 Can I welcome everyone to the fourth meeting of the Education and Skills Committee in 2017? Can I please remind everyone present to turn on mobile phones and other devices on to silent mode? We have received apologies from Tavish Scott. The only item of business today is consideration of a letter from the Scottish Government. The committee had asked for an update from the government on all live recommendations made by a predecessor committee that are relevant to this committee's remit. That means that we have the opportunity to follow up or keep a watching brief The committee has asked for a copy of the Scottish Government's response. It is worth noting that today is the first occasions since the end of November when the response was received for the committee to give what is a substantial document space on an agenda. I suggest that we touch on each of the education and culture committee's reports that we ask for updates on, and I would particularly welcome input from those who are members of that committee. If two comments to make, firstly in relation to the National Geolic Language, Fe wnaeth i'w byd yn Gaelic Language Plan 2012-17, pwysig y teidw i 3 ystafell. Felly, oherwydd i'r report a'i gymryd ybydd gyda'r tynnu o'r fамau rhan o'r ddarparu, o'r dden nhw, y pwysig y pwysig y pwysig, oeddaf ni i ddim yn ymgyrch y fawr o 5 o'r pwysig y pwysig. Eu gynhau i'r cyfleteithio i'r Gweinifoldaeth ym gymryd yn gweithio'r llwyr, gan oes arwain ei ysgrifiadol sut yn gweithi nhw. There are some exceptions to this, which we announced recently. One of the exceptions relates to kinship care. While there are exceptions for some non-looked after children in kinship care, there is no exception for formal kinship care of looked after children. In the context of the UK Government's consultation, the Scottish Government says, quotes, it will be responding to ensure that kinship carers are not disadvantaged in any way, end quotes. I suggest that we write to the Scottish Government to ask what the effects of this change will be in kinship carers in Scotland and whether there will be a policy response from the Scottish Government. Secondly, I suggest that we add consideration of the commissioner for widening access's annual report into our future work programme. We may of course hear from him before his first report is issued, but I want to ensure continuity of scrutiny. Those were my only substantive comments, but there are a number of other important areas of the education and culture's work detailed in the response. Can I ask other members for comment, in particular if there are any areas where they would wish to seek further information, whether from the Government, its agencies or stakeholders, or any legislation or other work detailed in the response that they consider could merit further work from this committee in the future? I would like to start with the previous members, Liz. Thank you, convener. I agree with the two comments that you have just made. I begin with the Gallic Language Plan and thank you to the clerks for providing the update on teacher numbers in there. I think that this is a central issue about the effective working of the Gallic Plan to ensure that the right number of teachers are available because, as you know, there have been problems in teacher training. It would be quite helpful if we could just keep an eye on that, although I think that there is lots to commend the Gallic Language Plan, which we have been very supportive of, but central to that is ensuring that there are enough teachers, particularly in the areas that have Indigenous Gallic speakers. If we can just keep an eye on that because I think that it is very important indeed. As you know from the previous committee and indeed from the committee prior to that, most of those issues have been very much at the centre of the scrutiny of the committee. I think that it is very good to see that there is going to be on-going scrutiny of what committees in the past have decided are major issues, the conclusions that they have drawn and scrutiny of those conclusions. I also very much welcome the invitation from the Audit Committee to provide much more cross-referencing of what is going on there because I think that if this Parliament has had criticisms, it is because sometimes the scrutiny has not been adequate enough, so I think that there are some good things happening there. I agree with what you were saying at the beginning there. There is one or two areas here having been through it with the last committee that I think we should really look at again. One is decisions on taking children into care because I do not think that we have really got a grip of that yet. I think that we have seen various projects that the committee went to Glasgow and looked at various systems and so on, but I do not think that we have really got our hands around it yet. I do not think that there is a lot more work to be done there and also attainment for looked after children. Again, we had people in about that. We spent quite a bit of time on it, but I think that there is a lot more work to be done there. I think that there is a lot of priorities in there that we have not yet dug into. I also think that we should be focusing on college regionalisation because some aspects of that I have not really got my head around yet as to how it is working. We have focused on the individual colleges, but the regional structure, I think that we need to have a wee look at just to see how it is operating. Do any other members have any comments to make on this? To follow up on the point about the colleges, I was struck, as I mentioned, somewhere of some forum that was set up in 2012 by Mike Russell and it had its second meeting in 2014. It has been interesting to know if it has ever had a third meeting and what its purpose is. I think that the challenge is that there is a sense of which people were sceptical about why there was regionalisation in the first place, but if it is there, is it adding anything or is it actually adding an extra layer? I have been interested in that. On the question that I looked after children and the convenience mentioned to the issue of kinship care funding, one of the big issues for kinship care families is the extent to which they are unable to access the resources that a looked-after child might be able to resource. I think that there is a question in here about, I think that the Scottish Government says, in terms of social work support for young people in care, or looked after young people, they say that it is a matter for local government to manage its own budgets. I have been interested in the extent that is actually happening, but is it happening for kinship care children at all? I think that there is a thread in all the work around looked-after children that relates to kinship care, because I know that one of the arguments from campaigning groups would be, for example, it is partly about payments, but young people who may have gone through the same trauma and once they ended up being looked after in foster care, one is a kinship care child, they will not have equal access to things like educational, psychologists or the kind of extra supports that might be available. I am interested in whether the support is there at all, around care, and to the extent that is actually working its way through, but is there a particular issue around testing it for the access to those services for kinship care children? I think that the college point I would be very interested in too. It is a supplementary to the college point. As mentioned in the paper, it is an issue that has been touched upon in committees around outcome agreements and how that relationship works and how they function. I think that it is something that is certainly worth looking at. That may, of course, be overtaken by events, given what may or may not happen to the Scottish funding council, but I think that, nonetheless, it is certainly a point that is worth keeping an eye on and giving some thought to. Thank you very much. Any other comments, Ross? Just on the young people with sensory impairments, the number of qualified teachers point in the report. The Government responds to that. I think that there are some issues with that, but I am hopeful that we will be able to pick up on that when we look at additional support needs more generally, because the range of specialist staff that you need to cover additional support needs to someone with sensory impairments, and it is something that comes up quite regularly. In that case, I thank the members for their comments. The Clats and Spice will ensure that the decisions and discussions feed into the committee's work programme. The Clats will also seek updates on all live recommendations on an annual basis from the Government.