 Good morning, and welcome to the 24th meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2023. The first item on our agenda this morning is an evidence session on the pre-budget scrutiny and the Scottish attainment challenge. Can I welcome Jenny Gilruth, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, who has joined us for the first time since her appointment? Well, congratulations, Jenny, and well done. Welcome rather, and the Cabinet Secretary is joined today by a number of officials. We have Graham Logan, director for learning, Alison Taylor, deputy director for improvement attainment and wellbeing, Eleanor Passmore, deputy director for early learning and childcare, Steven Patherana, director of lifelong learning and skills, and Elizabeth Somerville, attainment adviser. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Can I invite the Cabinet Secretary to make an opening statement? Good morning. I'm delighted to be here with you today in my first appearance at the Education, Children and Young People Committee as Cabinet Secretary. Thank you for the invitation. It's nice to be back, although I sat at a different chair than when I was last in this committee. I very much look forward to working constructively with members of the committee. I've met with Opposition Leads over the course of the last few months, and I look forward to that continued engagement with the committee. I want to start by stating the obvious, convener. Some, though not all, of our schools are closed today as a result of industrial action. Although the workers involved are local government employees, and this is not an education dispute, it would be remiss of me not to mention the impact that school closures have already had on education and continue to do so this week. Although I respect that this remains a negotiation between local authorities and unions, I recognise those who are involved and continue in negotiations in the hope that a resolution can be found swiftly. Although I am not involved in negotiations, I have been working very closely with COSLA to ensure that any disruption to learning and teaching as a result of this industrial action is minimised. The clear expectation from Scottish Government and COSLA is that schools will only be closed where it is safe or practicable to keep them closed or not to open them rather. The educational needs of our young people must continue to require to be met locally where our schools are closed. Convener, I am very grateful to the committee for your inquiry into the Scottish entertainment challenge on your comprehensive reports published in August of last year. The Government responds to Seekley comprehensive and we share that focus on improving outcomes for children and young people experiencing poverty. Progress is being made. The poverty related attainment gap remains narrower than it was pre-pandemic for NAP5s, hires and advanced hires. We have seen good progress in primary school literacy and numeracy, and we have seen a record low gap in positive destinations for school leavers nine months after leaving school. All of that, along with the ambitious aims that local authorities have set, our setting for the longer term gives me confidence that our £1 billion of investment in the Scottish attainment challenge is having an impact. At the same time, we all acknowledge the impacts of the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis that have defund inequality. The Government has maintained our commitment to that relentless focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap and working very closely with our councils, recognising their responsibilities. I understand that the committee would welcome an update on the relationships and behaviour summits. In June, I convened a headteachers task force to consider school exclusions. As I explained in my letter to committee in August, there are multiple strands of the summits with events in September, October and November. That ensures engagements with a wide range of stakeholders and enables the summit process to be informed by the evidence that will publish in the behaviour in Scottish schools research in November. I chaired the summit in September on recording and monitoring incidents in schools and I look forward to engaging with future summits. I will continue to keep the committee updated to that end. There is much to be positive about in Scottish education. We have the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the UK. We have the highest spend per pupil in the UK and the best paid teachers. We continue to celebrate and support free tuition and higher education. This year's exam results show continued progress in closing the poverty-related attainment gap. There are always opportunities to improve. I accept that. However, how we, as politicians, engage with the substantive issues of the day in education is not arguably like any other policy area in Government. As the committee will know, I was a teacher before I was a politician and the actions that I take as Cabinet Secretary will undoubtedly be informed by my own experience at the chalk base. However, I believe that this committee has one of the most important roles in the Scottish Parliament, yet in holding Government to account, but also in driving the improvements that we need to see in our education system. That is what will improve the outcomes for our young people, and I am committed to working with the committee to that endeavour. Thank you for having me along this morning, convener. I am happy to take any questions. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary, and yes, I am sure that the committee itself shares its opinion that we are one of the most important committees within the Parliament. I will move on to questions from members. We are going to start this morning with Willie Rennie, please. You may not have had a chance to read the front page of the daily record this morning, but there is a report that £15 million of redress Scotland funding has been reallocated to address the teachers pay deal. Victims of child abuse, historic child abuse will want and assurance that they will not lose out on any compensation. I wonder whether you can provide the committee with an update. I have not seen the article in question, so I will be happy to write to the member in the committee with more detail. As I understand it, councils will be able to profile their planned £7 million of contribution to the redress scheme in 2024-25. They will still have to maintain their agreed overall contribution of £100 million, with Scottish Government ensuring that sufficient saving is available in the interim. As such, the decision will not have a detrimental impact on the operation of the scheme, but I very much recognise the sentiment of the member's question and its importance. Again, as I have intimated to the member, I have been more than happy to write to him directly on this or to the committee more broadly because I recognise the sensitivities in this instance. Pam Duncan-Glancy, please. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the cabinet secretary. Congratulations on your post and welcome, and good morning to the officials. On a similar vein around the teachers' pay settlement, in your reply to the committee last year—or the Government's reply, rather—to the committee last year, it said that we have listened to feedback from headteachers about seeking longer-term certainty over the pupil equity fund. For the first time, we have indicated PEP allocations for four years. Yesterday, the Scottish Government evidence to the local government committee called that into question, and it heard that, far from continuing the certainty, some PEP funds will be clawed back to pay for the teachers' deal. Is that the case? I thank the member for her question. As she has intimated, the four-year funding settlement that is part of PEP is hugely important. It gives headteachers certainty in relation to planning, for example, in relation to hiring staff. It is important to recognise that that additionality has helped us to make progress in relation to closing the poverty-related attainment gap. Undoubtedly, in relation to the teachers' settlement deal, I was not imposed at that time. It is not my understanding that PEP has reprofiled as part of that arrangement. I would defer to officials on that as I was not imposed at that time, but I recognise that I have not seen the evidence in question that the member has alluded to. More generally, it is my understanding, as cabinet secretary, that PEP funding remains absolutely our focus as a Government in relation to the delivery model. It will remain on a four-year basis until the end of the cycle. My understanding is that approximately £30 million will be reprofiled to go towards the £80 million that the Government said that it would need to find. I think that that relates to the local government pay deal then, as opposed to the teachers' pay deal. I understand from the negotiations that they are currently progressing. I want to put on the record that I am not involved in the negotiations. My interest in that is very much on maintaining that continuity of educational provision. However, £30 million of resource is going to be reprofiled from 24-25 for the local government attainment grant, which is formally PEP. That will simply align the funding with the academic gear and planned spending by schools as opposed to the financial year. The important point in all of that is that there will not be any detriment to levels of funding available at school level. I have been very clear on that in terms of my responsibilities, so it will not impact on the availability of funding at a local level. That is a reprofiling that has been, as I understand it, given that I am not engaging in the negotiations part of the decision making about the current offer on the table. I appreciate that, cabinet secretary. My apologies. You are absolutely correct. It is the local government pay deal, not the teachers' deal. Nonetheless, there are still concerns locally that that will destabilise some of the plans that perhaps head teachers had made this year to use that funding. They have sought reassurance that the funding will indeed be given back to that pot. Cabinet secretary, can you guarantee that that will be the case? I would like to state to the member that it must not have that uncertainty and that it must have that understanding that funding will flow in those four-year cycles. As far as I am concerned in relation to my responsibilities, head teachers should and must have that certainty. To go back to some of the premise behind PEP funding and why we attached it to four-yearly funding cycles, it was around giving certainty. It was around giving head teachers the opportunity to plan and recruit on a basis that was not temporary, for example. Any movement away from that would be to the detriment of our young people. It is for that reason that I am concerned and that I think that people locally are concerned about the move of the £30 million. I appreciate that it can be in the way that you have described re-profiled, but it is because, as the cabinet secretary will probably be aware, it is because of the funding arrangements on the financial year and the academic year that there could be or it could look like there is movement in there or some funding that could be used now and put back. Schools have not said that that is the case. They do not think that it is possible to do that. Actually, the way that they are using their funding relies on it continuing on that longer-term basis like the Government set out last year. I would appreciate if the cabinet secretary could look into that and make sure that local schools, head teachers and local authorities do not feel any detriment for the movement of that funding. I think that the member raises a really important point, convener. Obviously, those negotiations are on-going, and I am not involved in the negotiations, but I am very clear that there must not be, as the member has alluded to, a detriment to schools in relation to those negotiations. That funding was promised on a four-yearly cycle. It must come to schools and head teachers directly, where they have the power to make a difference in their school setting. I give the member reassurance in relation to my responsibilities as cabinet secretary for education that longer-term planning in relation to funding is vitally important. That is why PEP is making a difference right now in our schools. The point about there not being a detriment to the levels of funding available at school level is absolutely imperative in my view. The cabinet secretary also mentioned that there was additionality attached. He said that schools and local authorities had considered that PEP was additional spending. The report was published late last night to look at how that funding has been used. There is very little in there about the detail that was asked on the question on additionality. Is the cabinet secretary aware of any circumstances locally where PEP is being used to backfill current core costs? I shared with the committee the most up-to-date report that we have in relation to that. When PEP was first brought forward and sat more generally as a programme, it was meant to be additional to the system. As time has progressed, the system has evolved. We are living through very challenging financial times, and there probably has become a certain degree of reliance on that funding structure. We need to be cognisant of that. It was meant to start to bring additionality. It still brings a level of additionality. However, our schools depend on it now, and any movement away from it in the future would be very challenging. One of the most privileged parts of my job as cabinet secretary is that I get to go in and out of schools on a pretty much weekly basis. I get to see the impact that spend is having in our schools. Speak to any headteacher—I am sure that you all do in your constituencies—that they will tell you that the funding is making a real difference where it matters in our schools. It empowers our headteachers, but it allows additionality to be brought in, so whether that is in additional staff members, whether that is from external, for example, third sector organisations providing mental health support to our young people, we need to be very clear that the additionality that PEF and SAC provided at the start has now become intrinsic to our school offer in Scotland. I am very keen that we look to protect that additionality within the system. Liam Kerr, can I move to questions from yourself now, please? Thank you, convener. Good morning, panel. A couple of questions on the PEF funding, cabinet secretary. It would seem that you are absolutely right that the PEF funding is making a significant difference, but the amount of it, I think, is £130 million, give or take, which is the same as last year. Had that increased with inflation, I think that would be around £145 million. What does the Government think is the practical impact of what is in effect a reduction? How do you ensure that local authorities are sufficiently resourced, given that £15 million shortfall? Of course, the education budget, like every budget in the Scottish Government, is not immune from the impacts of inflationary pressures, and we need to be mindful of that. We have increased the investment in the SAC programme from £750 million in the last parliamentary term to £1 billion over the course of this parliamentary year. It is important in relation to the question that Pam Duncan Glancy asked about four-year funding cycles, giving head teachers certainty, for example, allowing them to plan in relation to their staffing. The £520 million of pupil equity funding over four years gives them that certainty. The additionality that we bring is also measured out by the fact that we spend more per head of pupil in Scotland than in any other part of the United Kingdom, so our spending per pupil was around £1,300 or 18 per cent higher than in other parts of the UK. We also had to absorb some of the financial pressures that have surrounded the teachers pay deal. I think that that was the right thing to do, but we are mindful of the impact that that has across the budget and other parts of the Scottish Government additionally. We have the lowest pupil teacher ratio in the UK. We have a strong story to tell about investment from the Government, but I recognise the impact that inflation has had in relation to the erosion of the spending per we have within the education and skills portfolio. More broadly, across the Scottish Government, there is less money to go around than there was previously. I am not going to make political points about that this morning, because I think that it is important that we talk to the detail in relation to the educational outcomes, but we should be mindful that those external factors around about inflationary pressures are having an impact on the funding that every Cabinet Secretary has and how much we have to go around and cut the cake. I am not sure that that answered my question, which was about how, given that there is a £15 million shortfall, that does not follow through to an impact. By all means, I will come back on that. On sticking with the PEF funding, it is allocated at a school level, based on the number of children estimated to be taking free school meals. Perhaps the concern has been raised with me. What happens when the universal free school meals are brought in? How do you then calculate it? Are you able to answer that very briefly? I am sure that there is a straight answer. I will come back to the work on free school meals, because that is a really important point, given that we are moving to that universality in relation to primary. Just in relation to the member's first point, we know that we have been increasing in relation to our local government spend, so local authorities spent around £6.9 billion on education in Scotland. We need to be mindful of local authorities' responsibilities in relation to education spend, in addition to that, which is the ring fence from the Scottish Government, which is in comparison relatively small. However, we have increased spending in relation to education in the real-terms increase of 7.2 per cent in 2020-21. In terms of free school meals and how we calculate that going forward, it is really challenging. Part of it will involve us working with Social Security Scotland, part of it also involves us working with HMRC. I am probably going to bring in Alison Taylor at this moment, because officials are working on that calculation at the current time, because it will be challenging, I think, as we move forward and away from that measure in the future, recognising that universality will necessitate that we use a different measure. In relation to the allocation of PEP, of course, the fact that we have published the amounts for the four years of this Parliament means that they are determined, so we have made those estimates for the remainder of the programme's life cycle, as it is defined at the moment. It is a very challenging change to make, as the cabinet secretary says. We are working on it with our colleagues for whatever comes next. For the portion of the funding that goes to local authorities, we have been able to use a different formula, which is the children living in low-income families. However, that does not take us down to a level of granularity that we can apply at school level. The key thing with PEP is that allocations have been published to 2026, so schools have certainty now about what they are getting. I understand that. I might just press that point, because, I suppose, through the cabinet secretary. Just more philosophically, perhaps, do you think eligibility for free school meals is actually the best metric to decide on levels of need in a particular school, in a particular area, or perhaps there is a better way, which might be what you are moving to? It is a measure that we have used, obviously, for allocations for a number of years, and it is a measure that we have used for other things as well in the past, in terms of eligibility. In the future, to the member's point, given that we are moving towards universality at primary school level, we will have to look at a different model, so it necessitates a shift away from it. I am probably not going to argue the point on whether or not it is the best way to measure it. It was the measure that we used, but we will have to use a different one in the future that will look differently because of that universality approach in relation to primary schools. I have a couple of questions that we need to pick up. I was wondering what the Government's assessment has been of the progress in closing the attainment gap since the pandemic. I will ask both my questions at the same time to allow you. Attendance during the pandemic was a challenge, and getting pupils back into school continues to be a challenge. That is a critical point in addressing the attainment gap. I am trying to inquire what we are doing to really improve pupil attendance. I think that the member raises a number of really important points in relation to, first of all, closing the gap and secondly on attendance, which has been concerning me since my appointment back at the end of March. First of all, in relation to closing the gap, we have seen a narrowing of the gap since 2019 and the most recent exam results, for example, from this academic year. I think that it is important that we compare the academic year with 2019 as the closest possible barometer of comparison. Given that, during the pandemic, the Scottish Parliament removed the cost requirements for the qualifications as they normally would have been and replaced that with a different measure using teacher judgment that I know that the committee will be familiar with. 2019 is our closest barometer of measurement, and that shows that we are making progress in relation to closing the gap in relation to exam progress. In primary 7, the ASIL data on literacy and numeracy also showed last December the biggest amount of progress that we have seen since records began. The most up-to-date data will be published in December in relation to ASIL for primary, and I think that the committee will want to look closely at that data, as I certainly will be in December. Of course, more broadly, in relation to issues surrounding attendance, I receive, I think, fortnightly updates on the national picture in terms of attendance. It concerns me, and I think that the committee will have heard me say so in the chamber. There are certain year groups who seem to have challenges in relation to their school attendance, and it appears to me that those are the year groups who were perhaps going through a transition period in their education during the pandemic. Whether that was primary 7, for example, or those in S3, there seem to be gaps in relation to attendance in certain year groups. To that end, I have asked Education Scotland to look at the issue in more depth and to provide me with further advice that will be forthcoming later in the month. I will be happy to share that advice with the committee and any recommendations that come from that, recognising that managing attendance is a matter for local authorities. I know that some local authorities, for example, use their PEF funding to help them to improve attendance rather than attainment. That can be a valuable tool, however, aside from that, local authorities have a responsibility in relation to attendance. I am very worried, anecdotally, about some of the school visits that I have been on where I hear about care experience to young people perhaps not attending school because of their experiences during the pandemic, and it concerns me that those young people are not attending and that their educational needs may not be being met as a result. We need to be mindful, as I know that the committee is, of the impacts of the pandemic on schools, did not just disappear after the last lockdown. I think that they changed behaviour, I think that they changed the way in which our young people interact with the education system, the way in which parents engage with teachers, and we need to be very mindful of that and sensitive to it, particularly in relation to attendance. To me, as Cabinet Secretary, I am fearful of a cohort of young people that we have moving through our education system. Whose education was ultimately disrupted, yes, by Covid, but also by industrial action, and we need to engage those young people fully in their education to improve their outcomes. That is why attendance and improving attendance is so key. I was trying to get at some of the things that might be happening to target those young people. Last night, there was the colleges Scotland event, and Edinburgh College was there talking about the programme that they are doing with East Lothian Council, and we are partnering with Preston Lodge High School and Ross High School, I think that I will get the second high school right, sorry if that is not right, where they have got those young people from S1S2 coming in to college and trying to re-engage them and excite them in learning again. I was trying to tease out if there were more activities like that going on across the country and if that was something perhaps you might be looking to accelerate. Absolutely, convener. I am being reminded now that I have, of course, the summer of all here from Education Scotland. I might bring in less who is working on the deep side that Education Scotland is preparing, but the work that you have alluded to engaging the college sector in our schools is fundamental to providing different pathways for young people, but also getting them to re-engage with the education system if there has been that disengagement in relation to the pandemic and more broadly in terms of attendance. Thank you for inviting me along again. It is always a pleasure to come to Parliament and to talk about the successes of the attainment challenge, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to do that today. With regard to attendance, we are obviously undertaking a deep dive. This is going to be a short piece of work. We are undertaking it under a very short period of time, but that is on purpose because we know that we cannot wait. Whether after we may need to review it in a few months' time, add to it as more data becomes available, we will. However, what we are hoping to do during that deep dive is really get to the root of what are the current barriers and challenges that children are facing in being able to come to school and also wanting to come to school. We will also be looking within that to look at what is the impact of the pandemic being on that. We will also be looking ahead to see what effective strategies are happening elsewhere. I will give you some examples of how people are using their pay for a wee minute to actually improve attendance in their schools and actually have an impact with that. The other parts of the deep dive will be looking to provide some advice on what are the strategies and the interventions that can be put in place to support children back to school but also to prevent children from disengaging the school in the first place. I think that it is really important whenever we are talking about this. A lot of people are talking about attendance at the moment. For me, attendance is a noun. It is not a noun, it is a verb. It is something that you actually do. Attendance is often a symptom of what else is happening in children's lives and whether that can be disengagement from the curriculum, disengagement from being able to turn up to school because they have maybe got pools coming from home. All those things are all factors that we need to really understand so that we know how to best support our learners. Ultimately, that is an inclusion issue because we need our children to feel included in school and to remove the barriers so that they can actually attend. The last thing that we will all be looking at is data and actually what data is available, what local authorities are using and how they are using their data to help to support them to drive forward improved attendance. The key message around the deep dive has to be that while we are going to look at attendance, we have to look at engagement because if we do not get engagement right for our learners, they will walk with their feet. With regard to that, we have a couple of examples to talk you through about successes that are already—we have seen successes across the country. For those of you who are in the fourth valley in West Lothian region, you will know that they have spent a significant amount of their funding, their regional improvement collaborative funding, on addressing what attendance is within their schools. That was a massive piece of work. Again, there are lots in there that we will be able to share and highlight for other local authorities to use. Taking a specific example, there is one high school in Perth and Kinross, Kinross High, and they are using their PEVs specifically to employ pupil care and welfare officers. When they have put these people in post, they are seeing differences from a yearly average of 88 per cent, jumping up to 93 per cent for those learners. Now we know that 90 per cent, anything less than 90 per cent, attendants impact your attainment. This piece of work is actually moving those learners to a place where they can maximise their attainment, which is a really nice story. We have also got places in Edinburgh, Craig Royston Community High School, and again, they have been putting in place attendance champion interventions. They are calling it a really exciting piece of work. We have ended up with 77 per cent of young people who were targeted, seeing improvements in their attendance. There is a lot going on in the system. A lot of people are almost in a child-on-error of what will actually work, because we have never been in this situation before. I think that it is important that people do that analysis of what will work and then how we scale that up. A lot of people are trying small tests of change to know exactly what will work. Ultimately, our ambition is that we can put as many interventions as we can to attainment in place. However, if the children are not in the building, we all know that our objective has to be to get children in the building. Maybe not as you are describing on the school building, but how do we engage our children in learning so that they can then attain? Good to know that there is some innovative thinking going on, and we will look forward to the results of that deep dive here. Pam Duncan-Glancy has, hopefully, a brief supplementary. To say the evidence, I do not think that supports the Government's claim that the poverty-related detainment gap was narrowing before the pandemic. Indeed, the trend in that fives and in hires from 2016 to 2019 was that it was increasing, and it is now higher than it was in 2016. Can the cabinet secretary explain that? Does she think that she will meet the commitments to close the gap by 2026? I do not actually agree with what Ms Duncan-Glancy has just intimated. The gap in terms of that fives and in hires is narrower than what it was in 2019, and that is our closest barometer of measurement. If the suggestion here is that we compare this year's results to 2022, I do not accept that, because the course qualifications in 2022 do not match up to the course qualification requirements today. It was the three years previous to 2019 that I quoted figures on. We can selectively choose a year that we want to, as I suppose that the answer would be to Ms Duncan-Glancy's question. My closest measure here is 2019, but even 2019 and the three years prior to that do not compare to 2023, because our young people have lived through a pandemic. The suggestion that the outcomes that they are providing in relation to their academic attainment should be measured necessarily bluntly against that, I am not sure that I would accept. I think that more generally we need to be very, very careful in relation to how we frame some of this. Because our young people live through a pandemic, because they were out of school for such a long period of time, we have just heard issues around about attendance, some of them are not engaging. Getting them to engage in formal education for many of them will be very challenging. I know that we are going to come on to talk about behaviour, but I see that as part of some of the wider challenge here in relation to attainment. Do I think that we need to keep going in relation to closing the gap? Absolutely, but I also think that we need to be mindful of the shift in terms of the context. It is not just in terms of Covid, it is a cost of living crisis, it is things getting much harder for families than they were previously. In the three years that Ms Duncan-Glancy spoke to, for example, inflationary pressures were not where they are at all at that time. I think that it is really important that we all take a nice sense of that in relation to the targets that we have set. We will absolutely need to close the poverty-related attainment gap, but we need to be mindful of the new normal that the pandemic has created, and that the economic conditions have necessitated in recent years. That is having an impact on our young people before they even cross the school gates. Never mind sitting in the rygsabs. I accept that it was going up between 2016 and 2019. Between 2016 and 2019, I do not have the details in front of me. Thank you. That is fine, cabinet secretary. Can I pick up on something as well? It is a bit more of a chicken and egg thing, and it is back on the attendance. If attendance is such a critical point to making for attainment and closing that gap, the other interventions should maybe take less importance than focusing in on attendance. Do you see that—I do not know if the cabinet secretary wants to respond, or maybe Elizabeth? Do you know what I am trying to— That prioritisation is almost adopted in terms of prioritising attendance over other interventions. In my experience—I will probably bring in Elizabeth—it depends on the individual child and their context and their circumstance. Having a blanket approach nationally for example to attendance can be challenging, and I think that we need to recognise that—I have just taken notes here as Elizabeth was speaking—the data that I am presented with on a fortnightly basis shows variation at a local authority level. I think that we need to be mindful of that. There is not one static national picture. In certain local authorities, attendance will be higher than it is elsewhere. In certain groups of children as well, attendance will be higher than it is elsewhere. Poverty has an impact in relation to attendance. I do not think that we could probably narrowly say that let us just focus on attendance, but I do think that we need a renewed focus on attendance, because there are cohorts of young people that are not engaging with the education system in the way that they should be. Thank you. Do you want to add anything further to that, or does the cabinet secretary? I suppose for me, again, that if we come back to the idea of that attendance is not an noun, we will not fix attendance by only looking at attendance. We have to look at children's readiness to learn. Are they able to come into the building and be ready to learn? We have to look at our children's identities as learners. Do they feel they are succeeding? That is where PEF comes in, because we can supplement and accelerate their progress. They feel that they are involved in school, that they belong in school. All those interventions all lead us to allow our children to feel that they belong, to give them some autonomy. They feel that they have some control over school and to have some belief in themselves, to have some agency. If we can deliver those three things by using our PEF and focusing on accelerating their learning and giving them support that they need, that will encourage our learners to walk back in the door and be more involved. Thank you. That was really helpful. We just needed to bottom out on that attendance and what was being said, so I appreciate that contribution. Can I bring in Michelle Thompson now, please? Good morning, panel. Thank you for attending today. I just wanted to initially ask a question about the Verity House agreement. We know that we have some broad principles established, but, critically, we still need to work out even the principles of the fiscal framework. Never mind the detail of any fiscal frame. My question to you, cabinet secretary, is what consideration thus far have you given to how the Verity House agreement will change your approach to setting the budget, giving advice to local authorities about budget setting and, indeed, policymaking in terms of rink, fence funding or otherwise? The Verity House agreement sets out a new way of working between local authorities and the Scottish Government. I think that there are many positives that we can take from that. It is an iterative process, so, at the current time, we are working through what an accountability framework will look like in terms of measuring progress. One of the points that I made in response to the convener's question was on local variation. I am keen that we look at local variation in relation to attainment, for example. We look at local accountability and how that can be better advocated for, I suppose, given that, as cabinet secretary, I do not run our schools at a local authority level. Those are the responsibilities of our local councils. Scottish attainment challenge funding and other targeted funding within the portfolio is very much targeted funding, and that has to remain the case, but through the course of discussions around the framework, that will continue. In terms of rink fencing more broadly, I accept that local authorities have certain statutory duties that they need to fulfil. However, how they do that and their overall level of resource is in the main responsibility of local authorities, and I do not think that the Verity House will interrupt with that. In fact, if anything, it will seek to empower it further. However, it is also important to say that only 7 per cent of funding provided in 2023-24 is formally rink fenced in relation to education, so it is a relatively small percentage of the overall spend on the education budget. That is why the Verity House is important in resetting, yes, the relationship between Government and local authority, but also in recognising local accountability within the process. I hear what you are saying, and I accept all of that. You talk about accountability on both sides. I think that the principles again are clear, but we have a budget coming up fairly soon in December, and local council, local authorities, will be saying what specifically will it mean for us in that year. Following on from that, have you managed to have any discussions yet with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance as to what the interim measures will be? I note that you state that it will be an iterative process. I am thinking specifically about local authorities who may wish to then revert to the more flexible pupil teacher ratio, for example, rather than the number of teachers. They will be making specific budgetary plans based on that, because it is obviously a longer term. I am trying to flesh out how much they will have on their plate to be able to affect that decision making straight after the budget, and I am not clear about that. Given the responsibilities for some of the rest of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, I do not want to speak on her behalf, but the outcome of the current review of ring fencing will be included, and that will be confirmed as part of the Scottish Government. More specifically, if I have engaged with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance on this issue, yes, I have at numerous points during the recess period more recently in relation to how that will work. My officials and I are very keen that we build an assurance and accountability framework that will protect education spend to some extent, because we need to recognise that yes, education is being delivered at local level, but there are pockets, as the committee knows, of education spend that are ring fenced by government. I think that for good reason the member alluded to pupil teacher ratio. I think that that was raised in the committee session last week. Members will forgive me if I am incorrect on this, but, as officials and I have confirmed, we have not moved away from the PTR ratio, so there has not been a change in relation to that. What I would say in relation to teacher numbers is that we can come on to talk about that. Don't mean to interrupt me, but I have got members that want to ask specifically on teacher numbers later on, so perhaps if we can save for them. You did well not being upstaged. Sorry, convener. You were mid-flow. I didn't want to spend time on teacher numbers. Well, convener, it was in relation to teacher numbers, but if other members want to come in on that topic, I'll maybe just pause there. That was helpful. Thank you. No, that's fine. I accept that. It was more than the example, rather than the specifics, because I think that that's going to be looked at specifically. Helpfully, where are we coming to next, is my colleague and vice-communist Ruth Maguire. Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary and panel. Nice to have you with us. I would like you to see that the committee has been exploring the policy of maintaining and increasing teacher numbers. Last week, we heard from our panel some views around that, and members will also have heard views locally from their local authority. I sort of like to question on two or hear your reflections on two points regarding it. The first of all, it's an input measure. When we're looking at outcomes for children and families, our input measure is the best for that. Second, after we've spoken about that a bit, I'd like to talk about fairness in terms of local authorities who've protected their education budget and perhaps have fallen pupil roles. I think that that point on input versus outcomes first would be helpful to hear. The first part of my answer is going to focus on the broader suggestion that I think the committee heard last week in relation to falling pupil role and how we will plan appropriately for our workforce of the future. We've already committed to a teacher audit in that space that will look at planning for the future and how we have the right number of teachers for the vacancies that we currently have going forward. That audit also needs to take cognisance of the manifesto commitment to reduce class contact time. That would require more teachers in the system to deliver that, and we all need to be mindful of that. More broadly, I suppose that I would query with local authorities how having less teachers in our schools would be good for the outcomes of our young people. I do not agree with that. I am sorry to come in on that specifically. We heard some examples of where the education budget can be spent other than teachers, and I am not questioning the value of teachers at all. I would reflect on the conversation there about attendance. We heard that attendance officers, for example, might be a use that would be helpful to the vulnerable children families that we are trying to help, or speech and language therapists, which is another issue that has come to the fore through the pandemic. I do not detract from that, and undoubtedly that partnership working has been really key to some of our work around closing the poverty-related attainment gap, but so is good quality learning and teaching. I think that the role of a teacher in closing the gap cannot be undermined, and we need to be mindful of that. Obviously, the previous cabinet secretary made a commitment to protect teacher numbers in additional £145 million. Last December, in the teacher census, the number of teachers that we had nationally fell. The committee will be watching closely, as I will be in December, to see how much that additional £145 million investment from the Government has delivered in terms of teacher numbers. I would be reticent to move away from the current model for reasons that might be obvious to the committee. Can I ask you a little further on that point of fairness? If I give the example of a local authority where the pupil role is falling and they have protected their numbers, then we might have another authority where it is rising and they have to maintain numbers. I know that we have the highest pupil teacher ratio, which is an important measure, but just on that point, I am sure that the committee members will not mind me, given the example of my local authority area where the pupil role is falling and they have to maintain teacher numbers. It is quite a difficult one to serve for people to get their head around, I guess. Yes, but I think that that is why the teacher audit is our answer here, because the teacher audit will give us the granular data at a national level in terms of how we plan for. For example, the class teacher reduction time is, I think, really important. We will need additional teachers in the system if we are to deliver on that commitment, and we need to be mindful of what that looks like. Concerns me some of the evidence that I suppose that the committee has heard in relation to teacher numbers, because we get into a position whereby the suggestion is that I can let go and everything will be okay. I go back to where the previous cabinet secretary was last December, and that was not the case. I really would worry about us moving away from that model, but I think that, more broadly, the point that the member makes is important. Certainly, in my own experience, the number of teachers in a school is usually calculated on the population and the number of pupils in the school. If your school role is increasing, you might, for example, gain a deputy, and those calculations are made at local authority level. I do not think that there are extra teachers floating around in the system at the current time, if that is the suggestion from the panel that was here last week. Certainly, what I have seen in my experiences in schools is that where there is additionality in the system, it is being used to close the poverty-related attainment gap. It might not be a classroom teacher, as the member has alluded to. It might be in the form of the attendance officer or in the form of health and wellbeing support. I do think that the answer here will go back to the audit of where we are nationally at the current time to give us the granular picture, because there were some press reports recently—I am not looking at Mr Rennie—about the number of class sizes in excess of 30. My pupil-teacher ratio is extremely low at the current time. We need to look at how that works at a local authority level, I think, in terms of our class sizes, given that we have more teachers in the system now than we did previously. I am sorry if that presupposed your question, Mr Rennie. I am just being upstaged by Willie Rennie when he is not even asking questions. Cabinet Secretary, just one final thing on that. I suppose that you have spoken to the benefits of protecting teacher numbers. What assessment do you make of the risks of seeking to control teacher numbers and perhaps thinking about that local variation in accountability? I think that there are risks inherently, but I will go back to Mr Rennie's experience last December. An extra £145 million from the Government and less teachers to show for it. Trust is not on the one-way street. When the Government is providing that additionality, we will look to recoup it if it is not invested in teachers. Fundamentally, that is because we believe that good-quality learning and teaching is what makes the difference in relation to closing the poverty-related attainment gap. I would like to see us in our parliamentary debates and more broadly, in terms of where we are in Scottish education, go back to our conversation about good-quality pedagogy and how that can make the difference in our schools. To me, that is the silver bullet in all of that. Some of the discussion about closing the gap in recent times has moved us away from that. I think that we need to go back to talking about the role of the teacher and the importance of good-quality learning and teaching and how that can raise attainment for all and close the gap. You mentioned briefly in your response to my colleague that we will look to recoup it. That was one of the questions that we asked of your predecessor of around the mechanism of how that might manifest itself. Have you had any thoughts on that? The practicalities of my recouping it, no convener, but I am aware that it is a power at my disposal and I would defer to my officials on how precisely we would go about doing that work. I think that it was a mechanism that existed previously. It is not one that I would want to enact, I have to say. I do not want to go back to Ms McGuire's line of questioning. I do not want to be in that position. I want to be able to entrust our local authorities to deliver at local authority level where they run our schools. I am going back to Ms Thompson's point about the new deal in Verity House. That is where we should be. However, if the additionality is provided by central government and it is not used for teacher numbers, the question that I would have as cabinet secretary is what is it being used for? I think that that is a challenging one that I would have to defend as cabinet secretary. There are risks on both sides. Liam Kerr has got a supplementary question. Just to be clear very briefly then, will there be a negative consequence to councils if teacher numbers do not increase? A negative consequence? Could Mr Kerr explain what he means by that? That is the question. If you say to councils that you have to increase your teacher numbers and then for whatever reason they are unable to do so or do not do so, will there be consequences arising? As Ms Somerville set out last year, I recall at the time that we would look on a case-by-case basis because I recognise that, while we are talking in the roundabout teacher numbers, it will be much, much easier to recruit teachers right now in the city of Edinburgh than it will be in Hildan Islands for example. We need to be mindful of that and we also need to be mindful of subject variation and look at it on a case-by-case basis. On that exact point then, some would argue that the focus on teacher numbers is a very blunt instrument. We heard in this committee last week that just focusing on numbers masks, let's say that there are over 300 fewer mass teachers than 2008, over 300 fewer English teachers than 2008. It masks the reality of what's happening on the ground. Cabinet Secretary, what are you doing to recognise that? Is there a more sophisticated way than raw numbers to approach that? I think that the member makes a really important point. I think that, certainly in relation to subject specialism and secondary, for example, there are undoubtedly challenges. As he will know, because I believe that he's asked me many written PQs on it, there are geographical challenges as well in terms of how we can get subject specialists to go to certain parts of the country. As the committee is probably aware, we have the waiver scheme whereby if you tick the box, as I did many moons ago, you're given a golden handshake by the Government to go and teach in any part of Scotland. I'm very keen to work with strategic board for teacher education on how we can better encourage people to take that scheme, but also recognise when the Government is investing in our teachers and their education, so no tuition fees in Scotland for four years. If you study your postgraduate qualification, that will also not have any tuition fees attached to it. The first year of your teacher—well, not your teacher training your probationary year—is funded directly from central Government. It's quite a lot of investment from the Government. Wouldn't it be preferable if we could look again at how we can guarantee a level of employment for our new teachers coming through the system? That might look at geographical variation and, to Mr Kerr's point, on subject specialism, which I think is a challenge in certain areas, as he's alluded to. A couple of questions are on tracking and spending on additional support needs, cabinet secretary. The context is probably the third house agreement. If I could just briefly return to that, you described it as an iterative process. We're not going to see the fiscal framework fully brought in for the coming budget, which makes sense. Can I just probe a little bit further on that, though, and check, is the expectation that, by the end of this parliamentary term, all of those arrangements will be in place or by the next council elections in 2027, or is there not really a fixed timescale on that because it is something that will evolve based on the relationship? I think that, to Mr Kerr's final point, it's probably the latter. I think that it will evolve. We need to rework the relationship with local authorities. We need to get to a place where we can trust each other, and that's a two-way street. I accept that, and I accept that, in the past, it's not necessarily been in the best of spaces. I would have to say and put on the record, despite some of my commentary, on teacher numbers. We've had very good working relationships with local authorities over the course of the past four weeks. The committee will be aware about the challenges that we have faced in relation to the existence of RAC in the school of state. COSLA has worked very closely with our local authority partners on that issue at pace and with urgency, and I just want to put on the record my thanks to them on that endeavour. Although not part of Verity House, I think that it's really representative of a new approach to local government working with Scottish Government. I have to say as well, I think that I meet with COSLA at the current time on a weekly basis, yes on RAC but also in relation to industrial action that we're seeing this week. That's been a positive process, and that's why I suppose to the member's point that there's not an end date on it, as far as I'm concerned. Mindful, though, that budgetary responsibility sits with another Cabinet Secretary, so she may have a different view on that, recognising her interests, but we are very much looking at how we can explore that approach to governance and assurance in terms of accountability with COSLA at the current time. That's our focus. There is not an end date on it per se, but I think that we do all recognise that we want to get to a better funding situation longer term that doesn't look to us recouping or having those blocks of funding that we direct to local government. Instead, we are able to trust them to spend it, yes, in whichever way they see fit, but also in a way that meets the needs of their young people. On additional support needs spending, I have quite a specific question. I understand if you don't have the information on that to hand, but there's a wider point around it. In committee last week, I asked the question to local authority officials that the local financial returns for 15 out of the 32 councils record a nil spend on additional support needs outside of special schools, i.e. on ASN in primary and secondary. Obviously, they are spending money, every local authority is spending substantial amounts of money on ASN in primary and secondary settings. It's a question of how we track that spend. The committee is going to endeavour to find out from local authorities why some local authorities record that way and others record something more detailed. From the Government's perspective, and taking on board the points that you have made, that the substantial investment from Government, the vast majority of it, isn't ring-fenced, but the Government does have an interest in this specific case in improving outcomes for young people with additional support needs. How do we track the impact of that spend, particularly in cases in which it's hard to track how much spend there was in the first place? I think that Mr Greer highlights a really important point, which is the local variance in terms of how things are recorded. I know that the committee will have taken an interest in the work that HMI has carried out on how we measure incidents relating to bullying and the disparate approaches that are used all across the country in relation to how that data is gathered. It's important to remember that, as the committee will know, more than a third of our pupils in mainstream now have an identified additional support need. Given that most of our young people will be in the mainstream, the question would be how that local authority is gathering that data and recognising that. I would be keen to work with the committee on that, if that would be helpful, because I think that we need to get to a better place in relation to a national approach to how that is measured and how it is tracked as well. Those are some of the things that I have been taking forward with Sagrobus in relation to behaviour, which I should say to the committee. I think that I have written to you on that point anyway, convener, but it is the group that convenes Scottish Government, COSLA and wider partners on the issues surrounding behaviour. The clear ask of COSLA at that meeting was that we looked to a more standardised approach surrounding how we measure bullying incidents in schools. Having a more standardised approach to how we measure ASN spend and how that is gathered at a local authority level would be very helpful. I suppose that it goes back to Michelle Thompson's point in relation to Verty House and local accountability. Having that data at our fingertips would be helpful in measuring that and seeing the outcomes that that additional spend is delivering for our young people with additional support needs. How do we balance the tension between what we have all signed up for in terms of focusing much more on outcomes rather than on inputs with the reality that there is always going to be significant importance placed on the amount of money that we are putting into the system? Inevitably, there will be political debates around where that money is prioritised. However, in a case like this, the most important thing for us to measure is the outcomes for young people who have diagnosed additional support needs. However, we can still tell quite a lot from the amount of money that is being put into the system where that is going and then track that against those outcomes. In an area like ASN, particularly given that there is this inconsistency with the data, how does the Government balance that? Ultimately, you cannot set a budget based on outcomes, but the budget needs to explain how much money is going into X, Y and Z. It is really challenging. In relation to young people with additional support needs, they are all individual and unique. Therefore, that measurement of inputs, X, X and Y as your outcome cannot be used. We need to be mindful of that. Those are people. We all have different needs. As adults and our young people are exactly the same. Going back to your original question on the measurement and the tension with local authorities on that issue, it is an opportunity for us to better evidence how our funding that we provide at a national level can drive improvements at a local authority level. We have heard from Education Scotland about some of the partnership work that they are engaged in in relation to attendance and different ways that work. Certainly, on additional support needs, I have seen some fantastic examples of how that is working in mainstream settings, but also in special school settings additionally. I do not have a direct answer to the member's point on that, and I will be very frank about that, convener, but I want to explore the issue more fully with COSLA in the very tea house space, recognising the need for transparency on spend, but also to the member's point on outcomes for those young people, which might not be a binary thing that we can necessarily measure because it will depend on the individual young person. That can be quite difficult to grasp in the heat of political debates, and I think that we should all recognise that, given that a third of our young people in our schools over a third now have an additional support need, they are part of the mainstream. We have a different approach now to education in Scotland, and I think that sometimes we miss that in the mix. Thank you. That is all from me for now, convener. Thank you very much, Ross Good. Now could we move to questions from Ben Macpherson, please? Thank you, convener. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and to all. The Government is putting in a lot of additional resource to supporting and helping our young people through those challenging times, whether it is the PEF funding that we spoke about earlier or the Scottish child payment, for example, and free school meals. It was stated to us in last week's evidence session that, despite the significant amount of additional resource that has gone into free school meals, local authorities have not been funded in terms of keeping pace with inflation when it comes to free school meals. I would be interested to hear what the Government's thoughts are on that. As I alluded to in my answer to Mr Kerr, which he did not think was an answer, I attempted to answer my response to Mr Kerr. Is inflationary pressures on having an impact on our budget? Our money is going less far than it used to. Members around the table will accept that. We do, in Scotland, have the most generous free school meal provision than any other part of the UK. The next phase of that roll-out is the expansion for primary 6 and 7 in relation to the Scottish child payment. Inflationary pressures, at the current time, are being felt in relation to decisions taken elsewhere. I am not going to make political points, but we are doing everything that we can to help mitigate against that. As a member will know, that is a manifesto commitment. I am quite aside from that. That is the right thing to do. It will, in my view, help to improve attainment, and it will help to improve how children engage in the education system. Some evidence suggests that it can even help to stymie childhood obesity. There are lots of good reasons why we should invest in free school meals. Rising food costs are obviously impacting on families right across Scotland. We have provided £169 million per year to support universal free school meal provision in primary 1 to 5, as well as for the roll-out for primary 6 to those who are eligible in S6. We continue to support that policy. It will be challenging, but there is a commitment to deliver it, and I give the committee my assurance that that is what we are working towards at the current time. We talked about the wide-ranging potential positive impact of free school meals. On how we consider the policy, does the Government plan to evaluate the educational or wellbeing or, indeed, an impact on child poverty, on the impact of the universality of the free school meal provision? Is there an intention to evaluate that? I am keen that we undertake some work in that space. I might bring Alison Taylor in on the point that we were discussing very recently. There is some evidence that exists on this very topic from elsewhere in the UK and from down south, which is helpful and shows, for example, if you invest in that universality aspect. It helps to close the gap, but it also helps to raise attainment for all. Speaking from personal experience of how stigmatising it could be for young people in relation to them accessing free school meals when they are in school, there is an important point here around universality for our primary school children and one that I would certainly support. I might bring an answer in relation to how we intend to evaluate this, because I think that the member raises a really important point. We are very aware of the need to evaluate what impact expansion of free school meals has on wellbeing and the learning environment and social impacts as well. The evidence that exists, as the cabinet secretary has alluded, there is some but it is quite limited and there is a bit from down south and a bit from other countries, but it is not necessarily directly applicable to our environment. At the moment, the stage that we are at is that we are in a very effective planning process with our partners at COSLA and in individual councils, working through what the implications of expansion are for them in practical terms, taking into account the really significant changes in costs that we have all experienced in the last year or two. That process of planning will return a lot more evidence to us in the next month or two and, at that point, I think that we will be in a much better place to move on in our thinking to exactly the next phase that you are describing, Mr Macpherson, the point at which we start planning how we evaluate the impact on the ground. However, the planning phase at this stage is a step back from that, I would say, it is more of the practicalities and the practicalities are just for the committee's awareness around actually us looking to build school kitchens, so it is a huge capital investment that the Government is providing, which I think that when I was first appointed, I had not necessarily appreciated that a number of our schools do not have the capital provision in their school estate to deliver free school meals, so we need to put that in and that takes time. Indeed, those additional facilities could provide support and enable community groups to do other things in the wider community that would help impact poverty and learning and the wider common good. That evaluation is going to be on educational impact, the impact on child poverty considerations, the impact on physical health in the round, is that just for clarity? My view is that we would need to complete that evaluation once we have finished the roll-out in primary seven, so I do not want to prejudge at committee today that it will deliver on all of your expectations, Mr Macpherson. What I have heard you suggest that I would be supportive of, but I do not want us to decide before we have rolled out the full programme how we will evaluate it. I think that you are right, and I think that the point on childhood obesity is an interesting one. Again, as Alison has alluded to, there is limited evidence on that, but there is some evidence that suggests that it can have an impact in relation to reducing childhood obesity, which is a challenge additionally. I think that it is an important point for us to consider more broadly that this investment is not necessarily just an educational investment, it is also a health investment. Thank you very much. I think that we can all agree that hungry kids are not in the best place to learn, but I am wondering specifically on universality. For the children that need it most, is there evidence that it increases the uptake of them for school meals? I do not know whether that is a question for yourself, cabinet secretary. I might bring in Alison Macpherson on that. I think that there is limited evidence on this, as Alison has alluded to, from down south in other parts of the world, but I think that the principle of universality is an important one. I think that, in my response to Mrs Macpherson, I talked about, certainly when I was teaching, the stigmatisation that could be attached to those who were in receipt of free-skill meals. Universality removes that, but I do not know Alison if we have further evidence in relation to internationally. Not really. I think that generally it is accepted that it has a beneficial effect, in exactly the way that the cabinet secretary has described. We see some fluctuation over time in take-up, and I think that it would be fair to make the pretty obvious observation that that is also very much influenced by the wider economic environment. So, as families experience pressures on their budgets, uptake tends to increase, so we have seen some evidence of that. Do you want to come back in on that? No, you are okay. That is fine. Can I move to questions now from Willie Rennie, please? When, of course, the use of a candidate to be First Minister earlier on this year, he told an SNP leadership hustling event about the private and voluntary independent early on in childcare sector. He said, I made it very clear that having engaged with the PVI sector, that we have to have an equitable funding formula, then he went on, we have to nail down that fair funding formula because they tell me if we don't, then a number of those in the sector will shut down and we can't have that. So, what progress has been made on that fair funding formula? So, I thank everybody for this question. Obviously, the Government has some really ambitious targets in relation to expanding our childcare provision. The PVI sector will be critical to that. We won't be able to do it with local authorities alone, and we also need to be mindful of the role of childminders in that respect. We published the financial sustainability check in the summer, and we have committed in the PFD to giving the funding to enable child workers who are delivering ELC in private and third sector spaces to be paid at least £12 an air from April of next year. We are also committed to a pilot in relation to how we can look at rural and urban communities to grow the childmind workforce by a further £1,000. More broadly, Mr Rennie speaks to a number of challenges in relation to ELC. I may bring in on our passport at this point in relation to how we have been moving this agenda forward because it will take substantial investment from the Government, additional investment, and, as I mentioned, it will require the PVI sector to be a huge part of that, recognising that local authorities won't be able to do this on their own. Mr Rennie touched on closures, and I would like to provide assurance to the committee that this is something that we keep a very close eye on in the Scottish Government. We have not seen a significant spike in closures nationally, so we are not seeing a major trend there. Obviously, there will be local issues that local authorities will deal with. On the funding formula and the funding model that is in place for ELC, as the cabinet secretary has set out, there are a number of announcements made recently to strengthen how we implement funding arrangements, notably through sustainable rates. That has risen by around 50 per cent since the implementation of the 1140 expansion began. There is recognition that further improvements can be made, which is why we have undertaken a joint review with COSLA around the sustainable rate setting process, which is now being considered by ministers, and we expect to publish shortly. As the cabinet secretary also set out, we are reviewing that in light of the commitment on £12 an hour, which will be a significant part of how we ensure that we are supporting the sector in its financial sustainability and, crucially, in staffing. There are a number of strands of work in training around that. There is no doubt that £12 an hour will help, but the main problem is at the experience staff level. The nurseries are able to attract staff, but they cannot keep them at their experience level because they go on to other jobs in other sectors. My concern is about the quality of the provision. That is not just about care, but about education. Quality is one. You are right that there are not that many nurseries that have closed, but they are limiting their capacity. I have lots of constituents who struggle just to get a place anywhere in terms of below three and four year olds, so there is a real problem with the capacity that it is developing. Primarily, it is about the experience staff. I hope that the system understands that and that it will address it when it comes to the budget for next year. Is that the plan? I need to address it and the retention of staff in the PVR sector is hugely important. As you alluded to, Mr Rennie, the First Minister spoke about that a lot during the recent leadership contest with my own party, but it is also central to his vision in terms of his approach to Government that we expand childcare because he recognises that it is not just about providing childcare, it is about a well-being economy, it is about often freeing up mums to go back to work and we need to recognise the wider impacts in that respect. He makes a point in relation to the budget. We will need to look at that in the round and how we can retain staff within the PVR sector. They are crucial, as I mentioned in my opening response to Mr Rennie, to delivering where we need to get to in relation to that ELC expansion. We cannot do it without them. I do not know if Eleanor has anything to add in relation to experience staff specifically. I think that one thing that we will look carefully at and plan to do, and this is in response also to public audit Scotland's report, is long-term workforce planning, considering carefully both recruitment and retention issues currently and what will be required to deliver the ambitious commitments that are set out in the programme for Government. Mr Rennie briefly touched around capacity issues. Again, this is something that we look at carefully in relation to the care inspectorate data that is published and there will be further data published in this awesome part of the census. Again, I do not think that we have particular concerns around capacity and delivery of the 1140 hours that has been effectively implemented. What we have seen is a slight reduction in the number of PVI providers, but we are seeing a trend in terms of a larger number of providers. There is change in the sector, but in terms of capacity, we are confident that we have that in place in order nationally to deliver the 1140 offer. I wish I had your confidence. It is not what I hear. I hear a sector that is rarely struggling with the differential, but I will leave it at that. I am keen to understand about the timescales for the roll-out of the further provision that the ministers refer to. Are you able to tell us more about how that is progressing? In relation to £12 an hour, that is really important. I was the kind of rap around stuff. I am really talking about rap around and the provision for the younger age groups. I am just keen on how that is progressing. In relation to that, that will be from April next year. Do we want to say anything around the Verity house process ahead of budget, which will be critical in terms of setting those timescales? Of course, those are part of the on-going discussions that we are having with COSLA in terms of that iterative process that I mentioned in relation to Mr Greer, because of course this is currently ring fence. We are engaging with them on that point. I think that you touched on the rapper and childcare services. Obviously, we have the four pilots in Glasgow, Dundee, Clutmanushire and Ember Clyde. I think that it is also important to say that we are investing additional funding, including a £2 million fund in partnership with the Scottish Football Association, to deliver funded afterschool and holiday clubs for children and their families. That is being targeted on our six priority families, as the committee will be aware of Ms Somerville's work in the social justice space. It is important that we have that cross portfolio approach to recognising responsibilities within education can help to reach our targets in relation to child poverty in other parts of government. I hear the concern that Mr Rennie has expressed. I will certainly take that concern and my own to our engagement with COSLA in relation to the verty house process and how we can ensure that we do meet the targets that the First Minister was saying. I have one final question. The programme for government says that the digital service will lay the foundations to transform the childcare system in the longer term. What on earth does that mean? Essentially, this is about making it easier for parents to access childcare digitally, so that they can look at the availability for childcare on our digital system and find what is available in their booking system. I am not sure that I am going to give it that USP, but I would start from where parents are, as you see, and where families can actually find and access childcare in the first instance, and then book it but manage it as well. We talk about blended provision, so that might be different areas across different types of provision. For example, in school-age childcare, we are looking at activities providers as well as your classic after-school club provision. It would allow a much greater flexibility and accessibility for parents. For providers as well, we have got the current CMIS programme, which is specifically for funding ELC improvement, but this is looking at what scope there is to be and is more ambitious than doing something quite different that would allow providers to manage, demand, plan for and deliver their services in quite an innovative way. Unfortunately, this is a very separate system to CMIS, which is going to be quite a clunky system. It does sound like a bigger system than any way. I ask on that system, because we have had a lot of questions in the past around cross-border—I will say placement, so I am getting mixed up with the social care injustice bill here—if a family does not live and work on local authority boundaries and at the moment they are constricted as to where they can provide. Is the system going to allow them to work in Fife if they live in Edinburgh? I think that it absolutely should allow you to do that. However, I would say that this goes back to Verity House, so the cause will have a clear role to play in that regard. Of course, it should be accessible to parents where they need it at the current time. Those boundaries or borders should not preclude to parents from accessing childcare where they need it. I recognise some of the challenges here at the current time. That is why the engagement with COSLA on this issue over Verity House is hugely important. I am very pleased with your direct response. Ross Greer, do you have some supplementaries in here? There has been a vast amount of funding going into expanding early years and notwithstanding the challenges that have been highlighted, broadly the direction of travel is positive. One significant area of concern that I have is in the childcare and nursery provision in colleges. It is similar to the convener's point about working and living across local authority boundaries. For a lot of parents, particularly those who we really want to see in college, who we want to break down those access barriers, having the childcare provision on the college campus that they are at is essential to them being able to access that further education. However, we are on a pretty continuous basis at the moment seeing loss of college nursery facilities. Most recent one that has been flagged up to me is at New College Lanarkshire's Cumbernauld campus. There is a bit of ambiguity there whether that will just be closed for six months and then a new operator will reopen it. However, overall, there has been a trend of a loss of capacity there whereas we have seen a really significant expansion elsewhere. Is this something that the Government has discussed directly with both colleges themselves but also with the local authorities that they operate within? I have not, as Cabinet Secretary, discussed this with colleges. I suspect that Mr Day has, as Minister for Higher Education. I might bring in Stephen Momentarily. The point that Mr Greer raised is a really important one about the accessibility of childcare and where that exists. If that is a bar or a preventative in terms of how people engage with their education because there are no childcare facilities, that would really concern me. I do not want to comment on the specifics of individual colleges deciding to make decisions about their estate, that is for them. However, I think that more generally the point and the issue is a challenging one that I would be keen to pick up with Mr Day, although I think that he has been pursuing this matter with the college sector. At this point, I will bring in Stephen. Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary. If you think about the college sector as a whole and all the different estates that they have everywhere, they will not have provision like that in every location. It is not something that they are either obliged—there is not a policy whether they are obliged to provide it. Some colleges on some sites might provide that as much with their staff in mind as with students in mind. In the current challenging financial context, they are looking at the cost of running those and you will see that some of them are making different decisions. Again, I do not have details, but I know that they will be engaging locally with the local authorities around the decisions that they are making. I often look for alternative solutions or alternative providers to come into play. Just as a supplementary to that, if Mr Greer would like to write to Mr Day, I am now issuing him homework, but if he would like to write to Mr Day or to me directly, I will ensure that we get your response on this issue because I have been keen to hear a bit more about the detail of that specific instance, but just about the picture nationally and how that is playing out, recognising some of the concern here. As a committee, we keep a close eye on colleges. Stephanie Callahan has a brief supplementary on that as well. Just going back to the expansion of early learning and also the wraparand school care, I wonder if you can say anything about plans to include childminders in that process? I think that there are plans to include childminders in that process. I think that, as I intimated on my response to Mr Rennie, childminders are really crucial to delivering an expansion of childcare. Much as we cannot do this without the PBI sector, childminders are essential in certain parts of Scotland. In more rural locations, for example, we might not have access to the same provision in terms of local authority or the PBI sector, so my understanding is that they will be included unless Ellar is going to correct me unless. That is absolutely right, so they are already part of the funded offer. I think that, in recognition of the fact that there has been challenges around recruitment and retention in the PFG, the First Minister announced that we will be scaling some really innovative pilots that we have done in remote and rural areas to seek to recruit at least 1,000 more over the course of this Parliament, because we really do recognise its really high-quality, valued provision and flexible across the age ranges. So, as important for the new offers, we are not to free as it is for school-aged children. Thanks. I think that it is so helpful to get that on the record. That is superb. Can we move now to questions from Michelle Thomson? Yes, thank you. It is me again. On the committee's evidence session on 17 May, which I appreciate was a while ago, the minister for HENFE Graham Day confirmed that work was being done on potential savings from the Scottish Funding Council administration costs. It is just a quick question. Do you have any update on progress of that? Potentially, if savings have been identified, have they come from elsewhere in the portfolio, or is there some further information about that? Obviously, the current economic environment is very, very challenging, as I anticipated in my response to Mr Kerr and to Michelle Thomson earlier on. We understand the flash cash settlement for 23.24 pose a number of challenges that it is fair to say for institutions. I will continue to work to the SFC and the sector to support that strategic change that we need to see more broadly. I may bring in Stephen in relation to the progress that we have made with the SFC, and if it would be helpful to the committee in advance of the budget to conversations and evidence sessions, I would be more than happy to provide written evidence on that if that would help to supplement some of the evidence sessions in relation to that progress. Sorry, I did not catch the first part of the question. The question is how Mr Day, having indicated that he would be looking for administrative savings from the Scottish Funding Council, the question is what substantive progress has been made thus far, in other words, what sums are you going to put in the table and where they come from, or failing that, you could write back to the committee. That works on-going. It is obviously not a point where we are in a position to expose where things have got too further. A lot of this is about understanding how best to make sure that the money flowing through SFC to colleges and universities has the maximum amount of impact and removing complexity of the system from the system. The clearest example of work in that space at the moment, which is on-going, is work SFC is doing with the Scottish Government and with the College of Scotland looking at where there might be further flexibilities to enable the ability to manage some of the challenges that it is currently facing. In terms of timescales, what timescales are you working on? The intention will be to work through that in a way that we can think about actions for the not-for-the-academic year that we are in, because the way SFC structures its funds sets them out at the start because colleges and universities need certainty about how funding is going to flow and how things can happen so that they can plan. Everything that we will be doing will be in the context of planning for the next academic financial year. I am happy to write to the committee about more on the progress, but also the specifics of the question. There has been increasing talk of the Scottish education exchange programme. It is a general question. What sense do you have about budgetary requirements for that, and particularly agreeing with the considerable challenges that we have financially at the moment, how the money will be found in a very constrained environment? I am not going to pretend to the committee that it will not be challenging, because it is extremely challenging in relation to where we are and the education budget more broadly. However, I think that our commitment to undertake that work is really important in the light of Brexit and in terms of Erasmus not existing any more. That could provide our young people with the opportunities that they have thus far been deprived of since Brexit and the ending of Erasmus, certainly. I am working at the current time across Government on how we might be able to provide financial support to this end. On 5 September, we committed to the PFA to launch the programme. We will build on an initial test approach that we are delivering and developing this year. However, the exchange programme, for the committee's understanding, is not going to be able to replicate the full benefits of Erasmus. It will be much smaller in scale. However, I think that we should be ambitious in relation to the outcomes that it will deliver. On the specific point on the member's questions about the budgetary challenge this year, I will continue to engage with Mr Day to that end, because it is really important that we deliver on this outcome. I do worry about the cohort of young people who have been deprived of that opportunity thus far. On a related point, the programme for government says that a new funding model for post-school education provision is going to be developed, including improving parity of financial support for flexible and part-time study. What progress has been made on that? What are the timescales that you are working to? What is the impact on the budget? The member asked a really important question, and it is not one that we can necessarily divorce from wider issues in terms of education reform. As the committee will be aware, I intimated in my statement in June that I will come back to the chamber in autumn to provide an update to that end. We are, as I suggested in my response to Ms Thompson, facing a really challenging economic backdrop. That is not, from my perspective, about taking money out of the system, per se, but ensuring that we are getting the best outcomes from the £3 billion that we do invest annually. We are at the very early stages at the current time of looking at how we might approach the development of a new funding model. As I suggested later this year, I might be able to say more in the chamber when I give an update in relation to education reform, because, of course, the two things are connected. However, we will work very closely with stakeholders to understand any issues that arise from that. I think that the opportunity to look more broadly at how we can ensure that the funding follows the learner should be a welcome one. I understand the answer. The programme for government was only very recent. One would have thought that, before making an announcement like that, there would have been some level of budgetary provision made for it—at least a ballpark. Was that not done, then? It is not my understanding that there is new money within the education budget to look at how that will work. We need to look at what we are currently spending, which is significant, and make sure that that funding works more effectively for our people. Indeed. The £46 million of resource funding was promised to colleges and universities last December, but was withdrawn in order to fund other aspects of the education portfolio. Is there any intention that £46 million might come back? In any event, what happens to the projects in colleges and universities that it was intended to resource? As I have said on a number of occasions at the committee, it is a very challenging financial climate that the Government is currently operating in. Part of the reason is, of course, the number of public sector paydeals that we have settled. We have done that in the right space, but it costs money. We have to balance our books. We cannot borrow money, as a Government might usually do. The £46 million represents a relatively small fraction, so it is just over 2 per cent of the nearly £2 billion that we provide the SFC with. That funding was, as the member has alluded to, meant to support strategic change in the sectors. It was not part of core funding for colleges and universities, which the SFC had already announced in April of 2023. I am not aware of any projects being adversely affected to that end, given that it was transition funding that was meant to help to support that work more broadly. Presumably, if you say that it was designed for strategic change, without that resource, the strategic change that clearly had felt to be necessary will not be able to go ahead. We will need to look at how we will support that strategic change going forward, I think that it is fair to say. Pam Duncan-Glancy, do you want to come in on this briefly? Thank you, convener. I appreciate that. One of the things that I heard that colleges were considering using the funding for in terms of a strategic change could have been a package of, if necessary, to offer voluntary redundancies. In the absence of that, some colleges have now pursued compulsory redundancies. What is the cabinet secretary's response to that? Of course, the Scottish Government does not support a policy of compulsory redundancies, and that is the view that we take across our executive agencies. Colleges do not sit in that space in terms of the suggestion that that might have been used to protect voluntary redundancies. It is not something that has come across my desk, and certainly not in the considerations of how we are going to use that funding. That funding has been used to help to support a teacher's pay deal. Members are aware of that. They heard Mr Day say that in the chamber earlier this year, and we need to recognise that funding for that pay deal had to come from somewhere within the education budget. The education secretary, prior to my appointment, was very clear on that message. I think that the point that the member makes about voluntary redundancies is not one that I am familiar with. I recognise that there are challenges in the sector at the current time around redundancies and industrial action. I think that we need to work with the sector. I have engaged with the two unions on that and, of course, with the College of Employers Scotland. Stephen May might wish to say more in relation to the transition funding per se, because my understanding was that it was to be transition funding, and it was not predicated on staff employment. You are absolutely correct, cabinet secretary. Bill Kidd, can I come to yourself now, please? Yes, thank you very much, convener. My apologies to everyone for being so excited earlier that I just burst into a sneeze, but I may do so again, because this question has already been asked. I am going to try and introduce a wee bit to it. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the impact of financial flexibilities for 2023-24? Will that have on the college sector? Is there specific elements? We are looking at introducing, obviously, last academic year the SFC introduced a tolerance of 2 per cent in college credit targets. This year, new flexibilities have been introduced by the SFC. I will continue to engage with the SFC, as will Mr Day, in relation to the assessment of those flexibilities and how that allows our colleges to become more sustainable in the longer term, which I think is the challenge at the current time. On the basis of what was asked earlier, on ensuring that colleges do not go down the road of compulsory redundancies and such like, will those flexibilities help to avoid that sort of situation? I may bring in Stephen to that end. I am not necessarily sure that the flexibilities would specifically ring ffans for that purpose, is my understanding. The flexibilities are not there with that intent at all. If you think about the way colleges' budgets work, the vast majority of their money flows through the credit funding model that SFC operates, which is attached to students getting qualifications and attending college. The intention of the flexibilities was to give the management in college more ability to be creative around how they deliver the services that they deliver to students to the best effect, as opposed to having their hands tied around doing things in particular ways. That makes sense. Thank you very much indeed for that. I have a specific question on the flexible workforce development fund, because I am aware that one of the key government policies is economic growth and a focus on upskilling and reskilling the current workforce across our business community. I am aware, through my conversations with Edinburgh College in my area, that it is yet to be notified what its allocation for the flexible workforce development fund is for this year. That is becoming more common. I am hoping that we might get some sense that that will not be withdrawn or reduced, and it will be continued, because it is key to promoting that economic growth and supporting our SMEs, our small medium-sized enterprises across the regions across the country. Perhaps you can make a comment on that. I recognise the challenge here and the opportunity that the flexible workforce development fund has provided. We reduced the allocation in 2022-23, and no final decision has been made in relation to the flexible workforce development fund. We are working to confirm the final position shortly, and I will be happy to provide the committee with an update. Obviously, that is part of budgetary negotiations. They have been, as I have said, on a number of occasions today, very challenging. We have significant pressure, not just on education and skills, but right across the Scottish Government and our agency budget. However, I appreciate the convener's point about the uncertainty that this has caused in relation to colleges and employers. We are working really hard with our partners to confirm the position as quickly as possible. I apologise that I cannot be more direct with you today, convener, because, of course, those are on-going discussions as part of the budgetary negotiations. I look forward to getting a bit more detail on that as soon as possible. Can we move to questions from Willie Rennie again, please? We are going round the houses today. When Mike Russell was Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, he said that this party believes that there is no place for compulsory redundancies in Scotland's colleges. I am confused with your earlier statement. Why are you saying that when the college sector has got close to government since Mike Russell was in office, it is very excluded from the no compulsory redundancies policy? Going back to Mike Russell's time, I am fairly certain that he was Cabinet Secretary for Education in 2014. We reclassified the FE sector, so the status of the college sector is unlike our executive agencies. Therefore, no compulsory redundancies does not apply in the same way that I would have done previously. You have a choice. You said that you are not in favour of compulsory redundancies. The college sector, at that time of the ONS reclassification, you could have determined that the policy applies to them as well. Why did you not? In 2014? At that time, you could have made a decision. I understand the technical explanation that we have had before, but you could have made a decision to apply the no compulsory redundancies policy to the college sector, but you did not. I am wondering why you excluded them from it. I am not sure that we—I was not in post office in 2014. I do not think that I can compel colleges to do that. My own view—in the view of the Scottish Government—is that there should not be any compulsory redundancies. Just to this end, Mr Day has been engaging very closely with the SFC on this issue about promoting fair work principles and adhering to our commitment to apply grant conditionality as a set-out bute house. We have made very clear with our engagements with the SFC and with the college sector directly around our expectation on redundancies. I recognise that there are a number of challenges here, but I cannot unpick, as far as I am aware, the onus reclassification that predates my time in office by nearly 10 years. The cabinet secretary is absolutely right. It is linked to the nature of the body and the degree to which ministers ministers' policy extends into it. When Mike Russell was cabinet secretary, he could have applied that rule. I do not think that he could have applied the rule in the context of the way in which the classification has been determined by ONS. That is part of a trend, because the college staff feel quite aggrieved—I have spoken to them several times. If you look at the teachers' pay dispute, you intervene then. You are refusing to intervene now. Why again are you drawing a distinction between where you intervene and where you do not? What is the rationale for that? That is different, because the way in which teachers are paid is different to those in our college sector. In terms of teachers' pay, the SNCT has a key role to play here in relation to the tripartite arrangements. In the college sector, it has always been different. If Mr Rennie's argument is to establish an SNCT approach to the college sector, I would like to hear it, because I think that there would be real challenges in doing that. There are challenges in the college sector that predate my time in office and go back a number of years now. It is important that we work with our trade union partners on establishing positive working relationships. I met the EIS very recently and I have met Colleges Employers Scotland. I know that Mr Day continues to engage with our trade unions. I recognise the concern here. It is really important that we get to a settlement, and that is a matter for Colleges Employers Scotland to deliver on, not ministers to intervene with. I agree that we need to get a settlement, because it has gone on for years, and the foundations are very, very weak. However, you can understand how staff feel that not only won't you apply the no compulsory redundancies policy— I cannot apply the no compulsory redundancies policy. I will finish my sentence. You won't impose that. You won't intervene on the pay dispute when you have other areas. You take £26 million away from the college sector in order to pay the teachers that you intervened in the pay dispute on. You can understand why college staff feel pretty furious about what has gone on. Do you not understand that? I can understand what Mr Rennie has outlined, but I wouldn't agree with it, because he has suggested that I can enforce no compulsory redundancies in our colleges sector. That is not a power that I have at my disposal at the current time. More broadly, in relation to the transition funding, I hear the concern here. What I would say to Mr Rennie is that this is what Ms Somerville said when she probably was in front of this committee or perhaps in chamber, where else from the Scottish Government's budget should that funding have come from. It was made very clear at the time to the teaching unions that it would have to come from within the education budget. That is part of the settlement that has been agreed with our teachers. The suggestion is that we will find the additional money for college lecturers from where in the education budget should I take that funding? I am not in government. You are in government. You see the numbers. If you want me to be in government, I will be in government. The issue here is that the college sector is not being treated particularly well and it is on several different levels. That does not make the good conditions for resolving the industry dispute. The role of government in relation to the college sector is entirely different to that of the school sector. I do not necessarily accept Mr Rennie's comparison between the two. We do not get involved in operational decisions that are for our colleges because they are independent. I hear what Mr Rennie has outlined and intimated. I think that our challenge is here undoubtedly. However, to compare the college's situation with that that we faced in our schools quite recently, I do not think that it is fair. I am going to quickly, I never offer this up because we are never normally in this position. Has anyone got any other questions on the Scottish attainment challenge? Thank you cabinet secretary for your time this morning. The committee will now briefly suspend to allow the cabinet secretary and her officials to leave. Welcome back and moving on to the second item on our agenda this morning, which is consideration of two pieces of subordinate legislation. The first is the teachers' superannuation and pension scheme miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2023. This instrument amends the teachers' superannuation Scotland regulation 2005 and the teachers' pension scheme Scotland regulation number 2 2014 to introduce phased withdrawal for independent schools from the Scottish teachers' pension scheme STPS. The instrument is being considered under the negative procedure. Do members have any comments to make about the subordinate legislation? Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to take make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? Agreed. Thank you. The second instrument is the teachers' pensions remediable service Scotland regulations 2023. This implements a remedy to the reforms of the Scottish teachers' pension scheme under the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act and mitigates the impact of the rollback of the legacy scheme to allow members to choose their personal benefits for the period between 1 April 2015 and 3 March 2022. The instrument is also being considered under the negative procedure and it is being made with the consent of the Treasury. Do members have any comments to make about this subordinate legislation? Is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument? Agreed. This concludes the public part of the meeting. The committee will move into private to consider its final agenda item. Thank you.