 Felly, mae'r ddôl recherch. Felly, mae'r wneud flim wgol fdyshod crasfodol yn astag datblygu effig yn clas contact time by 90 minutes per week? The Government is committed to reducing class contact time for teachers by 90 minutes per week by the end of the current parliamentary term, and work is on going with our key stakeholders to achieve the same. To help inform those discussions, I have commissioned an external modelling and research exercise that will consider a range of factors, including current teacher numbers, pupil teacher ratios, and they have projected decline in the number of school-aged children in Scotland. Any reduction in class contact time will require the agreement of the Scottish Negotiation Committee for Teachers. Willie Rennie. That is so slow. To claim that the manifesto commitment, breathlessly delivered in 2021, was never intended for implementation for another five years, I think, frankly, has taken teachers for fools. Teachers are struggling now. They need the promise delivered now. So can the cabinet secretary set out exactly what she has done since she came to post to deliver this policy much sooner than when she has indicated that it would be delivered? I believe in my initial response to Mr Rennie. I set out the action that I have taken since coming to post this cabinet secretary to commission the external modelling work that we require at a national level to look at class contact time at local level. We do not yet have that detail. I do not yet have that report. That will inform the progress that needs to be made in relation to delivering the commitment. I absolutely agree with the sentiment behind Mr Rennie's question, because reducing class contact is vitally important, particularly in terms of workload. I also think that in terms of school reform, which of course is another substantive issue that the profession will be responding to in due course. I look forward to working with Mr Rennie to that end. The workload reduction task force in England has made a number of recommendations to address teacher workload pressures. Many suggest that they are easily mappable on to a Scottish situation. Which of the recommendations does the cabinet secretary think are particularly worthy of consideration and what is she doing to implement them? I have to confess to the member that I have not seen the workforce group for England and their respective recommendations. I am not necessarily sure that recommendations that have been made in other parts of the UK would always fit the Scottish system. That being said, I would be more than happy to consider them and look at what recommendations have been made in other parts, recognising that education is devolved. The cabinet secretary will also be aware that similar reports were written in Scotland almost 10 years ago now. The workload reduction task force and the tackling bureaucracy working group highlight a number of areas, including forward planning, assessment, monitoring and so forth, that could help to reduce workload. I know that the trade unions have written to the cabinet secretary about that report. Will she revisit those actions in that report? Will she be willing to meet the trade unions and I to discuss it? I meet the trade unions regularly, and this issue is one that I am keen to work with them on. It is part of our wider response to school reform in a post-Covid environment, and I recognise some of the challenge here. I will continue to engage with trade unions and, of course, with Ms Duncan-Glancy on this issue. I call Annie Wells, who is joining us remotely. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to support staff retention and wellbeing in primary schools in Glasgow. Glasgow City Council is responsible for the employment of teachers in their area that includes staff retention and wellbeing, notwithstanding. We are supporting the recruitment and retention of teachers by providing councils with £145.5 million to protect teacher numbers. The strategic board for teacher education is also considering issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers. The Scottish Government has allocated over £2 million to support the wellbeing of the education workforce in addition to our investment in the historic pay deal for teachers, meaning that they are the best paid anywhere in the UK, and staff retention and wellbeing for primary staff is, of course, ultimately a matter for the respective employer. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Tory Glen primary school in my region of Glasgow has had no fewer than five head teachers in just three years. With inspectors noting that, despite the hard work and dedication of staff, the school was suffering from a lack of leadership. While individual circumstances are, of course, a factor in every school, this example, combined with that in Glasgow City alone, almost 37,500 days were lost to staff mental health absence in 2022-23, certainly gives pause for concern. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that more substantive action is required to improve staff wellbeing across primary schools in Glasgow and beyond? I thank the member for her question. I think that she raises a very important point in relation to teacher wellbeing. Since October 2020, we have allocated that £2 million to specifically support the wellbeing of the teacher education workforce, but it is really vital that staff in our schools and our nurseries are able to access the right support that they need when carrying out their important duties. Of course, in this instance, Glasgow City Council is the employer. I should say that we have invested an additional £200,000 this year in supporting the wellbeing of coaching for staff who are working in schools and early learning and childcare. I will continue to engage with COSLA on that issue, but I am happy to engage with the member and, if required, with Glasgow City Council directly, because I recognise and support the points that the member has made today. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response and talking about the retention of staff across Scotland. Is the Scottish Government leveraging data and insights from the teacher numbers to inform future budgetary consideration and policy design, particularly in addressing the concerns raised by the Stand Up for Quality Education campaign regarding funding and resources for schools? I thank the member for his question. Of course, we already undertake our annual teaching workforce planning exercise that is done at a national level, but it is informed by local requirements. It looks at a statistical model that estimates the number of initial teachers required to maintain pupil teacher ratios. As the member will know, we have record low pupil teacher ratios. That is based, of course, from inputs around projections about the number of pupils in the education system, the churn in teacher numbers—retirement, maternity leave, for example—and the retention rates of ITE students. There has been consultation on that exercise that takes place in partnership with key stakeholders, namely, of course, COSLAB, but of course, representatives from the DTCS, from our universities, from our teaching unions, too, to the member's point and from the SFC. I will continue to work with our workforce planning partners to that end, but I recognise the point that the member makes in relation to that forward planning, particularly for the needs of the sector and for the needs of our teachers, too. Cabinet Secretary, a big aspect in attracting staff to work in Scottish School is competitive pay. Can you outline how, in Scotland, this compares to elsewhere in the UK? We have been really proud to support pay deals for the public sector across the boards. The current teachers pay deal is, of course, the most generous since 2001, and that 28-month deal has had a cumulative value of 14.6 per cent. It means an overall increase of more than £6,100 for the majority of classroom teachers, so unpromoted teachers at the top of the main grade scale are also better paid in Scotland, with a salary of £48,516, which is certainly welcome news. I think that it shows how this Government values our teachers in Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the Scottish Funding Council's decision to stop funding three out of seven, almost half, of Scotland's innovation centres. Minister Graham Day? Scotland is a rich research and innovation ecosystem that drives the creation of new knowledge and delivers economic, social and environmental benefits across the country. The innovation centre programme forms an important part of the ecosystem since its launch close to £175 million has been invested in the programme by the Scottish Government, delivered by the SFC. The programme has it and will continue to support the seven existing innovation centres until late 2024. It was always envisioned that, beyond that period, funding for the innovation centre programme would be reviewed by the SFC to determine future approaches to investment. Following completion of that review, four centres will receive further funding for the SFC. The other three centres have benefited from 10 years of public funding, which has built their capacity and will enable them to explore new models of public and private investment and continue to deliver impact. Additionally, the Scottish Government via the SFC will continue to support research and innovation in aquaculture, precision medicine and sensors in enabling technologies through its core funding of universities and colleges. Last year, the Scottish Government launched its innovation strategy, recognising that its seven innovation centres have been at the heart of the delivery landscape. The strategy is based on identifying where Scotland has genuine world-leading potential in supporting those technologies. It calls for joined-up delivery across the innovation ecosystem. Clearly, the Scottish Funding Council did not get the memo. Can I ask whether the Government will be rewriting its innovation strategy, given that a significant part of the delivery landscape that it lies on will no longer exist? Scotland's network of innovation assets is extensive and includes a number of centres of excellence funded by the Government, in addition to the SFC-funded innovation centre programme. As the member knows, those include the National Manufacturing Institute, Scotland's net zero tech technology centre, the medicine manufacturing innovation centre and a number of centres of excellence funded through the city and region growth deals. As Iarraeau points out, the innovation centre programme is an important part of the landscape and the key aims of the SFC's recent review of the programme were to promote greater alignment in the centre activity with the Scottish Government's ambitions, including those outlined in the national innovation strategy. Public sector support for innovation is also provided through our enterprise agency as part of the national innovation strategy's implementation work, which is under way with our enterprise agency and our public sector innovation funding review, with a focus on increasing alignment of funds, reducing unnecessary duplication and addressing any gaps in the funding landscape. There are clearly pressures on all aspects of the Scottish Government, including the Scottish funding councils. Can I ask the minister in light of the financial challenges that he will commit to continuing the Scottish Government's prioritisation of the winding access agenda? I was delighted to see the progress that we have made, highlighted by the commissioner for fair access this week. The commissioner also pointed out that that increase has not to be near the expense of other cohorts of Scottish students, where increases in home students across the board. That is, of course, directly contradicts claims that we have heard previously from Labour and the Tory party in this Parliament. Perhaps they might want to reflect on what they have heard from this independent source and consider correcting the record. In the same week that progress has been confirmed, of course, we have heard calls from the Tory front bench to bring back tuition fees, which we have put that progress at risk. Of course, Keir Starmer is turning on free tuition, but what is specifically on winding access is that we will not rest in our laurels. There is much work still to be done, and we will set about that. 4. Willie Coffey Thank you. To ask the Scottish Government how it matches up the skills required in the economy, with the courses on offer at Scotland's colleges and universities. As I confirmed to Parliament recently and set out in the purpose and principles, the Scottish Government will lead skills planning at the national level and support the development of skills planning at regional levels in recognition that we must better align our education and skills system offering with the strategic skills needed of the economy. We are developing those approaches in close collaboration with colleges and universities, along with other partners, particularly employers, and we are currently looking to get the queerest possible picture of the skills needed across Government portfolios now and for the future. 5. Willie Coffey We know the self-inflicted damaging effect that Brexit is having in this area, and the refusal by Labour and the Tories to support returning to the EU anytime soon will not help this one bit. However, could the minister give some indication of what more we can reasonably do to help to bridge the gap between what our local economies need and the capacity of our colleges and universities to deliver? In particular, how can we encourage more young people to start their own businesses in the trades that our economy so desperately needs? Willie Coffey makes a number of important points, but, in all that, we need to draw a clear distinction between skill shortages and labour shortages. That is incredibly important. There is an issue about access to workforce. Brexit has been a large part of that, and we are, to an extent, trying to mitigate the damage that has been done. However, we are very specifically undertaking an exercise across Government at the moment, whereby I am asking colleagues across the portfolios to engage with employers and colleges and universities in the room to identify whether the cause behind some of the shortages that we are seeing awaits provision. If so, what can we do to address those causes? There are a number of other measures that the Government has taken, but Willie Coffey makes an interesting point about how we encourage young people to start their own businesses. I have to say that I have seen in a number of our universities some good leading examples of that that we could roll out more widely, I think. Ensuring fair access to higher education is clearly critical in ensuring that Scotland has the skilled workforce that we need for the future. Can I ask the minister for his response to the Commissioner for Fair Access report that was published earlier this week? I think that I covered most of that a moment ago, but there is no doubt that the report makes positive reading. I think that even our political opponents would have to acknowledge that. However, we have some ground to make up to complete the journey that we set out on, and that is why, in days of receiving the report, our task officials are looking at how we build on the achievements so far, including how we overcome some of the data-sharing issues that are an impediment to enable us to move forward as we all want to do. I am afraid that, although Ms Chapman was hoping to join us online, we have noted that the internet connection has been coming in and out, and I do not think that there is a point in starting off something that we may not be able to complete. I apologise to those members who had or sought to have supplementaries, but the internet connection is not stable. Question 6, Faisal Chair. To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to ensure that pupils can interact with museums as part of their education to help to address racism and the legacy of colonialism. Pupils engage with museums and exhibitions in a number of ways. For example, young people co-curated the Glasgow City of Empire exhibition at Kelvin Grove Art Gallery and Museum, which launched in November of last year. It is important that we build on that approach, which is why the Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development accepted all of the recommendations of the Empire, Slavery and Scotland's museums report last week. That includes the recommendation that museums should support efforts to promote and embed race equality and anti-racism in the curricula in a meaningful, effective and sustainable way. We will continue to work with museums and galleries Scotland to implement the recommendation, which aligns with our new breaking-the-mold anti-racist curriculum principles, and supports our programme for government commitment to advance inclusive education and to promote a decolonised curriculum. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. I visited the Kelvin Grove Art Gallery last week. The Kelvin Grove Art Gallery recently launched an exhibition, as the secretary mentioned, entitled Glasgow City of Empire. The exhibition worked with the communities to tell the story of empire and how it still affects communities in Scotland today. What discussion has the Scottish Government had with Education Scotland regarding access for children across Scotland to educational exhibitions such as this one, and how does it ensure that pupils are living school with a robust understanding of racism and colonialism and the impact it has left in our society? I thank the member for his question and obviously we have exchanged some commentary on this in the chamber previously, so I recognise his interest in this matter. I should say that it is a matter for local authorities to support schools in developing partnerships, whether that be with the Kelvin Grove or other museums in their local area. However, Education Scotland has an important role to play in facilitating and encouraging those links between museums, schools and local authorities. As an example, it has an online webinar being planned in April of this year to raise awareness of schools about the education resources within museums and how to make use of museums as part of the school curriculum. An important practical resource is the National Museum of Scotland Atlantic Slave Trade learning resource, which helps to support the learning and teaching of the transatlantic slave trade component of a NAT5 qualification. Education Scotland will, of course, continue to promote this resource to schools. I am also conscious as we embark on a period of reform in Scottish education that we are cognisant of the work that has been undertaken by Education Scotland, and we support that through curriculum development that will be happening in the coming weeks and months. To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to provide appropriate levels of special educational needs staff for secondary schools to ensure a safe and encouraging learning environment for all pupils. The most recently published figures indicate that almost £5.9 billion was spent on education by local government in 2021-22 and spend on additional support for learning reached a record high of £830 million. We currently have the highest recorded level of pupil support assistance as a direct result of our investment of £15 million each year to help schools respond to the individual needs of their pupils. We have also outlined in the programme for government our commitment to work with teachers to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the additional support for learning action plan. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Another key factor, of course, in ensuring the learning environment for this type of education, is the fabric of our school buildings. I know that the cabinet secretary is aware of the significant issues with Castle B's school in my constituency at present. Could the cabinet secretary provide an update on what progress has been made on this issue by our officials since she met the local authority last month? I thank the member for his question and I recognise very much his continued interest in this matter, given his constituency. We had a helpful meeting towards the end of last year with the local authority and with the member on the issue. Of course, the Government and Scottish Futures Trust continue to closely engage with the local authority, and my officials are meeting with the council again in the coming weeks to discuss the issues relating to the health elements of the proposed Barra and Battersea campus, which, of course, sit out with my own responsibilities. However, I will write to the member with a further update once that meeting has taken place. I am very much committed to engaging with the council directly on the matter, recognising the important points that the member makes about the school building. We may have the highest level of pupil support assistance, as outlined in the last response, cabinet secretary, but with a marked rise in the number of students with additional support needs now almost 37 per cent of all pupils, can the cabinet secretary provide what further specific measures are in place to increase the numbers of ASN teachers and support staff without advocating the responsibility to local authorities? Obviously, the number of pupils that have been identified with an additional support need has increased markedly since 2010, and part of the change there has been the way in which we measure additional support needs, which I think now is much more transparent than it has been certainly in the past. We have invested an additional £15 million a year since 2019-20, and we provide over £11 million of funding to directly support pupils with complex additional support needs and services to children and families. We have a legislative framework, but it is really clear about the responsibilities for the provision of additional support for children and young people, and the additional support for learning action plan that I spoke to in my response to the previous member is a way in which we can enact change working with local authorities, recognising the responsibilities at local level, but also those that sit at national level. 8. Graham Simpson Thank you very much. To ask the Scottish Government when a decision will be made regarding the Scottish funding council's recommendation to end the regional colleges arrangement in Lanarkshire and Glasgow. My officials and I continue to work through the advice set out in the SFC's options appraisal to determine the most suitable way forward in the Lanarkshire and Glasgow college regions. I met with the chair of GCRB in December, and I am due to meet the chair of the Lanarkshire regional college board next week as we continue to explore, as a first step, what could be achieved within the existing statutory framework to enable timely delivery of improvement. However, it is likely that primary legislation would be required for more substantive reform of regional college boards, but we have been clear that any changes must not weaken oversight and accountability of the colleges. Rather, it should further support regional co-ordination of skills planning and pathway provision. 9. Graham Simpson I thank the minister for that answer. At the Public Audit Committee on the 11th of January, Karen Watt, who is the chief executive of the Scottish funding council, spoke of a range of other issues that were delaying the consideration of their recommendations. Does the minister know what those other issues are? Can he further expand on the actual timescale for delivering that? The chief executive of the SFC would have to explain that herself. As I have indicated, that is a live issue for myself at the moment. We are working on finalising a position on both of those matters. I particularly recognise the urgency around providing clarity in Lanarkshire. In Glasgow, I am entirely mindful of the asks around reform and the rationale behind those. However, if we are to change existing regional structures, I would want to be satisfied that the governance arrangements that replace those provided robust oversight of the activities of individual colleges and that the new landscape encouraged co-operation and collaboration across the three colleges in Glasgow and beyond and serve to discourage any possible predatory thoughts or activities between institutions. It is a matter that is live, and I would hope to be able to update members in the coming weeks and months. Thank you minister. That concludes the portfolio questions on education and skills. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business, to allow front bench teams to change positions, should they so wish.