local authorities to take those steps forward. Secondly, the Government has made available resources to assist in closing the attainment gap to a wide variety of local authorities in Scotland, and, of course, we await the conclusions of the budget process on Thursday to give us further information on the delivery of assistance to a wider cohort of pupils as a consequence. The Government is focused on ensuring that we play our part in strengthening performance in education achievement at local level in Scotland. That concludes our statement. I would just point out that, despite my exhortations and encouragement, there are four members who did not get in there, so I would just ask all members to reflect on that. Please ask a question, maybe one sentence beforehand, one sentence and a question. I am sure that the minister is also listening to encouragement. We move on to the next matter of business.