 Good morning and welcome to this, the 17th meeting of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee. Can I make the usual request that mobile phones are switched off or on airplane mode please? We have no apologies this morning and Linda Fabiani will be joining us in the course of the meeting. Our first agenda item this morning is a continuation, in fact the last oral evidence session of our inquiry into the harassment of children and young people in schools or school bullying inquiry. The purpose of this final session is to hear from the cabinet secretary this morning. As you know, we have heard much evidence over the past months on this topic and this will be the final evidence session, as I said, but we are really keen to hear from the cabinet secretary. Can I welcome John Swinney, who is the Deputy First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Education Skills in the Scottish Government, and Fiona Page, who is the head of support and wellbeing unit in the Scottish Government, learning directorate? Welcome back, Maggie Fallon, who is the senior education officer for Education Scotland. Good morning and welcome to the committee. We are very grateful that you could give us your time this morning. We have many quite searching questions on this very sensitive topic, but we are really keen to hear from you all this morning, especially you, Deputy First Minister. I believe that you have a brief opening statement. Yes, if I can make a brief opening statement, I welcome the opportunity to confirm to the committee the Government's approach in relation to this important issue. I would like to make it absolutely clear that the Government considers bullying of any kind to be completely unacceptable and wherever it occurs, we have a responsibility to take action to deal with it quickly and effectively. The Government believes that there is no place in Scotland for prejudice or discrimination and that everyone deserves to be treated fairly. We must tackle prejudice and discrimination and promote equality and diversity and this work must begin early within our school system. We have made absolutely clear the commitment of this Government to improving children's health and wellbeing and their learning opportunities. We want all children and young people to learn the importance of tolerance, respect and good citizenship to stamp out prejudice in our society and to build the foundations of strong, healthy relationships founded on inclusion and equality. The starting point for developing this is in our schools and early learning settings. That is why anti-bullying policies issue at the heart of the whole school approach, driven by strong leadership to create a positive and inclusive learning environment that promotes learning and welcomes and values diversity. It is vital that all anti-bullying approaches promote effective action wherever bullying occurs, as we must recognise the harm and damage that it causes. That is why this Government is refreshing the national approach to anti-bullying to highlight the impact of prejudice-based bullying and identify how all organisations, including schools and youth organisations, can respond appropriately. An issue that underpins and informs all the work of our national anti-bullying service, respect me. I am aware that as part of your inquiry into bullying you have taken evidence from a wide range of people and organisations and I look forward to receiving the committee's conclusions on this work. As the committee will be aware, I have held back the publication and finalisation of our review of the national approach to anti-bullying until I see the committee's work and I will reflect very closely and carefully on that work when it is published. Evidence tells us that investing time and resources into improving relationships and behaviour in schools leads to improved health and wellbeing, better attainment, inclusion and engagement in stronger communities and cohesion in the longer terms. Committee members will be aware that I recently established the LGBTI Inclusive Education and Working Group to work with the TAI campaign to develop an improved approach to inclusion in our schools. The first meeting of the group took place on 9 May and I look forward to receiving the group's recommendations in due course. As part of the mental health strategy, the Government has also committed to review of personal and social education, which will also consider the role of pastoral guidance in local authority schools and services for counselling for children and young people in our schools. This review is currently developing its scope and I am keen for its work to be progressed. I look forward to working with the committee to identify what more we can do to stop bullying and improve inclusiveness in our schools in Scotland. Deputy First Minister, the committee is very grateful that, when we took evidence in November, we had around-table evidence with a lot of the young people who had raised some concerns about anti-bullying strategies and how they work and their input into that. We were very grateful when you delayed the publication of the strategy to allow the committee to take some very in-depth work on that. We have done that both on-the-record and off-the-record because, for some young people, the issues were so sensitive and so painful that we had to do some off-the-record work as well. However, we have the permission of some of those young people to make reference to their evidence too, so that is very helpful. The key element to all of that seemed to be for young people was the impact on them as an individual and on their family and community. One of the aspects that we will look at in our report very clearly will be the impact on the health and wellbeing of those young people. As you know, it is one key pillar of curriculum for excellence. We had a young woman who told us that she wanted education and healthy relationships, not just healthy relationships but healthy friendships. I know that that is a key element of the work and the strategy and the work that respect me is doing. I think that for us we would be pushing an all-government approach on that, so that is not just an education issue. It is a public health issue as well because the impact on those young people as they move on out into adult life seems to be very, very profound. I suppose that we agree with you and our evidence seems to agree with you and all of the young people that we have spoken to have agreed as well that the earlier the intervention the better. My question to you is how do we implement at the earliest stage, even maybe at preschool and primary school, to ensure that there is clear understanding from young people about what bullying is, the impact that it has, where they can go for help, whether teachers are equipped to do that help and, very, very importantly, whether they understand consent, which seems to be another key element of why people felt bullied. I have just chucked all of that at you and, hopefully, you may have some answers. Then we have some details that each committee member will go into individually. The fundamental point that I accept is that the earlier the intervention takes place, the better. That intervention should not, in my view, only be a reactive intervention when a problem arises. The intervention should be proactive and that is fundamentally about the ethos that is enshrined in curriculum for excellence and the ethos that underpins our whole approach to the development of education in its broadest sense within our early learning and schools settings. Curriculum for Excellence is founded on the values that we want young people to reflect. Those values that I went through in my opening statement about tolerance, about respect, about respect and difference are all values that are enshrined in the approach that we take in curriculum for excellence. That is the point that I make about the necessity of us not just looking at this as a reactive measure, but it has to be something where we are from the earliest possible ages encouraging young people to behave with respect towards others and, as a consequence of that, to develop the type of healthy relationships and friendships that will mitigate against the emergence of bullying. However, I also live in the real world and I realise that there will be incidents that will happen that will cause great distress to individuals. You said, convener, in your comments that the point that had come out of the evidence from young people was about the striking point, which I think is inescapable, is that bullying has an impact on individual young people and that is what matters. That is what has to be rectified. We can take all the steps that I have set out about early intervention, prevention and creation of good practice and good relationships, but where bullying actually happens, we have to make sure that young people are alert to the support that is available to them, that they know, first of all, that bullying is wrong, so they should be able to go to somebody to help them to realise that this is wrong. That is part of getting back to my early intervention commentary. Young people need to know that this is a bad thing and that they are entitled to get help to address it, and that help must be available. Invariably, that will be what has to be addressed within the early learning or school setting that a young person is operating. Crucially, we have to make sure that those who are likely to be delivering the support to young people are well equipped to deliver that. That is where the importance of having the correct approach in initial teacher education to equip professionals with the capacity to be able to provide the support that young people require is a really important part of the work that we have to do. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. You mentioned in your comments the mental health strategy and the new strategies that are published in those very welcome aspects of that target young people and their journey through school. Can you tell me how the new strategy would maybe link up with the mental health strategy in order that they work together? I go back to my point about this being almost an all-government approach in its essence and how would the two strategies then work together to resolve the situation? There are a number of elements that will come together here. There will be the mental health strategy, the anti-bullying strategy, the relationships approach that we take, the approach on personal social education and what the Government has to make sure. I assure the committee that it is uppermost in the minds of ministers as we work across Government in this respect that we have the same common themes and attitudes that are percolating their way through all of those different elements. That is an important aspect of ensuring consistency between those different approaches. Fundamentally, they are anchored in the foundations of Government policy towards young people, which is getting it right for every child, which again links back to the comment that you made in your earlier remarks, convener, that the impact of bullying is felt on individual young people. Getting it right for every child must focus us on addressing the issues that affect every young person, and we have to make sure that we have that focus in all of our policy interventions that enable us to do so. Thank you very much. Mary Fee. Good morning, cabinet secretary. One of the things that is focused in almost every evidence session that we have had on this is the guidance that is available in schools. I have, I suppose, a bit of a bean marbonnet about guidance, because guidance is required, it is necessary and it is good, but what I do not want is guidance that sits on a shelf and is taken down once every six months, once every year, dusted down, read and put back on the shelf. I understand changes that have been made or will be made to the guidance and there will be regular refreshes of the guidance. The point that you made in your earlier answer to the convener about the ethos of the curriculum for excellence, and it is my belief that there should be an ethos in schools that is supportive, that is understanding, that tackles bullying and understands how children actually feel. We heard evidence last week from a school in Cercodi that has developed that very ethos in the school, works with the pupils in the school, has pupil councils, pupils mentor, pupils support each other. I am conscious that I am flinging, as the convener did, flinging a lot at you in my question, but how do you make sure that the guidance in schools is actually a living document? How do you support schools to develop that ethos that we heard about last week? I think that the answer to this is deeply enshrined in the approach of curriculum for excellence and the aspiration to have inclusive schools. The example that Mary The Sights of Cercodi High School is that I have visited Cercodi High School and am familiar with the approach to the school, and I understand very clearly from my conversations both with the rector but also with senior pupils how that is brought to life within the school, and it can only be brought to life within individual schools. I will take another example at the other end of the country. I was recently visiting Elgin academy, and Elgin academy has developed a model where the school library is essentially a place of inclusion, safety and welcome for anybody who is perhaps feeling not safe and not included. It is presided over by a very welcoming supportive librarian who has led a process of engaging senior pupils in the school to provide that mentoring and nurturing support to more vulnerable younger pupils so that their journey through the school is a happier journey than it might have been without that intervention. Fundamentally, it is no different to any of the challenges that I face because we have two and a half thousand schools around the country. It is about getting those values and that practice enshrined within schools. My observation is that, if we were to go into any school in the country and say to the head teacher, are you trying to run an inclusive school, the answer would be yes. There will be varying degrees of success, and of course I think that one of the key points, and this is at the heart of some of the reforms that I have proposed around education, is to make sure that some of the outstanding practice such as the practice that the committee has heard of from Cercodi High School can be more widely understood within the system so that other schools can aspire to deliver that. I totally accept the point that Mary Fee makes to me about guidance not sitting on a shelf. There is no point of that because the guidance has got to be brought to life to make sure that young people experience the type of education system that this guidance aspires to deliver. I certainly recognise the importance of ensuring that young people are included and feel involved in their school and feel safe in their school. For the reasons that the convener cited in her own question, because it is important for every single young person that they feel like that, nobody should not feel like that, but it is also critical for attainment because young people are unlikely to attain their full potential if they are not happy, safe and included in their schools. For every reason, there is no reason to counter the sentiment that has been put to me in the question, but our challenge is to make sure that that is replicated in operational practice in schools around the country. I know from speaking to teachers—I have had a number of conversations with teachers not in every school but you will find in schools that some teachers are very keen, very enthusiastic and want to perhaps not change the way they do things but work in a more inclusive manner and work with pupils. Again, in some schools there are teachers who are very traditional and do not want to move away from a very rigid set of guidelines. One of the other things that we heard about when we took evidence was the amount of training that is given to teachers when they are actually doing their teacher training on recognising bullying and how they can tackle it and what the signs that they should look out for. Do you think that now is the time to change the way we teach teachers about recognising bullying and how to handle it and strategies that they should use when they become teachers? Yes, I think that it is important that the initial teacher education reflects the values and aspirations that are set out in the question. I think that I would also want to say that Scottish education, and I am sure that Mary Fee will recognise this, has changed very significantly. The type of inclusive nurturing environment that I am setting out, I now see very frequently across the education system and some very good work has been done to make sure that the support is available within schools to overcome the challenges that young people will face and therefore, as a consequence, make them feel more included within individual schools. I think that the necessity is to ensure that initial teacher education does equip teachers with those capacities, but it is also important that we recognise that the changes and the further need for change within our school system to make sure that those values are reflected in the experience of young people. Can I just pick up on one point on teacher training and one of the other aspects that we are looking at is CPD of already trained teachers? Coming from the social work professional background, I came from, there was a number of CPD training that was compulsory. Whether that would be a length that you would go to to ensure that teachers who attend CPD sessions get those CPD sessions from the start, but turn up as well, because some of the evidence that we have heard is that the training is available, but some teachers just do not take it. I have to say that where we have seen some poor practice, that is where that has been evident. There is a clear connection between continuous professional development and the uptake of that, and whether the Government would go as far to recommend it. That should be compulsory. The committee will recognise that, in the proposals that I set out to Parliament on Thursday, there is a very heavy emphasis on continuous professional development and the enhancement of learning and teaching in the education system. That is the purpose behind the regional collaboratives that I have proposed. I want to make sure that the type of quality interventions to enhance learning and teaching and to enhance the quality of our schools is available systemically within Scottish education. I am very sympathetic to that type of approach. The committee will, of course, be aware that, in the guidance that was issued to the education system in August of last year by the chief inspector of education—it would be in the August guidance—we identified within the eight curricular areas for excellence literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. The purpose of that was to make it expressly clear to the education system the importance of focusing on enhancing health and wellbeing, along with literacy and numeracy, to make sure that young people have the strongest and most secure foundations that they can have in meeting their aspirations. My question is, when we take into consideration prejudice-type bullying such as race and religion, how will the national strategy be localised in places such as Glasgow where it has 50 per cent of the Muslim population? How are we going to make sure that we have a localised strategy where we need it? Again, I come back to the reforms that I was setting out on last Thursday, and it is also similar to the point that I made to Mary Fee. Fundamentally, this is about what goes on in an individual school, and the profile of a school in the centre of Glasgow is going to be very different than the profile of a school in Mishros's constituency, so we have to make sure that the approach that is taken forward is tailored to meet the needs of young people in that circumstance. Fundamentally, whether it is bullying because of relationship issues in a school in rural Scotland or whether it is bullying because of racial prejudice in a school in central Glasgow, in either situation it is totally unacceptable. The anti-bullying strategy will establish those principles, those values that whatever shape it takes, whatever form it takes, whatever location it takes, it is not on. Therefore, we have to make sure that schools are tailoring their own individual response to meet those requirements in different localities in the country. That is where I want to see headteachers able to lead that process within their schools as effectively as we possibly can do. Can I just come in with another question? We were just talking about Cracody High School, and when the headteacher was in last week, he had said that he had replaced three quarters of the teaching staff, and that helped to create an inclusive school, so he had to replace three quarters of the teaching staff to get there to get it right. My question is, how do we make sure that we have the right teachers and the right jobs to take so that we have an inclusive school and we can take those steps forward? We need to have good leadership that makes it clear that the creation of inclusive schools is what matters to us. That leadership exists within Government, and I know that it exists within local authorities, and we have to make sure that it exists right through our school system. However, some of the other issues that we have talked about already about initial teacher education are significant in helping to get the new teaching population off on the right footing, but the issues that the convener raised with me about continuous professional development are also important to make sure—again, going back to Mary Fee's point to me—that this is not some abstract guidance that is in our filing cabinet, that this is part of the living and breathing values of the school and that teachers are identifying how they can contribute towards that environment as a consequence of the delivery of their professional practice. Cabinet Secretary, you talked about the updated guidance for PSE in schools, which is absolutely welcome and very important. I just want to go back to what Annie Wells was saying about faith-based bullying. We know that a lot of bullying and prejudice in society as a whole comes from a fear of somebody being perceived as different or a lack of understanding in their beliefs and their culture. What are we doing to make sure that different religions are not just supported but taught about so that pupils understand what different religions believe in? Of course. Religious and moral education is a taught subject in the curriculum, so there is an importance and recognition of the necessity to educate young people about the breadth of religious practice and involvement so that there is an understanding of those different characteristics. That is one element of the approach that we have to take to make sure that young people are equipped with that knowledge, but they must also be able to set that knowledge within the context of their wider educational experience, which has to be in an inclusive environment where we are respectful of difference and diversity within the education system. It is very important that there is that understanding, but it is set within that context of how we behave towards each other and behave in a fashion that is respectful of difference and not intolerant of difference. As I said in the question, a lot of this prejudice is that the kids are not just in a school setting and I realise that we are talking about education. Is there anything that schools can do to work with the wider communities to try and promote that inclusiveness? Yes, and I think that there is a lot that can be done there because I think that all of the learning tells us in the evidence that there is much that can be achieved within our schools. Lots can be achieved within our schools, but not everything can be achieved within our schools. So the relationships between schools and communities are very, very important. How those relationships are struck and structured is critical. The ethos that we try to encourage within our schools is for them to be involved in the communities of which they are apart. I saw some work in my constituency where pupils in schools are out, for example, active involved in delivery of services and activities within care homes for the elderly. Those young people are experiencing how it is to work in support with vulnerable elderly people in care homes and to provide some, from what I saw, an awful lot of joy to the elderly members of our society. That is just one example of how schools can make a profound contribution to our communities, but that experience can also be of profound benefit to the young people themselves. That again is part of reinforcing the ethos of an inclusive society, a respectful society, who are respectful—in the example that I have just cited—to elderly members of our society. That would apply to a whole variety of different groups within our society. I think that there are many ways in which our schools can reach out beyond their boundaries to be active involved in communities and to create the right ethos that supports that. Thank you. Obviously, coming from a really rural constituency myself, we do not have the rich mixture of faiths, as you would get in Annie Wells or other constituencies in the central belt in other places. Interfaith Scotland had a stand, and I was speaking to a representative from there a couple of days ago. It can be quite challenging for teachers in rural schools. If somebody has never met someone of another faith, how do you understand, just by sitting in a classroom alone, how do you make that learning experience more interactive? There are two points that I would make here. Scotland is changing as a country before it arrives. When I look at the population mix in my son's primary school in Blairgowrie, in rural Scotland, a significant proportion of my son's primary class are children from families who have come to Scotland very recently, many from Eastern Europe, and are now very much part of our community. However, the class is a very diverse population base even within rural Scotland. I think that diversity is something that means that the approach that we take must reach all parts of the country because there will be all sorts of different diversity in all sorts of different parts of Scotland, and it will have a different character about it. The second point is about the experience of ensuring that young people have the knowledge of different religious practice and experience so that they can be equipped to handle that as effectively as possible. That is where religious and moral education is an important part of schooling. However, it is also important that the school is trying to ensure that young people are able to receive that breadth of experience and appreciation of diversity and are able to understand the differences that exist between different denominations and different religious traditions in order that they may be able to live out the values of respect that we all want to see lived out in our schools. I am just going to ask you one more question, and it is probably going to be quite a difficult one to answer, but I feel like I would be letting the young person down if I did not ask it. We took some quite harwing evidence on Tuesday from a young disabled woman that was in a wheelchair, and she told us about several very, very distressing episodes in her school. They were not perpetrated by the pupils but, unfortunately, by the teachers. To put it in a nice way, the teachers were either unsympathetic or dismissive of her problems and issues. To put it bluntly, she told us that the teachers added to her distress by making her feel worthless and that she deserved the way that she was being treated. She took it to the local authority and was also, unfortunately, dismissed at that level as well. We talk about how we punish children for treating other children in this way at school. How do we deal with teachers that act like that? I have not been cited on the case that has been raised, but I come back to the fundamental point that I made in my opening remarks in response to the convener, that there is no circumstance in which bullying is acceptable and there is no circumstance in which bullying, perpetrated by any individual, is less significant or less concerning than another. The way in which individuals have acted in perpetrating that bullying or in not properly investigating and holding it to account is, in my view, not acceptable. That would be completely at odds with the aspirations of our approach in that respect. Obviously, if there are specific details, I am very happy to pursue those and to identify and satisfy myself that everything that needs to be done to address those concerns is properly addressed. I will certainly be very happy to do that if the committee wishes to bring that to me. However, I would say that we have to make sure that, in our professional standards and what is expected of teachers—and those are implicit parts of the professional standards of teachers—to properly and fully respect and implement the guidance that we are setting out, that those issues of professional practice can be addressed as part of the approach that we take. Fundamentally, at the heart of the issue, it will be an issue of children's rights. It is critical in our society that the rights of children are respected and one of the most important rights about children is their ability to express their concerns and to have their concerns addressed. As a society, we must be prepared without fear or favour to do exactly that. Thank you very much. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. Again, thank you for coming along this morning. I think that it may be slightly naively before I started this inquiry with the committee. I hadn't appreciated maybe where we are in Scotland and I think that we've learned that all five protected characteristics have some form of building going on in some of our schools. As the convener said, some of the stories that we have heard over the past few months have been quite harrowing. I wonder if I can ask two questions and let me carry out my question by saying that, firstly, I was a local councillor, so I appreciate that those are a local authority that you have to deal with in Cawsloo. I'll come on to that in a moment. Secondly, let me say that I am totally convinced that your Government is completely committed to the strategy of getting rid of anti-bullying. However, the question that I have is how do we implement your fine words and good words? I take them absolutely generally. How do we then get that down to the P2 classroom across Scotland or the S4 classroom? For me, there is still a disjoint between what comes from Government and local authorities and what happens on the ground in a local school. One other thing that has surprised me is the lack of recording that goes on. We have heard evidence that either head teachers or teachers are scared to record actual incidents of bullying because they do not want to be seen as a school that has racial bullying or sexual bullying or whatever. I suppose that my question is how do we get around that? Can we add it to part of the inspection of the school that they give a robust account for that we have had no bullying in the past five years in our school? I think that that is a very big question as well. I apologise for that. No. Fundamentally, I suppose that the answer is in leadership. It comes back to Mary Fee's point. It is all very well having the guidance documents, but if they are not living, breathing parts of the system, then they are not really much use. It is all about leadership. I demonstrate the leadership that the Government takes on this issue. I am certain that the 32 local authority leaders and directors of education will support that direction because there is no way that any of the directors of education or leaders of council will take a different view from me about the unacceptability of bullying in our schools. I am certain that the success of our measures will depend significantly on the way that we can deploy that leadership and to make sure that it is felt in the schools around Scotland. Ultimately, we have to rely, for all aspects of our school practice, on the strength of the work that is undertaken within schools and the strength of leadership that is deployed. That is not just about headteachers, it is about individual classrooms because there is a classroom approach here. Mr Balfour makes exactly the right point. The whole nature of leadership in our system is crucial to the success of our approach on education. That is my principal answer to how we get this percurating its way through the system. In relation to the question of recording, that is a very specific and material issue, and I am considering that question. Obviously, I will listen carefully to what the committee is and why I have not gone to publication of strategies. I wanted to listen to what the committee had to say to me about the question, because I think that those are issues that transcend party political considerations, so I am interested in what the views of the committee will be in that respect. I think that some of the dilemmas are included in Mr Balfour's question that no school will want to acquire a reputation for being a school that has a problem with bullying, but equally, a school will want to be able to take the necessary action to tackle the issue. That is what matters. In relation to inspection, the issues around bullying I would expect to be considered with an inspection. When inspectors go into a school, inspectors will have discussions with young people. They will be open discussions. The inspectors attach a very significant emphasis to the quality of those discussions and the privacy of those discussions with young people. I certainly know from my own experience that when I go into schools, I am talking to pupils and teachers and I am doing that in private space where they can tell me as it is, and inspectors will do exactly the same thing into the bargain. Those issues will be very much central to the approach to inspection that is taken by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. My second question is a very big question, so I am just really throwing it out there, but one of the concerns that I and others on the committee have is that there is good work being done by the Scottish Government, by the Scottish Government and by the Scottish Government and by Education Scotland. How do we link them all together so that we do not end up with lots of people doing a wee bit of work in the early area and we miss the big strategic role that then percolates down? I am not sure that we will get rid of any of those organisations. I think that we all have a way to play with it, but my slight field is the left hand talking to the right hand, which is a problem for me. I acknowledge the importance of making sure that we have a focused approach to the delivery of this work within Scotland, but, frankly, that is no different to a myriad of other issues where we need cohesive action to deliver within our education system. For those reasons that I have come to the conclusion that we need to have a much more focused approach generally in education to delivering improvement and performance strengthening within our schools, which is why I have set out the proposals that I set out last Thursday on the regional collaboratives, because I do think that we need more cohesion in this work. That is another reason why I think that the reforms that I announced last week are important to give us the mechanisms and approaches to ensure that we can be more confident that the improvements in practice that we have talked about will be deployed across the board within our education system. Good morning, cabinet secretary, and good morning to the panel. It is good to see you all again and thank you for coming to see us. I have a couple of areas that I would like to cover. There has been a bit of discussion in this session about, in this meeting today, the need to foster an understanding in children of what healthy relationships look like as a means of preventing bullying and fostering a culture of respect and resilience in schools. That really struck me, because for two years I served on the ministerial task force on child sexual exploitation in a previous life. The same approach was adopted in that regard as well. An understanding of what healthy relationships look like was a means of stopping exploitative relationships and bullying as a form of exploitation. It struck me on that group that I was the youngest member of that group. That presented a barrier in the sense that we had an inference or a belief as to what was happening on the ground in schools. That was often wide of the mark. It struck me also that forums in which child sexual exploitation can take place can also be those in which bullying can take place. That is online forums, particularly around online abuse. In terms of your work, cabinet secretary, in this area, what steps have you taken to enlist young people to mind them for intelligence about whether the newest forer are for in which bullying might take place or the sort of strata and the means by which it might take place? We might remember when we were at school, but it was very different to the sort of theatres in which this might happen nowadays. The world has changed significantly since I was certainly at school, so there is a world of a difference there. That is an important issue. It is about the engagement of young people in the process of policy formulation. We are, I think, going through a really positive journey of changing that within Government. If I give one example, I was at the education committee a couple of—a little while ago—and Ross Greer asked me—I was talking about qualifications, senior face qualifications, and Ross Greer asked me if—I was talking at length about the assessment of qualifications group, and Ross Greer asked me if I had any young people on that group. I had that moment where I thought, well, I know what answer is going to have to be given here, and it is not going to sound very good, which is none. It is ridiculous. So there is the kind of blunt—there is the moment when the Government Minister hits the blunt reality that we are sitting there talking about qualifications. I do not know what the youngest person in the room would be, but I would be surprised if there were any younger than 30, I would think, in the room. I am amending that. That is the bad example. The better examples are our engagement with organisations like Young Scot, who have very, very—and Young Scot are just one organisation—but they have very, very good mechanisms in a relaxed, participative way of establishing the issues that we need to confront with young people and to draw on their experience to shape policy. During the governance review, I enlisted the help of Young Scot and Children Scotland to undertake some of that dialogue with young people, and we are doing that increasingly within Government. The First Minister convened a meeting of the Cabinet with representatives of the Children's Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament. That was around the Cabinet table. It might have been viewed to be a rather daunting experience for the young people. I think that it was the other way around for the ministers that were involved in it. We have to capture that sentiment that lies at the heart of Mr Cole-Hamilton's question, because, if we do not, we will not be capturing the reality of what young people are experiencing. If I look at how my working life has changed in the past five years because of digital technology and put that into the space of how young people's lives are being formed by digital technology alone, there is a need for us to better understand all those issues and to make sure that our guidance and approaches adequately tackle those issues. I would give the committee an assurance that we are now much more mindful and much more active in how we enlist that input from young people. That is gratifying to hear. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. That very much speaks to the rights that children should enjoy under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in terms of hearing the voice of the child in decisions that affect them. It is a slippery fish, and I am sure that Governments of Alhu struggle with that in terms of how best to engage young people in decisions that affect them. I am reminded that criticisms were fairly levelled at the recruitment of the new children's commissioner in the sense that there was no real panel session in which children could be part of that interview process. I think that is something that we should reflect on. That said, I think that this Government does do engagement with children and young people very well in other areas. Is there a mechanism or policy or process that we could better adopt at every level of Government in Scotland, either in Parliament or across the Government directorates, which can just nail that down? Is there something that we are not doing that could ensure that we do not have gaps like with the recruitment of the children's commissioner? Obviously, on that issue, it would be wrong for me to transgress into that, because it is a parliamentary appointment and the Government is not involved in that process. However, for our part in the Government, the examples that I cited in my earlier answer are indications of the fact that we acknowledge that our existing practice has not been good enough. In interacting and engaging with young people, a standard Government consultation on all those glossy documents that we produce is just not going to engage young people whatsoever. However, some of the interactive sessions that young Scots and other organisations are able to facilitate for us give us very rich evidence of issues that we need to address. That practice is now becoming much more commonplace within Government, and our sharing of good professional practice within the civil service is designed to make sure that that is more widely taken forward as an essential part of the approach that we take. However, the fact that we are doing some of that work just now should not be the end of the journey. There will be other aspects that we need to consider to make sure that we get this right. If I make convener with one final point, I should remind my colleagues of my register of interests having been a former convener of the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights, but you mentioned in a previous answer, cabinet secretary, that children should have the right to raise their concerns and have those concerns addressed at every level, whatever they may be. Again, that speaks to article 12, but it speaks to several other articles in the UNCRC. The only mechanism that we really have to recognise the UNCRC in Scots law is from part one of the Children and Young People Act, which really only puts a duty on ministers to raise awareness of the UNCRC. There are elements of Scottish society that believe that that is not enough. That denies children access to justice in respect of violations of their rights and when they encounter problems. Do you see us changing that anytime soon? Do you think that, given what three years now, since the Children and Young People Act came into force, that that is enough or do you think that we need to consider in forthcoming children and young people legislation enhancing that, perhaps bringing it in line with Wales or other European countries in respect perhaps even of full incorporation of the UNCRC? There are two points that I would make in response to that question. The first is that we have an on-going process of assessing our position in relation to the UNCRC. That is a very detailed exercise within Government. It is a comprehensive approach within Government. The issues that are raised with us by the UNCRC are issues that we will have to consider. I suppose that the answer to Mr Cole-Hamilton's question is that we must view that as work in progress. There will be issues that we will continue to have to address and we will obviously advise Parliament about any steps that we intend to take to change policy in that respect. The second point in relation to children's rights is that, of course, there is the facility for children's rights impact assessments on all new policies. That is a really important part. I suppose that it gives institutionally a role and a structure to the type of dialogue that I was talking about, which might be facilitated involving young people with young Scots, is to ensure that, systemically, we are looking at the issues that matter in relation to the position in the perspective of young people and reflecting that in the approach that we take to the delivery of policy. I pick up on a point in Alex Cole-Hamilton's question about the law. One piece of evidence that we heard last week from Hannah Brisbane and Susie McGinnis, who are youth advocates at Girlguides, was about how the law is implemented in schools. They gave us some quite horrifying examples of sexual assault and issues around consent, not just in the upper school now but affecting younger school pupils and, in a lot of cases, young women from the age of 12 in schools. It seemed to be that there was not an understanding within the schools of what criminal behaviour is. There seemed to be a question that, if you were under 16, there was one example of a young woman who had been sexually assaulted, had been videoed, had been passed about on the stream—it is not just Facebook anymore, that is old hat to kids, it is a stream of Snapchat and stuff like that. There seemed to be questions from the adults within that, whether that young woman had given consent or not. She was under 16, so as far as I am concerned, there is no issue about consent. She could not give consent, but there seemed to be a clear evidence in those cases that teachers and other adults in that whole system did not understand that that was actually criminal behaviour and they had a responsibility to take forward that under child protection procedures and criminal law procedures. I do not think that your strategy would go into that detail, but if it does and if you are minded to, would that be something that we could seriously impress on the adults within those relationships that, when something is criminal or a child protection issue, that they have a duty and a care and a responsibility to take that forward? I cannot conceive of circumstances in which it would be justifiable for these issues not to be reported to the police. It is not a matter for a teacher or for me to determine what is criminal or not, that is a matter for the police and the procreative fiscal to determine that. I will explore the examples that you raised with me, convener, but all of those issues should be adequately covered by the knowledge and expertise that we would expect in every school in relation to child protection. I do not think that those are in any way specialist issues that you raised with me. They are absolutely mainstream issues about child protection. Therefore, the idea that somehow there is not a proper route for those to be considered, I reject that argument completely because the procedures are crystal clear. The child protection regime is crystal clear. Mr Macdonald and I invited Catherine Dyer to review our child protection arrangements. A former crown agent who has looked at our arrangements and has given us strong reassurance about the strength of those arrangements, we must continue to make sure that that remains the case. Those arrangements are strong, clear and robust. Obviously, the role of the police and the procreative fiscal service in pursuing issues of criminal nature in general and sexual assault in particular are huge priorities for Police Scotland and for the Lord Advocate and the Crown. I really cannot see any aspect of that area of policy where there is no crystal clear direction about what should be done in those circumstances. Thank you for that clarity. Thank you, convener. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary. We have heard the role that teachers and staff play in the education environment. What role do outside third agencies play? There are examples of some of the high schools where they have full-time counsellors and other agencies that have real success with the mental health and wellbeing of pupils. How do we expand that across the education system? Certainly, the opportunity is there for third sector organisations to be participants in our schools. There are many good programmes where schools have reached out to third sector organisations to establish partnerships that enable that to be undertaken. The reforms that I have put in place around pupil equity funding are opening up the possibility of more flexibility being deployed by headteachers and by staff to enlist third sector organisations to make a contribution to the life of the school. The proposals that I announced last Thursday to Parliament, including the emphasis on the headteachers charter and the creation of more flexibility for headteachers, create opportunities for that to be the case. I think that there are many good existing examples of how those type of services can be enlisted into schools and the policy reforms that I have put forward are designed to help that further. There is, of course, the review of PSE, which is undertaken just now, which will have an effect in some of those areas that may assist us in the development of further policy. Is there a supplementary question to your question? The convener has touched on a couple of the issues that I want to explore in relation to the recording and sharing of sexual assaults. Some of the evidence that we heard last week from the guiding association was horrifying. Things like that were going on in our schools, and it would appear almost on a weekly basis. We had one of the young women telling us that, when she went to her school to report something, she was told that boys will be boys and it would not be recorded. It is the recording of incidents of crucial importance here. How those incidents are reported—every single incident, in my view, should be reported, no matter how small it is. I can understand from a school's perspective that, if we record all of this, our school will be viewed in a particular light. How do we move away from, if a school reports something, asking for perhaps help in dealing with something, acknowledges that it has an issue, that a light will not be shone in that school to say that you are doing something wrong, but that a light will be shone to say that you are doing something right because you have recognised a problem and you are going to deal with it? How do we support schools to make sure that things are properly recorded? I think that that is perhaps one of the many $64 million questions with which I wrestle. I think that it captures the dilemma. As I told Parliament last week, I do not control the media. The circumstances that Mary Fee narrates could be ill-construed. They could either be construed as looking at how robust this school is at the issue of bullying, or they could be portrayed as looking at the awful record of bullying that exists in this school. We all live in the real world, but we know that it is much more likely to be looking at the awful record of bullying in these schools. Those are some of the dilemmas that we will have to wrestle with about recording. My comments to Mr Balfour's question are designed to address some of those dilemmas. I refer however to the question of reporting because it follows on from the circumstance that the convener raised with me and the example that you cite from the Girl Guides. There are no circumstances. If an incident is of the substance that has been raised with me this morning, that should not be reported, none. The child protection arrangements and the criminal framework as a society are crystal clear on this, that these issues should be reported and reported to the proper authorities. That is different to whether or not we should be recording every incident that might be construed as bullying, which we have to work through all the issues about. What does that say about reputation? What does it do for bureaucracy? I am trying to strip bureaucracy out of our schools. What does that do about that? Equally, I want to make sure that young people feel safe and that they have the opportunity to have their concerns addressed whenever they have them. I think that there are dilemmas in this area. Fundamentally, for me, if there is an issue about an incident being of that nature, it must be reported and reported properly. Cabinet Secretary, we have had a number of recommendations for the strategy from the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights. I just wanted to get on the record one in particular. We also, through our other inquiry into destitution that we were doing before, heard quite a lot from asylum seekers and refugees and they have also mentioned gypsy travellers in one of the recommendations as well. They just asked that the addition of one line such as some bullying behaviour against these groups may be of a racist nature, which can have equality law and hate crime implications, although care should be taken to ensure clarity that only some incidents would be racist. I just want some reassurance that you will look at these recommendations. I am very happy to do so. As I have indicated to the committee already, I have deliberately held off finalising the strategy so that I can hear the committee's views. Obviously, the committee's reflections will be important in helping me to come to the conclusions that I have got to come to. However, I would also say that it is important that we have very clear, broad and low levels of tolerance of anything that might resemble prejudice-based bullying. It is important that we construct the strategy on that basis. Thank you very much. Cabinet Secretary, I have got two quick things at the clerks that remind me that we need to ensure that we have some comment on. One is the issue around resourcing, whether that is resources within schools or resources for teachers in order to attain CPD. One of the aspects that we have been looking at quite clearly in the committee is that if you engage early intervention, which means early spend, it saves a lot of money out of the system later. If we take the example of the young woman that we spoke to on Tuesday and the impact that that has had on her young life, she is 22 now. The impact is on the services and the interventions that she has needed in order to cope with the outcome. One of the things that we are looking at is the economic impact of preventative spend and early spend and whether that is something that will reckon in your deliberations that, if you spend—I think that the old term used to be in social work was if you spent £1 on a child at an early stage, it saved £9 out of the system at a later stage. I would not like to put a money tag on this, because I do not think that we should, but I think that the reality is that you do not have English resources. How do we channel those much better at an earlier stage in order to save at a later stage? The committee will not be surprised to hear that it is possible to get the old finance minister out of me. I totally accept the premise of the question. It is a hallmark of the Government's approach about early intervention, because, apart from it being good and the right thing to do, because to take the circumstances that you narrated to me, convener, about the young lady, no young person should be experiencing that difficulty. The earlier you can address that and intervene and resolve it, the better, because their quality of life will be better, because none of us want to see that being perpetuated. Clearly, the quicker you address that, the more you minimise the risk of long-term, particularly mental health problems for young people. That is a very valuable intervention. The whole focus of Government policy, whether it is on health, on the judicial system and offending, is all about trying to undertake early intervention to avoid more expensive and more pressing demands arising in later years, because that will make the public services unsustainable. At every level, whether it is about the right thing to do to enable an individual to have a better quality of life or to save the long-term cost of the taxpayer, the arguments for early intervention are compelling to me. How do we do that? Well, when I look at the steps that we are taking through, for example pupil equity funding, we are putting resources directly into schools, some of which have been used by schools, to establish the very interventions that you are talking about, about creating more effective pastoral care, because in their judgment, and I think that there is sound educational rationale for this, they can sort out some of the issues of personal and pastoral care for young people more effective than they are just now, the learning potential of those individuals will be enhanced, and that will help us to close the policy related to the Damon Gap. That might feel like a circuitous route, but it is a route that I think is well evidenced of being able to improve educational performance by tackling an underlying problem, which is a challenge to that young person. There is an organisation in my constituency called Holistic Life who is doing fantastic work in Larkhall academy, and the head teacher has used exactly the pupil equity fund money in order to do that. I was in the school last week, and the impact on the young people is that you cannot measure it because it is stirring you in the face the difference in some pupils who were struggling last year to not struggling as much this year. That is why we rely on the professional judgment of our educational professionals, because they will, and it is why I think that we have to give them the space and the time to work out what are the interventions that will matter, because in some circumstances, interventions of this nature—I am not surprised to hear of the route that Larkhall academy has taken in this respect—will be in their judgment the ways in which some of the underlying issues that are impediments to the learning capability of young people can be properly addressed. I wholeheartedly agree. I think that it is one last thing, cabinet secretary, and we are really grateful for your patience with us this morning. Last week, I was in Dublin doing some stuff on gender budgeting, which is another aspect of the work that this committee will probably look at as well. I managed to meet with an organisation called Belong 2, who delivers inclusive education, especially for LGBTI young people, within the school education system in Ireland. They have a whole-school approach. They have a fantastic school resource pack with a rapid impact assessment that they do, but not only do the teachers do it, but the kids do this assessment as well. It would be quite interesting to see the comparison of what teachers say about the school as compared to what young people say about the school as well. They use all of that in order to deliver a very inclusive education. One of the tensions that we had at the beginning of this was about faith-based education and the impact of moral education, as far as young people are struggling with sexuality. I would hold up Belong 2, and the school's approach is a very good example of that. I wonder whether you would look to that example as a way to move forward. I know that we have the working group, a very gratefully received working group, and from talking to the young people that are involved in the working group, they are feeling that that is going to deliver the results. How do Government draw on the best examples, such as the one in Ireland, not reinvent the wheel, but look at where is the best practice and how can we use that to ensure that we move forward quicker rather than slower? The committee will be aware, as you have cited, convener of the establishment of the LGBTI inclusive education working group. I have deliberately appointed a broad membership to that group to make sure that we can have all of these issues considered in a very dispassionate way. I am obviously engaging heavily around this particular question. I think that it is important that we look at good practice in other jurisdictions and that we learn lessons to try to address the issues that we need to address here, and to find a way where we can all be comfortable with the approaches that are taken. That is one of my objectives, is to make sure that we use this process in a fashion that we address the issues of all within this process, but that fundamentally we can take an approach to inclusive education that will address the needs of young people who are in the LGBTI community and that would properly address their perspectives. We have not exhausted our topics, but we have exhausted our time. We have certainly gathered a huge amount of evidence, and we are now going into deliberations about how we put that evidence into a report that will be useful for all of us in order to move forward. We are very grateful for your time this morning and your officials' time this morning, and we are very grateful that you allowed us the time to do this inquiry. I think that it will make life a lot better for everyone who is in education, especially the young people that we have been speaking to. I appreciate the opportunity to have the committee's perspective on those issues. It is an example of how we can, in Government, benefit from very clear deliberations on hard issues from committees. I look forward to receiving the committee's input. As I indicated in my statement, I will not finalise the approach that we take until such time as I have got and considered the committee's report. Thank you so much. I am not going to suspend the committee now to go into private session.