 Thank You Ben. Good morning and welcome to the 21st meeting of the Education, Children and Young People Committee in 2023. The committee has agreed to undertake an inquiry on additional support needs. However, the committee is keen to identify where our work can add most value. To that end, we are seeking to understand the progress that has been made since Angela Morgan published her review of additional support for learning implementation in June 2020. The first item on our agenda today is therefore a scoping session to help inform our inquiry into additional support needs or ASN, which will be the acronym that we will use quite regularly throughout the session. We will be hearing from members and the co-chairs of the additional support for learning project board whose role it is to support additional support for learning and inclusion policy, including through delivery of the additional support for learning ASL action plan and associated work streams. I will try not to have too many acronyms today, but we know that it can be like that. I welcome our panel of witnesses, Laura Cavan, who is the chief officer for the children and young people team and co-chair of additional support for learning project board for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, COSLA. Laura Michal, who is head of support and wellbeing unit and co-chair of the additional support for learning project board for the Scottish Government. Fran Forman, project board member and senior education officer, inclusion and ASN inclusion, Fran, wellbeing and equalities for education Scotland. Scott Mulholland, chair of ADES, children and young people's ASN network, project board member and assistant director of education for South Ayrshire Council. I thank you all for joining us today and I invite Laura Michal to make an opening statement for up to five minutes, please. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to provide evidence to the education children and young people committee today. This introductory statement is made on behalf of COSLA and the Scottish Government as the joint chairs and partners in the ASL project board. We recognise that there is significant interest in the implementation of additional support for learning and that the committee will use the session today to inform your consideration of your future work in this area. As you will be aware, the additional support for learning act is a highly inclusive legislative framework, which seeks to address barriers to learning experienced by children and young people as part of their learning. The framework focuses on barriers to learning arising from learning environment, family circumstances, social and emotional behavioural needs and disability and health needs. Needs may be of short or long duration and currently, 241,639 or 34.2 per cent of pupils are identified as having additional support needs in Scotland. The Morgan review, which was undertaken in three phases during 2019-20, considered implementation of additional support for learning. In summary, the review was focused on how additional support for learning works in practice across early learning and childcare centres, primary, secondary and special schools, including enhanced provision. Where children and young people learn within the balance of provision within local authorities, the quality of learning and support, including overall achievement and positive destinations and apologies, achieved post school. The different approaches to planning and assessment to meet the needs of children and young people and the roles and responsibilities of support and teaching staff and leaders, education authorities and national agencies and finally the areas of practice that could be improved through better use of current resources to support practice, staffing or other aspects of provision. The review was published in June 2020 and made 43 recommendations across nine themes. The review confirmed that there is no fundamental deficit in the principal and policy intent of the ASL legislation and guidance. Therefore, it is necessary that, in our work, our joint focus is on the collective actions to be taken to improve the experiences of children, young people and their families. In the joint response to the review on 21 October 2020, the Scottish Government and COSLA confirmed acceptance of the review's recommendations, including partial acceptance of one recommendation. No recommendations were rejected. At the same time, the Scottish Government and COSLA published the ASL action plan, which set out 76 actions to be taken to deliver the recommendations of the Morgan review. As part of that response, we have committed to publish regular progress reports and two have been published since then. The latest progress report published in November 2022 confirmed that, at that time, 24 of the 76 actions had been completed. In order to secure progress on delivery of the actions at pace, the Scottish Government and COSLA have established the ASL project board. The role of the project board is to oversee the delivery of the ASL action plan and its associated work streams. Throughout the life of this plan, there has been continued progress towards the achievement of those actions, and that has continued since the publication of the last report in November. We expect to see more progress before the next report, which is due in May 2024. It is acknowledged that, within the ASL review, the recommendations are not a quick fix, that they will challenge and cause discomfort. We recognise that, but we are confident that, by working together, maintaining a focus on outcomes and taking seriously the implementation of the recommendations of the review that we have, we will continue to achieve the necessary change. That knowledge comes through the regular scrutiny of the work plan to deliver the recommendations, including prioritisation of any concern and progress on short, medium and long-term actions. Members of the ASL project board are here today to provide evidence to the committee on the progress of delivery of the ASL actions. We recognise that the committee will wish to explore wider aspects of the implementation of the additional support for learning act. To aid our discussions today, it may be helpful if I set out some key information. I have already set out the number of children and young people who have additional support needs, and I will now turn to their achievements. 22,550 pupils with additional support needs received an SCQF qualification in 2021-22. That is the highest number of pupils on record. Within that, 75 per cent of leavers with an additional support need achieved one pass or more at SCQF level 5—it is national 5—or better. That is a 10.1 percentage point increase since 2024-15. 93 per cent of leavers from public secondary and special schools were in a positive destination three months after leaving. The highest proportion since consistent records began. We have also established that the success looks different award. The award was developed by Scotland's national inclusion ambassadors. It is a group of young people with additional support needs from across Scotland who gather to influence policy and reflect on implementation of additional support for learning. The award is to highlight and celebrate education settings that support and champion children's rights and can evidence inclusion practices embedded within their school ethos values and practice. In support for pupils, the Scottish Government has invested £15 million per year in order to enhance provision of pupil support assistance. That has contributed to an increase of 2,803 support staff in school since 2018. That is within the context of local authorities continuing to prioritise funding for additional support for learning in their budget, despite a challenging financial context. In 2022, local authority spend on additional support for learning was £830 million. That was the highest level of local authority spend on additional support for learning to date. We cannot view support for learning in isolation from the wider work on going to support children and young people, for example in keeping the promise, tackling child poverty and mental health and wellbeing, including the forthcoming mental health strategy and plan. In working to implement the recommendations of the ASL review is important that we recognise both our strengths and our challenges. The ASL review provides a clear framework within which we can work together with our partners in the ASL project board and beyond to continue to improve the experience of children and young people with additional support needs. We are currently midway through this work together and we will continue to deliver against the actions of the action plan and the recommendations of the review. We are absolutely committed to making this change together and look forward to answering your questions today. We are going to move to members' questions and I have the privilege of asking the first question this morning. You spoke about the legislative framework and the barriers that are there to learning and that things are not a quick fix as well and you are here very much to talk about the progress of the actions that you have laid out. I am wondering whether the additional support for learning project board has considered whether any legislative change is required to really support improvement for children with additional support needs? The Morgan review itself indicated that the legislative guidance framework that was in place was the right framework and therefore the project board has not focused on legislative change. It has focused on the implementation of the actions of the action plan, which is about improving the experiences of children and young people. We have worked from the basis of recognising where we are in that framework and focusing on the improvements for the experiences of children and young people. Stephanie, do you have a supplementary on that? I have got that noted down. It has been an early start for all of us, I suspect. If you put your hand up, I can see you directly ahead of me if you want to come in on anything, as well as mentioning on the blue jeans and the clark. Can you move to questions now from Ruth Maguire? The number of pupils identified with additional support for learning needs has grown quite substantially over the past 10 years. Can you speak to whether work has been undertaken to understand why there has been a sustained increase in the numbers of pupils identified? As part of the statistics come from the pupil census each year and they are published in December each year. At the point at which we are preparing for publication and certainly in the sphere of implementation of additional support for learning, we review that every year. As well as the number of children and young people who are identified as having additional support needs, there are supplementary statistics available publicly that look at the breakdown of the different types of needs. We certainly analyse all that information. For example, we recognise that the largest group of children and young people with additional support needs are those with social and emotional behavioural difficulties. The fastest growing group of children and young people with additional support needs are those with English as additional language. That type of analysis does go on you. That is helpful to hear about those trends. How do local authorities and the Scottish Government use that data to make sure that the right support is there? In terms of policy direction, we consider our own work. Is there additional action that we would require to look at? For example, we provide support for children and young people who have English as additional language. This year, particularly, we have had additional learners arrive into Scotland as a result of the situation in Ukraine. Those are the types of things that we would expect to see come through our statistics as we go forward. We therefore think about what are the supports that are required to be in place in terms of the services that we fund directly, but also in our discussions with our colleagues at Coslan and address about where we are in terms of that larger picture going forward. At local authority level, we would use that data to support our own self-evaluation in terms of need so where we are seeing in my own area an increase in need in the early years and in the early stages of primary school in terms of language and communication issues and looking at ASD alongside that. At local level, we are able to then look at our resource and target that in the best way possible to ensure that we are able to meet the needs of the young people and the changing needs of young people in my role. I have had a number of different roles at school level as a deputy teacher but also at local authority level in managing the resource that is allocated to our schools. What we have seen over the past 10 years is a shift and a change there. What we decided to do with that resource and how that was allocated 10 years ago clearly has to change and particularly in a post-pandemic world where we are seeing the need for earlier intervention, we are seeing the need to look at those resources for young people who may not have experienced the transitions that we would have wanted over the last few years. So there are changes that I am more than happy to discuss and talk about later. Over to Ben Macpherson. Thanks, convener. Good morning, panel. Following up on my colleague Ruth Maguire's questions, over and above the points that you have made around why we have seen increases quite reasonably because of the issues that you raised, is there also an effect in that as a society social attitudes have changed and that people are now rightly more forthcoming about asking if they should be getting more assistance and parents are as well? I mean anecdotally I think of the people I know who didn't get support when they were at school and probably should have for dyslexia or other matters. So I just wondered how much that is part of your consideration from a positive perspective? I mean we would certainly recognise that. So the framework as I set out is very broad, I mean it is extremely broad in terms of if you compare it to other similar systems across the UK or indeed internationally, our system is recognised as being incredibly inclusive and that is a positive. I think that you are absolutely right. I think that parents and carers and young people and indeed children themselves are much more aware of the benefits of support and I think that we have been very clear about if you intervene early, we can enhance children and young people's learning outcomes and so that has been quite a public narrative. So yes, I think that there is certainly an element of that within a number of different strands which contribute to that increase but I would regard that as a positive rather than a negative. I would absolutely concur with Laura. I think that with Education Scotland and indeed local authorities there has been a tremendous effort to try and help people understand what do we mean by additional support needs and how broad our definition is and that you do not need a formal identification or diagnosis in order to receive additional support and that will have had an impact on the increase in numbers because we are much better at identifying need and the early intervention is absolutely critical to that. Our work in Education Scotland is really focused on really trying to support that universal support, understanding what is really good effective learning and teaching that will really help all learners irrespective of what their identification of need is but we have a real variation and we have had different pieces of work and programme over the years that have focused on areas and we are doing a lot of work at the moment on autism. For example, there is a lot of trying to support autism and inclusive practice so I think that the profile has been raised and continues to be raised that meeting the needs of all of our learners is both what we should be about. Thank you, I think that there are really important points to consider so thanks for expressing them. With regard to recent years the Morgan review of course was published in 2020 and since then quite a lot has happened and I just wondered if you were able to give any reflections on how the pandemic affected what additional support pupils require and what types of support have seen increased demand through that period and do policy makers use this data to determine the levels and types of resources that are made available for schools and local authorities in this post-pandemic time that we are now in? Yes, absolutely. I want to talk very briefly about a different part of my role as we consider the impact on children and young people's learning as a result of Covid. When the pandemic was on-going it was immediately apparent that children and young people would have potential, so we would potentially have new children and young people who would have additional support needs as a result of their experience in the pandemic. We talk about learning environment, we talk about social and emotional needs, both of those things, we would expect to be challenging for young people during the pandemic. They have had an unsettled learning period. As Scott mentioned, we have young people who are now coming into the education system, who are entering into the education system at early learning or in primary is different from what it would usually have been, and that inevitably will have an impact. When we were working our way through what our advice was on additional support for learning during the pandemic, we were very clear about the need to use the system properly and to identify any needs that were arising, plan for those and then review them. Linking that in the context of getting it right for every child, which allows the much fuller assessment of needs through the wellbeing matrix and our national guidance at that time explicitly said that that was the approach that we wanted people to take. As I said, I am also responsible for other areas, so I am also responsible for mental health and wellbeing in schools. We identified immediately again that there would be issues in relation to children and young people's mental health and wellbeing as a result of that, and so we brought forward work to introduce counselling services in schools during that period, and that has been successful in terms of the number of children and young people who have received counselling and have had benefit from those services. We also are aware of a better understanding of referral on to other services and the reasons why children and young people have those experiences. We have enhanced counselling, we have also enhanced support for staff in terms of understanding children and young people's mental health and wellbeing, and we have also introduced guidance on whole-school approaches to mental health and wellbeing. My response was to an earlier point that you raised around the definition of additional support for learning. I was just going to ask that, because of the definition being about both short-term and long-term needs, there is a likelihood that through someone's learning journey they will like everyone at some point may have additional support for learning needs that their schools might want to support or should support, and then to add to what Llyr was saying about the response during Covid and post-Covid in terms of counselling, there were really creative and diverse approaches taken to that, for example looking at online support and looking at online support, as well as possible in-person support, and we have community mental health and wellbeing supports for children and young people, which are developed during the pandemic as well. I am aware from constituent cases that I had during the pandemic how challenging parents and carers found those times, and I presume that there are similar avenues of support that are being utilised for supporting them. One of the recommendations of the Morgan review was that we should increase our support to inquire, which is the national advice and information service on additional support for learning. It has a role in providing advice and information for parents and carers and young people, who are 16 and above. It also has a role in providing advice and information for children with additional support needs as well, from age 12 to 15, so we have also enhanced that as well. As part of an approach that was also about enhancing parents and carers' understanding of those concerns, as we talked earlier on awareness of rights as well, there have been a number of strands of work come together in that space. I have got up here with things going on, but I do not think enough. Fran, over to you. There is a mic that has gone on next to you by mistake, so hold on. That is what you are on now. Thank you. I would like to add that, anecdotally, when the pandemic happened and the schools, children and young people were not able to attend school, I have worked in this field for a long time. I became really aware, as did my team, that I work with. Of the increased awareness of the need and entitlement for inclusion and additional support needs, we did have children and young people who found working online quite helpful. They were able to engage in their learning in a way that perhaps they had not been able to do before because of their additional support needs. Within Education Scotland, a lot of work was done particularly with our digital team to support staff to upscale in supporting online learning. We are really keen that that methodology is still available for learners because accessibility to the curriculum is hugely important and it is a legal entitlement. Effective use of digital provision can really support that, but it was really good to hear within the education community people being really, really aware of children's rights, about relationships, about that access to good universal support and that additional support needs and inclusion was not something that was thought that was somebody else's role. We have seen most definitely a change in need since the pandemic and, as I alluded to earlier on, in terms of our youngest children in our early year settings and in the early stages of primary school, what we see in terms of early language and communication needs increasing in those sectors or in those stages of education. Then, as we move into secondary school, what we are seeing around mental health and wellbeing, we are seeing social-emotional behavioural needs as young people progress, particularly in S2 and S3 currently, but it would be no surprise that those groups are the groups that were impacted most in terms of those transition experiences from home into early year settings and early years into primary one and for those young people in the upper stages of primary school, transitioning to secondary school two years ago. We absolutely believe that the need to look at earlier intervention, to work with those young people, work with their families and carers as well, is absolutely key, but also for education for our schools, our headteachers or our class teachers, they have a key role to play in this, but we also have to work with our other partners. In developing work with our speech and language therapy colleagues, for example our other allied health professionals, our health visitors, our school nurses and so on, there is a role that we all have to play in how we can support that increased need and the increased demand, I suppose, for support as we move forward with the finite resources that we have available to us, so there is absolutely a correlation between what we are seeing post-pandemic and that increasing need and we can then break that down into the particular barriers to learning that we are seeing those increases in. Thank you very much. I've got a queue of supplementaries here, so if your supplementary is asked, please indicate, but can we go to Stephen Kerr first, please? Thank you, convener. I think that I heard Laura say how broad the definitions are that we're using in Scotland and then I heard Fran say the benefits of additional support becoming widely known and then the other Laura said that at different points in the learner's journey nearly everyone's going to require additional support. I think that that is what I heard Laura say, she's shaking her head in agreement. My question is then very simple actually, and perhaps for the benefit of those who will read these proceedings or watch them, how does someone become designated as eligible for support? It's pretty much self-identified, is it through parents and carers, teachers, Laura? In terms of the legislation there are two main ways that someone will become identified as having additional support needs. As part of the routine assessment of someone's progression in their learning, for example it may become apparent that there's a barrier to learning being caused during that, so that may be, for example, that if someone is having challenges in reading and writing that is likely to lead to an assessment to understand what that barrier is. There may also be behaviours that are apparent within a classroom, for example. The first part is that the classroom teacher or support staff member would notice that there is something that is causing a barrier and then progress through identification. The second way, which also happens, is that a parent may be a bit concerned about their child and draw that to the attention of the school and then the process of identification would go through that way. So it's an in-school assessment? No, it depends. The way that the legislation works is that the school can then draw in support from, for example, it could be from educational psychology, it could be from clinical psychology, it could be from speech and language therapy or occupational therapy, so the system is that the school may be the receiver of the information, but it then reach out to partners to draw that information. That's where it links back to the broader framework potentially around getting it right for every child, looking at the wider needs of that child and then planning on that basis. So going back to Ben's question about resources, we've seen this increase, steady increase, pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, to the point now where it's nearly 34, 35 per cent of all pupils that are designated as having additional support needs. Has the level of resource in terms of speech therapists, pupil support assistants, increased in line with this upward movement in the proportion of Scottish pupils who are designated as having additional support needs? So the local authority spend on additional support for learning, as I said, has increased steadily over time. In line with this increase? It would be difficult for me to say that it's in line. I need to outline the whole picture of the support that we're putting in place to give a more entire picture. We've already touched on the work that we've done around supporting children and young people's mental health from LBN. That was supported by £15 million of recurrent funding for council and services. We have also done work to enhance the workforce for educational psychology and have invested in that. We now have an increased educational psychology workforce available. The number of pupil support assistants has increased significantly partly through investment of £50 million per year. Although there's the figure of £830 million of spend, there are also other funding tranches available, which also contribute to that overall picture of support. Do you know the numbers for PSAs and speech therapists? For my own local authority, but not for overall. Well, those figures do exist. They are collated as part of the census national. We don't have them. I've got Laura Cavan wanting to come in on this topic as well before you. I do need to move to other members. I don't want to know if you would provide the committee with the data. I have the numbers, but I'm happy to provide them. I think that it might be better to provide them a follow-up rather than spend time. Can I move to... Oh no, sorry. Apologies. Laura Cavan online, please. I was just going to go into detail about the figures, but if we're going to follow up right, then that's probably the best way to do that. That's it. Okay, thank you. Pam Duncan-Clancy, now you have a supplementary on data, and then I have a question later on finance. Do you want it now? Q. Okay, that's fine. I've got questions on this subject. No other result, that's fine. We had a paper for today that said that 28 per cent of pupils in primary school or ASN are 40 per cent in high school or secondary school or ASN. Can you explain why there seems to be more prevalence in high school and is it due to late diagnosis? I'm very conscious that everyone's going to Laura Meagle for sure. We're going to go to Fran Forman initially on this one. I'll just give you a break. It will be a combination of factors. That transition from a very holistic-centred primary school setting where there are a reduced number of teachers and it's not only teachers, it's all staff, and then that move to secondary school. Transition planning is an entitlement for children who require additional support needs. There should be effective transition planning. Obviously that the pandemic did create some obvious barriers for that. We had whole cohorts of year groups that didn't have a proper transition planning to secondary school who are now our current, if you like, S3 young people. In terms of that transition to a completely new environment, which can be quite for some, quite a sensory overload in terms of the buildings, in terms of the amount of people they're coming into contact with, everything down to the actual environment. We know a change of environment, which is one of the barriers that we say the factors that give rise to traditional support needs has an impact. Also, depending on that environment, the needs of children and young people in a primary setting and indeed an ELC setting because that's a transition as well, they may be being met almost by stealth. Sometimes it's not until you reach a particular type of transition point where other things will arise. We've seen historically from S4 to S5 when a different type of curriculum steps up. There are additional barriers that can be seen as well. It's a complex area, but certainly the environmental move and the amount of staff and interactions that the pupils will have has an impact on that as well. I'm keen to come in on this as well. Laura, online. Sorry, my art in the chat was to do with the earlier point on figures. If you want to respond to the panel, I think that we would see that this is a consistent trend. Over time, the number of young people identified as having additional support needs in secondary schools tends to be higher than that in primary schools. As Fran has pointed out, what we see in terms of the additional demands that are placed on young people as they progress through education may give rise to the identification of additional support that will provide or reduce any barriers that they may have to succeed in education. When we look at the mental health and wellbeing of young people, we will look at the impact of social media and the other pressures that young people face in their teenage years. I think that there's a whole multitude of reasons why we can see that, but from a local authority perspective and from my own experience, you can see a change in the needs as a young person progresses through school. You can also see a change in, as you will be able to see through the statistics, in the identified barriers to learning. Where we may see early language and communication as a significant percentage of those children with additional support in primary schools, that being the main barrier identified. Secondary, it may be around social emotional behaviour or around their mental health and wellbeing. There are changes over time, and young people who will benefit from support as they move through secondary school may not require that support in primary with the approaches that a primary teacher will take. As a primary teacher, I'm well aware of the differences there. Bob, you had something that you wanted to pick up as well. Yes, yes. Bob, sorry, I'm getting all informal. That's right, that's right. That is really helpful. I think that the committee would benefit from a structured approach to looking at the data. I think that Mr Mulholland was talking about plotting out where the peaks in demand is for additional support in the reasons for that. In my constituency, one nursery contact me if you want to go to say that they have one in three young people in their nursery with some form of developmental delay, speech, language, whatever that may be. When young people transition into primary school, that figure will go up to 50 per cent, so less young people there but look at other young people in. That's suggesting that in early years it's going to get even more profound from one in three to potentially one in two. Is that something that you would recognise? Glasgow City Council said that that's not unusual when I wrote to Glasgow City Council about that, but I'm keen to know. Do those young people stay with additional support needs throughout their school career? Some of those young people are going to primary schools and they will catch up and they'll start to meet developmental targets, but do they say with a badge of additional support needs with them through their school career or does that badge or label get taken away so they have support needs but they're not additional support needs and is that mapped out? That individual's journey will very much depend on them, as we've described. The framework allows for the recognition of short-term needs and long-term needs, so we may have a young person who you've described having additional support needs in early learning and childcare and in early primary, for example, while they are learning to literacy and numeracy, and the need that Scott described earlier on will be very marked in that early period where they are learning those skills of learning and also reading and writing, for example. As they become more adept at that skill, the additional support needs may change because they have had support in place, so in terms of their profile, that would then change. If they have no additional support needs, they would come out of the system and they would learn in the same way as others. That same person may come back on to the system in secondary school because something else has arisen in their life, which has meant that they would then have a need for additional support again. Is there a challenge? I think that you're saying that the data preschool is pretty much consistent with what you're seeing elsewhere. I think that that is anecdotal for that nursery or Glasgow, where you're seeing that across the country. If someone is addressing that, that would be really helpful, but it's the second question that is given us turn away. Is there a resistance from parents? I've got a kid in primary two. I don't think that they've got additional support needs, but if they were getting additional support, I'd want to keep that additional support because it's my child. Is there a cultural resistance from parents not wishing to forgo the additional support needs once additional support is put in place? I'm aware of circumstances where that would be the case, but I'm also aware of circumstances where that hasn't been the case. In terms of your original point around data, we know that 16 per cent of children and young people in ELC have additional support needs, and then there's a rise as you come into primary. That's the point that I was making earlier on around what children and young people are learning at that time and that they may have needs at that particular point in time, because that's the point at which they're in their learning. You said 16 per cent. Laura is indicating that she's been wanting to come in on your original question as well. It's struggling for me to recall managing a hybrid meeting again, so it's been okay. I was going to encourage the committee to, when they are taking forward their inquiry, to think about language, because we certainly wouldn't use the terms label or badge when it comes to additional support for learning or ESN, as Laura said earlier. The focus is on inclusion, an highly inclusive framework and an highly inclusive approach. The terms such as label and badge aren't really in line in keeping with that, but I'm happy to pick up any kind of terminology questions with Mr Doris later soon. I've got a couple of questions here, so if you don't mind taking a little bit of liberty here. If you are widening the groups of children identified as having additional support needs and assume that the widening of this group will result in more children, perhaps with lower level of need, because you spoke in your opening statement, Laura, about record number of achievements. Would you not expect the outcomes for those identified with additional support needs to improve? There is certainly part of the picture that I described, which is about if you have a higher number of children and young people, you also would expect there to be a greater number of children and young people achieving. When you look at the statistical analysis, that increase year on year is higher than the number of children and young people who have come into the system during that year, so there's a marked improvement in terms of the achievement and positive destinations for children and young people. You mentioned that you were looking at reprofiring resources to meet the changing needs, so does that mean that there will be reductions elsewhere or is this new money or new resource that you're looking at? What we have looked to do is that the resources that we have available to us are not additional resources, so looking at the entirety of the resources and some of that may be grant funding or some of that may be funding such as pupil equity funding that schools are able to make decisions around, headteachers are able to make decisions around, but when we are looking at the profile of need in our local authority and what resources are available to us, what we can't do is continue to do what we have always done if those needs are changing. For example, the need around mental health and wellbeing in our secondary schools, we have school-based counselling services, we have community mental health funding that all contributes to the support that is able to be provided, and that's wider than what's necessarily available in the school environment. My point would be that when we are looking at the entirety across the whole system, the support available to young people isn't necessarily just from education and the contribution that education will make will be significant, but actually our partners in our health and social care partnerships and our health services, our third sector organisations also play a key role in the support that's provided to families and to our children and young people. Do you have a very brief supplementary or can I move on? I would always ask for more resource on that. I would never say no to more resource. Just a point of clarity around this term, positive destinations, which we hear a lot of, that is the tracking of a someone leaving school for the first three months, did you say? There are two points. What's described as initial destinations, so that's at three months and then there's a follow-up. What's the follow-up point? I think it's at nine months, I can clarify that. If you would. We can include that in your question. Stephanie Callahan, please, sorry. Thank you, convener, and thanks for being here this morning panel. I'm looking at my papers here and I have a table in front of me that shows the number of pupils with an identified ASN and the time spent in mainstream classrooms. I don't know if you've got that in front of you too there. You do, that's great. I think I know the answer to this, but just for clarity, I'm taking it that doesn't take account of pupils being out of mainstream classes due to part-time timetables, out-of-classic wellbeing or nurturings, or whatever. If it doesn't, I'm wondering if that data is available as well and is that something that you can provide us with? I'm not sure who's best to answer. The data that you have is based on the number of children and young people who are enrolled in particular provision. The time spent in mainstream classes is in relation to the whole school, so if the nurture class is part of that school, that would be included in those figures that you described. That's great, that's really clear. Is there data as well then on, for example, part-time timetables, how many children are on those and not attending classes full-time, how much time has been spent out-of-class in nurture rooms or wellbeing rooms or whatever? That is the information that you have and includes that, so it's all within the same… So there isn't separate information on that? No. Okay, that's great, thanks. Thank you and thank you for your patience there, Stephanie. I apologise. Oh, sorry. Sorry, Scott. Just very briefly, in relation to part-time timetables, there's coding on CMIS attendance codes around part-time timetables that local authorities would be able to produce figures on what that looks like in their area and their processes and procedures around that. And are you confident, Scott, as you're using this, that the CMIS is updated once the short term needs are finished as well when you're thinking about those young people? So there'll be different approaches in different areas in terms of the process around recording of that information. So it may be at certain points of the year that that information is updated on CMIS, but it should be updated and, certainly, my own experience of that is that it is updated, but there is likely to be a training need for school-based staff around some of the recording of this. So I think it will not be perfect, but it's certainly my own experiences that it will be updated as and when it should be. But the part-time timetable information and the CMIS attendance recording, there's some challenges around there that we could probably discuss. I'm going to move on now to questions from Pam Duncan-Clansey. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. I don't think I said that when I asked my supplementary earlier on. I want to ask a question about some of the findings that the Morgan review pulled up, and I've got a couple of quotes that I think you probably already have in advance anyway. Douglas Hutchison has said, I might have Miss Honey this year as my teacher. She's a great teacher and I do not have any problems. Next year, however, I might have Miss Trunchbull. Suddenly I have additional support needs because it's not helping me to access the curriculum. I have not changed the environment has. And then Morgan said, where openness and transparency are not in place, the risks are of a culture of blame, a culture that lacks accountability for practice with vulnerable children and young people, and I find that the system is overly dependent on those individuals is fragmented and inconsistent. I feel like that does not feel like a sufficient system. I think that's to me quite disappointing. Can the panel explain why it's so varied and what we need to change to address it? I think that the Morgan review and the example that Douglas Hutchison has provided the Morgan review was intended to look at implementation and to see what required to be improved. That is the basis upon which we work and have worked. The response to the Morgan review, where we have said that there are 76 actions that we require to take in order to improve the experiences of children and young people with additional support needs, are the framework through which we will improve that. Collectively all of us are aiming towards the same set of outcomes. We are trying to deliver cohesively and together the things that will make a difference for children and young people. The thing for me is that we require to implement the recommendations of the Morgan review in order to make that change. What I would say is that, in so doing, we have conversations that go beyond straightforwardly just achieving the actions to fulfil the recommendations. As a collective within the project board, we are considering and reconsidering when we are looking at the actions that we are going to take to deliver the sub-actions to deliver the action, whether they are not sufficient. As a project board, we will continue to review as we go as well to make sure that we deliver properly and within the spirit of the Morgan review. It is more what I am trying to say—this was in quite a long wind—when I will stop doing that. It is absolutely not just a race to try and get things done as quickly as possible. There are things where we will take our time and make sure that we get them right, even if that feels quite challenging. I appreciate that, Laura, and I see that Fran and Scott as well, Dory. In that time, some of the outcomes or some of the actions are 25 or 26 in the plan. By that time, some children will either be out of education completely or will have lost significant time to it. Where do parents who are coming to us and our constituencies now worried about their young people? Where do they go to get some accountability on the basis of the varying in practice that both of those comments highlighted? First, perhaps to respond to the earlier question as well. It was just really to highlight some of the work to complement and support the Andrew Lamorgan review, the recommendations, and it links in very well to the work of subgroup 2, which is looking at information guidance and professional learning. Professional learning is a really key thread running through, in terms of improvement at the moment, making sure that all of our practitioners, irrespective of their role, irrespective of the level that they are working at, have a really good understanding about inclusion and additional support needs and wellbeing and equality. We are creating a new professional learning framework and it is based on four themes. They are rights and equalities, relationships, wellbeing and care, and inclusion. It will be over a period of time because, as Laura said, that is not a quick fix. It is using and complementing existing professional learning. We have an absolute plethora of high-quality professional learning. One of the difficulties is supporting practitioners across Scotland and the 32 local authorities to have the opportunity to engage in it, to link in with their own professional learning offers that their local authorities provide. We have just finished a big engagement programme with people support staff who have given us some really good feedback on where improvement is required in terms of their professional learning. In order to reduce the variation of support and high-quality learning and teaching practice, professional learning has a key part in that. That is a whole range of professional learning opportunities. We are also linking in as a national inclusion team and a wellbeing and equalities team with our colleagues in our PLL team in Education Scotland. We are linking to other programmes, for example excellence into headship, to try and bring this synergy together. On that note, all of the recent reports, we are working hard on the promise, the UNCRC and the Morgan review, particularly looking at the independent review and assessment and bringing those together to support practitioners to understand what it is that I can do in my particular case. Laura Keavan might want to respond to the member's second question on accountability for parents. I would encourage anyone who has any concerns at any point in time about their child or the support that they receive to raise that. We would always recommend in the first instance to raise that with school. There are a range of accountability mechanisms in place through the additional support for learning act, but also through local authorities' own processes that are available. We will certainly inquire the national advice and information service that publishes information about all of those so that that information is widely available. That would be what I would encourage now. Thanks, convener. Laura made the point that I was going to make in the first instance raising with the school about the major concerns that parents are raising. I recognise that concern that people who have issues with how they are learning will now want that to be dealt with, just now in the schools and teachers will want to know about that so that they can respond to that. So definitely in the first instance raising with the school. Then there are pathways at a local authority level and through the legislation that actually inquire websites out really clearly. I am sure that the committee is aware of the inquire website and where all that is. If not, we could include that in our follow-up to the committee. However, that information is really clear for parents and for children and young people in the cells, as well as for the school workforce, so that might be something worth looking at. There is a communication subgroup of the addition support for learning programme board, which will be looking at kind of raising awareness of all of the resources available where there are concerns, among other things. A lot of that relies on really tenacious parents. As an office, I have gone back to councils and asked them to look at things differently. They very rarely do. The work with Audit Scotland looking at this is really important, so that it looks at what is the strategic answer to this, as opposed to relying on individuals who are already overstretched and in some cases burst, to be honest. How are the conversations with Audit Scotland progressing about ensuring that they include this work in their auditing of schools? We have regular conversations with Audit Scotland about the proposed review that they will undertake. They have not confirmed a timescale for that work. To us, I should be really clear that Audit Scotland is absolutely separate from us. Therefore, I cannot speak on Audit Scotland's behalf, but I can indicate that we are in regular discussion with them about that. It might be something that the committee would wish to follow up with Audit Scotland directly. It is certainly, for example, our intention that Audit Scotland will come to a project board meeting so that they can hear directly from the project board about our progress and about our work and the way in which we conduct our work, which I think is also important. We have an agreement that they will do that, and I believe that plans are in place for that to happen. However, I will not go beyond my limitations on them. Yes, thank you. In the Morgan report, when it talks about expenditure on additional support for learning, it says that one of the areas that is most unpredictable local authority spends, it goes on to say that it tends to be overlooked at corporate level in authorities due to the focus on the very other real challenges of adult and older people services. Can I ask why the panel thinks that ASN is being overlooked in local government expenditure in this way? Certainly from the work that I do in terms of analysing local government spend, we analyse that every year. I am not sure that, for me personally, I would say that that is overlooked by us. It is something that we review regularly, I do not know if you would like to. Laura Cavan might want to come in as well on this one, from a cause-less perspective. From my own experience in this area, the finite resource that we have as a local authority is stretched. There are demands placed on local authorities in terms of budget pressures and what we could spend money on in a whole range of areas. My own experience in that budget setting process has been positive in relation to additional support for learning. I think that the reality is that, with around a third or more of our young people with identified additional support needs, if we are not able to support them, then the challenges that we then see across schools and outcomes for young people are significant. My own experience has been one where we have prioritised resources for additional support for learning, but that does not always mean more and more resource going in, more and more people, is about what the people on the ground are actually doing. It touches on the comment that Douglas Hutchison made previously, where there is that variability or variation. The universal approaches to training staff, to understanding how we best support our young people, are not going to impact on the experience of everyone else. If we have teachers that are confident in supporting young people, if we have support staff who are confident in their approaches to supporting our children and young people with additional support needs, that is to everyone's benefit. I think that the work that has happened around the circle approach, search and so on, are some examples of where we can see some real successes there, but absolutely there is room to grow that work and develop that work further. The figures that we have at a national level are that between 2012-13 and 21-22, ASL spend has increased from £503 million across local authorities to £830 million, so there has been significant additional investment by local authorities over those years. A lot of that support will be done in the classroom and not captured by allowing additional support for learning spend, because teachers are able to access more training resources, more support and more professional support so that they can provide that kind of additional support within the classroom that we have been for all in, as well as those who might need that targeted support. Fran Forman wants to come in as well. Just very quickly, thank you, convener. It is just really in response to Scott's comments that, in terms of really enhancing that universal support—actually, it is not just about additional staff numbers, it is about their confidence, the quality of their professional learning, the opportunities that they have that will then make a difference to the children and young people, which is one of the driving factors to why we are really focusing on the framework that I explained before on professional learning. To complement what is already there, there is, as I mentioned before, a plethora of really, really good professional learning out there that is accessed. Thank you very much. Willie Rennie, can I come to you now, please? I am finding this session a bit difficult. It is not what I am hearing from teachers and parents. It is very process-driven and I understand that is your job. I will give you one quote from the national discussion that I think really cut to the chase and I have abridged it. In my class of 30, four have ASD, three have long-standing separation anxiety difficulties, one has been adopted, one has a difficult home life and experience a form of trauma, one is a young carer, two others have severe learning difficulties. In addition, eight, and she said in quotes, normal, behind track difficulties, there is only one of me. I can't give those 12 children enough of my attention to support their wellbeing, never mind the other 18. Fran, you have just said, it is not just about the number of teachers. No matter how brilliant she is, how can she cope with that class? If there was a pupil support assistant or pupil support staff, as we call them generically, in that class, it is really important that that member of staff has a good understanding of how to support that effective learning and teaching. I can't speak about that particular class, I don't have that information, but what we do know—I am a teacher originally, I have had classes very similar to that myself—by really focusing on that accessible curriculum in terms of how do you make sure that your children and young people can actually engage with the learning is a huge step forward. I was in a school a couple of weeks ago, I had done some professional learning previously, I was speaking to a faculty head and they were sharing that some of the advice that had been given, they had used it and actually when the beginning of that class there was a tangible reduction, a calmness that they hadn't seen before. Some things do not cost money to do. I totally take your point, and that's really for that school and for that local authority to look again at the allocation, but professional learning, a lifelong professional learning, is a really important part of this. It's not going to solve absolutely everything, but we need to know how best to support those children and young people within the curriculum, which is the totality of all of the experiences that children and young people have. I'm not in any way underestimating the difficulty that that class teacher has expressed. I absolutely don't underestimate the difficulties that staff will have and the challenges in their day-to-day job in meeting the needs of children and young people with such a variety of additional support needs, but what I also see when I'm in schools are staff who do an incredible job in supporting and meeting the needs of the young people in front of them, and that isn't just teachers, that's the role that the whole variety of partners that I spoke about earlier on play in meeting the needs of young people, but we are in a system where not every young person will be in our mainstream school. Our presumption to mainstream is that we want young people in our communities being supported in their local school, but there are some young people that that isn't appropriate for, and those will be the young people that are in our ASL provisions or maybe in our enhanced nurture provisions or the other supports that exist across different local authorities across the country. The needs of those young people in that class, I can't comment on specifically, but my own experience in visiting schools and working with head teachers and working with classroom practitioners is that we could always say that we could have more and more resource, but the finite resources that we have, we need to be able to make best use of them and then make the case potentially to work with other partners in order to broaden out the range of supports that are available. Speech and language therapy has been one of the examples that have recently been worked on. I just tease this bit out about there are some teachers who take exception to those who say that the behaviour of our young people is a mirror of the adult, of the teacher, of the staff member. They take exception to that because it is almost like blaming them for the issues. Now I know that that is behaviour and it is not additional, but there is some correlation between the two. You are talking about, with the support and the training that is available, that we can change the performance of the teachers and of the staff. Just tease that a bit. How do we know when we are unreasonably blaming the staff, the teachers and when can we go further, and how do we deal with that challenge because there are some teachers who are feeling put upon under the current discussion? That is what I am hearing. Tell me if I am wrong. Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense. Just to be clear that I am not blaming teachers for that. No, I know you are not. I am trying to tease that a bit out because that is a feeling that is around. I think that we get into areas around culture, leadership and what does that look like at a school level? How do staff feel supported to do the job? I often think with some of our support staff, and they are called different things in different areas, but our classroom assistants are our pupil support assistants, that we have staff that in order for them to be able to fulfil their role, they need to be supported to do that. They need to have training and be in receipt of training to understand the range of needs of the pupils that they may work with on a day-to-day basis. Autism being an example. Where we can provide induction for those staff prior to starting their role, where we can provide on-going professional learning for those staff, that is not going to solve all the challenges that we see and resourcing is a pressure for all local authorities. Where we get that right and where we can make the most progress is where there is that culture of inclusion, but also an understanding of actually what do I need to do on the ground to be able to best meet that young person's needs, rather than talking in generic terms, very specific terms around what does the plan look like for that young person, and if the young person isn't making the progress in that class where there's 12 other young people with additional support needs, then that's where across our education system we would then bring on board the expertise of others, educational psychologists and so on, to consider the appropriateness of that placement. A commitment to the presumption to mainstream education, I think, we want our young people educated locally. We want our young people to be in their communities and being educated, but we want them to be educated in the place that's most appropriate for their needs. Will the Prime Minister respond to that question? I would like to concur with what Scott Scott said but also to reaffirm that I'm in no way blaming teachers whatsoever. When we talk about behaviour, that is additional support needs. It isn't separate at all. It's how a young person, whether they're distressed, that is part of what we recognise to be additional support needs. I think that the language that was mentioned earlier by Laura was really important. In terms of pupil support staff, we recognise and we know because of the feedback that we've had from pupil support staff across Scotland. We had over 2500 pupil support staff and some senior leaders respond to the engagement programme, that there are some examples of where they are feeling very supported, that they do have an opportunity to engage in some good induction and on-going professional learning. Unfortunately, that's not the majority of the feedback that we received. That's really why I was trying to put a point across that just by putting a person in a situation isn't necessarily going to alleviate the pressures or the stress. It's really important that everybody has the appropriate training and the appropriate information in terms of what should be happening. That effect of planning is in place through that stage level of intervention, because that is our formal framework. If the teacher should be able to be involved in that planning and if there is a pupil support staff member, they should be able to contribute to that planning process and, indeed, any other partners involved. Really, really importantly, so should the child and young person and their families, because it is supposed to be a child-centered approach. One of the overarching recommendations from Angela Morgan was that we move towards a system of seeing this in terms of universal provision rather than additionality. You've all touched on that in various answers that have been given this morning, but it would be useful for us if you could just provide a summary of what that principle means in practice in a classroom. What would be different if that was the approach that we were taking compared to the approach that's been taken up until now? Angela Morgan's review directs us towards enhancing the offer available to everyone. You're right, we have also all talked about the benefit of that if we can get it right for children and young people with additional support needs within the universal offer, that benefits everyone, and we know that. For example, we recognise the points that are being made around upskilling staff and the workforce. Our approach to that has been about making sure that there is a programme of training and support available for all those who are teaching children and young people. We recognise that one of the challenges that we have is that children and young people will come before different school staff throughout their each year, and certainly in secondary across numbers of different staff in each year, trying to make sure that we offer that training and support in a way that is accessible so that it can be accessed. On an on-going basis, I recognise that initial teacher education can be extremely attractive in terms of enhancing children and young people, school staffs. Understanding of additional support learning is certainly there, but looking at the children who are coming before you in the next year, you know that someone will have to have extra support and skills in relation to that, so we make those offers available in that way. That sounds excellent in principle and certainly not something that anyone would disagree with, but how far can that go? The range of additional needs is so vast. Every teacher cannot be comprehensively trained in how to support every kind of additional need, even if, on that annual basis, they might have children with one particular need one year and then they can retrain the next year. That ultimately feels quite a burden to be putting on a classroom teacher every single year, as opposed to a model that is more about having the plethora of specialist staff available to be redeployed to the right setting in each year. I think that there is a mix of provision and support in place. As Fran has highlighted, there is already work on inclusive practice, which we would regard as the universal approach. We have done significant work through Education Scotland to make that an offer. There are two online inclusion resources for practitioners. Those are provided free and are available, but there are also a number of staff and partners, as has been described, who also provide support as well. I am not trying to suggest that that is the only way in which support is provided. There is a range of soil, Alex. Maybe if Scott Mulholland has responded, we can bring more in. Absolutely. We cannot look at training every member of staff in every way across every potential additional support need that they may face. However, what we can do is look at that initial teacher education and how we prepare our newly qualified teachers to enter a world where a third of their young people in front of them may have an additional support need. What does that initial teacher education programme look like as part of it? That on-going career-long professional learning is also key. What we have just now is a complex landscape where there is a range of different reforms coming forward. If Professor Hayward's report on curriculum and what does that look like? She recognises that celebrating the achievements of all young people is absolutely key in understanding what those achievements are. We are also looking at wider curriculum work, learning, teaching and assessment. Quality learning and teaching approaches in a classroom will benefit all of the young people in front of them. From my own experience, what we have are a number of young people who are not attending school as regularly as we would hope. In fact, in our secondary schools, in my own area and in speaking to colleagues through the ADES network, we are seeing that across the country where young people are regularly taking a four-day week or they may be attending school even less frequently than that. The attitude to school attendance has changed and we need to look more broadly at how we support that work around attendance. There is PR work to be done around that and the impact of non-attendance on young people's outcomes. We also need to accept that not all young people sitting in the four walls of a classroom every day is going to meet their needs and is going to be suitable for them. Looking at approaches to outdoor learning, for example, and looking at play pedagogy in the early years and the early stages of primary school are all part of what that universal offer would look like. From a teacher in terms of their development or the approach that is taken at a school or local authority level, it may not specifically focus on additional support needs, but the wider benefit and what research tells us around all that is that ultimately all young people benefit from evidence-based approaches and high-quality learning teaching in our classrooms. Laura Cavan, let's see if it's a better connection now. Thanks, Kimbeanna. I hope that it's a better connection for you. I was going to add that in terms of support for the workforce. None of this work happens in isolation, so for example, the children and young people's mental health and wellbeing joint delivery board will publish a report shortly on their work-to-date and a lot of that has been focused on how professionals can work together, including supporting school staff to support children and young people in their learning. That's not just about training, that's about resources, and that's about input from other progressions, maybe not directly to the children and young people, but to support the teacher, the teacher of the school staff and also the children and young people. Sorry, the disabled children and young people's advice and input takes a similar approach. We're mindful, as members and co-gears of the ASL programme board, that none of what we're doing is in isolation to what the rest of or what a range of other national groups are considering. If I could move towards the action plan and the progress that's been made since the revision to it last year, could you explain a little bit to us about how that progress is being monitored and what in particular you would highlight as evidence of progress since that latest revision? As I alluded to in the opening statement, the project board was originally intended to meet quarterly, so we have a work plan. The work plan is so large that I've had to bring my laptop so that I can look at it if you ask me specific questions. Each single action and sub-action is monitored within that work plan by the project board and they are reviewed within the project board discussions. The project board has asked to meet more frequently, so it now meets every eight weeks in order to monitor that progress, such as the motivation in terms of delivery of this work. During those discussions, we consider that there are any actions that are of concern, so is there anything that we need to increase delivery of? Are there actions that are due in the short term? Are they on track? So there's a tracking system, a red amber green system in terms of overall progress. Since we have reported in November, the current status of the actions are that we have 44 actions still pending and 32 actions completed, so there has been progress since November. We expect that there will be further actions completed by the point at which we report, and that is due in May 2024. One of the things that is quite important for me to be really, really explicit about is that there are actions that even when they are marked as completed, so the example that I gave earlier of there is an action to increase funding to support payment, the advice services for parents and carers. That action has been completed, that has been done. The progress report will then confirm that that funding has continued and it will also talk about what are the outcomes that have been achieved as a result of that funding, so that we have a much broader set of accountability, if you like, about what differences is making. I can confirm that there has been progress. Thanks very much. Are there any particular examples to help to make it real to the committee? Are there any particular examples of actions that have been completed that you want to highlight or anything that, recognising that it's not been that long since the latest revision, anything that's not yet been completed but that you would have hoped more progress would have been made by this point? I could talk about one of the actions in which Education Scotland led on and that was the development of a professional learning framework for pupil support staff. That was published in August 2021, so it's one of the earlier actions but, just as Laura has explained, it's not done and dusted by any manner of means. We will continue to evolve that. As I've mentioned, we've had some really helpful feedback from pupil support staff, those with the lived experience of the post, in what we can do to improve that, and we will map that and link that with the other professional learning framework. It has been accessed, I think, by 32,262 times since its publication and lots of very, very positive feedback about it. It's just one example of, yes, it's been accomplished, but we work will still be ongoing. Scott Mulholland, please. I could talk briefly about the national measurement framework and the review that Angela Morgan set out, the framework to understand what progress looks like and to support self-evaluation in this area. I've taken on the role as chair of the subgroup that's going to lead on this work. That involves colleagues from the inspectorate. That involves colleagues from our trade unions and a whole range of other partners that are involved in that work. We're working towards spring 24 to have the first iteration of the national measurement framework published. That framework will be an ever-evolving document. There's going to be work required to be done around training and support, particularly around the recording of some of the information, and we touched on that earlier on and how we support our school-based staff and our local authority colleagues in that work. It also will take into account what is readily available information that can be scrutinised and analysed at the level of those young people with additional support needs, rather than referring to all pupils. We're at the early stages of that work, but it will feature as part of the update next year, and there will be regular reports to the project board in those minutes that are publicly available, I believe, as well. Thank you very much, Rose Greer. Can we move to some questions from Stephanie Callaghan now? Thanks very much, convener, and I probably should declare an interest as a parent statistic children. It's surely good to see parents being really, really central to what's going on here, because, obviously, they're huge influence. There's certainly some really positive stuff from the action plan there around better information, although sometimes that can still be quite overwhelming without guidance around establishing those parent carer groups, because that peer support is so critical. Also around the national advocacy service, there are those quite limited numbers that that's supporting at the moment there. So I suppose I'm really interested in what changes pupils and parents are actually seeing as a result of the work that's going on, and also why some of the issues that came up in the Morgan report, despite the action plan, are coming up again in the national discussion as well, that there's still a bit of a fight there. As Angela Morgan herself said, there aren't quick fixes in here, and I think that we've all referred to that in one way or another, and there are actions that we will require to take that will take us some time to deliver, because we are talking about, in some ways, process changes, as Mr Rennie described, but we're also talking about trying to change culture, and that will take some time and effort in order to be able to do that. The actions are substantial. I think that we are midway through our process of delivery, and as I have described, I would say that we've had our second year of reporting. We're expecting to report three more times before the end of the Parliament on progress, so we are. I would regard us as midway through our work at the moment, rather than towards the end or particularly towards the beginning, and I think that for us it requires sustained effort and consideration across all of the partners in the project board in order to be able to deliver that. That means that, how will we know that something is different is partly through the work that Scott has talked about in relation to the national measurement framework? We do have a draft framework, but the work that the Scott subgroup is doing is about drawing that out into how we deliver that framework. Part of that is about parents and carers' experiences, and how do we know that those have changed? The so-walk questions are some of the things that we are also trying to answer, and at the moment we are not in a position to be able to evidence that. We can in some ways, but not as completely as we would like to be able to do, so that is part of the work that is on-going as well. I do not know if you want to add to that then, Scott. Sorry, Scott. I think that the experiences that parents and carers who are possibly in touch with you come with, we still have challenges around the identification of young people with autism, for example, who are involved in that process, that identification process, but what that doesn't mean is that those young people can't access support in schools through the approaches that we are talking about in terms of that trading for staff. There will always be examples of families in the situations that we wouldn't want to have repeated where things haven't gone in the way that we would have wanted to go. Learning from what is working well and sharing that practice across the country is part of the role that ADES does in terms of our network and sharing practice across the country. What is working well, particularly in relation to working with families and engaging families in the work that we are doing in our schools, because there needs to be that shared understanding of the approaches that we are taking in school and at home and vice versa. So some of the work recently, I was visiting one local authority as part of the collaborative improvement work that is taking place between ADES Education Scotland and the inspectorate, where we are visiting local authorities to look at a range of topics, I suppose, but there are many authorities looking at ASN support and the challenges that they face. Sharing the practice of what is working well across the country has been a success and is something that is not going to come to an end and is something that we need to look at how we can build on on that work going forward, but there are definite challenges. Can I just ask you then, obviously, gathering that rich data on experiences is really, really important. Are parents, for example, parents and carers involved then on that group that you are working with? The National Parent Forum for Scotland is represented in the project board, and within all of the sub-streams, the work streams as well. That's really good. Bran wanted to respond briefly, because I've got Laura wanting to come in online and just so that everyone knows I've got my eye on the clock now, there's still a lot to cover. So thank you. Thank you, convener. Just very quickly, just to add to what Scott was saying, we had an event last week in which all local authority inclusion officers attended, we have a network event, and at that event we were sharing practice and there were practitioners who were participating in a new pilot for autism and inclusive practice, built on one of the modules that we have created and that's available on the OU platform. It was really their practitioner inquiry, but what was really special about it was that it was created in such a way that it was about capacity building and they were able to share how they were sharing their learning with their teams in their establishments, and it was ELC right through to secondary school, and there were 56 practitioners that were involved in that programme, so it really is about sharing. There was some really good work going on at the moment that is informed by children, young people and by families. Laura Cavan, is that all right, Stephanie? Thanks, convener. It is a joint programme board, so we present reports to the COSLA Children and Young People Board, which is a member, an elected member from each local authority in Scotland, with an interest in the education children and young people's policy. We present a report to them regularly on progress on the programme board, and they're able to, as the people who are often the first kind of call where they're at, it's really able to offer feedback as to whether they are seeing change on the ground. I think that the next opportunity for them to do that will be towards the end of the year, so at that point it might be useful to consider whether another session or we could bring to you after that session about their feedback or their considerations as well. Helpful, thank you. It's really good to hear about what was happening then going on there recently, Fran. I'm just wondering, I suppose, really what we're looking at is, you know, this is an issue, you know, the Morgan report or the national discussion isn't going to tick all the boxes and solve everything forever, so is there still kind of more to do then, as far as parents and children and young people influence in policy design and delivery on the ground? Is that an area that we still need to focus on? Is there anything specific that you'd like to tell us about that? I think that Scott mentioned earlier that certainly in terms of our implementation of the Morgan review, we also require to take account of the other reviews that are ongoing, and so that isn't a static implementation. We need to adapt as we go in terms of responding to those reviews. I would say that, as we have said, we do have parental representation within the project board and within all the work streams, and our team regularly engages with parents and carers in terms of the development of policy. You'll see that there are recommendations about us drawing, for example, mapping of policy together, and you're right, the national discussion also confirmed that we need to continually engage children, young people and families as part of policy development, and we will continue to do that. We have been doing that, and we have done that throughout the project board and through the stakeholder group in place prior to the project board, and there have been parental representation within it as well. It's really important that we hear the views of all our partners, including parents and carers and young people, as we progress this work and keep doing that. Thank you. We do need to move on, Stephanie. I'm really sorry. If your question is something that's... Pick up yes or no answer. I'm wondering if sensory issues is something that's kind of been left aside, and that there should be more focus on that. Okay. No, no sensory or part of it. Now, can we move to some questions from Bill? Now, please. Thank you. Yep. Thank you very much, convener. It's the one next to him that's on. That's it now, thank you. Thank you very much, convener. The panel's been terrific, as we all can see, in terms of covering every aspect of what's been asked, but I think I wouldn't do any harm just to have a quick run-over again about what's changed since the Morgan review in respect of initial teacher education or indeed of the continuing professional development of teachers since the Morgan review, please. Obviously, the initial teacher education, there's a group called SUIC that are the leads of inclusion programmes for our initial teacher education, and I'm invited to join their groups, so we share the twice a year, I think, even though I might be once a year. I was there recently a couple of weeks ago sharing that, if you like, the national context, sharing resources, letting them know about this new framework that we are developing, so their student teachers can link into it as well. It's really, really important. There will be very short bites, really quick kind of overviews as they progress through it. It's a three-tiered incremental framework that could be a benefit to them. My understanding is that they all have a focus on inclusion. It will vary. We don't have a locus on telling initial teacher education establishments what to include, per se, in their curriculum. The GTC does review, and as they refresh the standards in 2021 for teachers to have a more focus on additional support needs, that review has also included a focus on inclusion and additional support needs for ITE. We do have engagement. One of the colleagues on SUIC sits on the national autism group that we have as well. We've created training resources for autism for ITE. We had training resources on inclusive practice and dyslexia that was available for ITE. That was done through the Making Sense programme. It's about working collaboratively together to make sure that when a student comes out of initial teacher training, when they become a probationary teacher, that they know where to access support, places like the autism toolbox, the address and dyslexia toolkit, the national improvement hub, but also their probation programmes that the local authorities will develop so that they are aware of what resources and opportunities are available. SUIC and others are looking at the balance between supporting all teachers to work with ASN children and the balance between those and those in the more specialist roles. I'm afraid that I can't speak on behalf of SUIC. I could try and buy some more information, or you might be able to link in with them directly. Do you think that that balance is, broadly speaking, being addressed across the board? I haven't seen the content of individual courses, so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on that. That's something that we can look forward to then, but thank you very much. I think that Scott wants to come in on your points. My experience in my own area, our local university is an initial teacher education university. It will work with us, and it is increasingly working with us, where we are getting practitioners going into university to share their lived experience, being a classroom practitioner supporting young people in that classroom setting. Do I think that we could do more? My own personal opinion is absolutely that we could be doing more there, and that work and discussion with the universities I'm sure will happen, but there's definite scope where we're looking at the number of young people who require support, then our newly qualified teachers through their induction year will continue to receive support, and we'll benefit from that in order to support the children in front of them. Fran, if you don't mind. I should have mentioned that we have a Stepping Stones programme for teachers, NQT teachers, newly qualified teachers, and we are aware that additional support needs is one of the biggest asks. That's very positive. Thank you very much indeed. Can we move to questions now from Ben Macpherson? One question for all the panel, and then I've got a specific question for Cosla thereafter. In terms of all the panel, I'm just building on what Mr Kidd was asking about. Are there any specialist rules where there are shortages locally and or nationally that you're aware of? I'm happy to come in. Locally, we have a range of supports, including teachers of the deaf, teachers at support children with visual impairments. We don't have a shortage of those teachers in our area. I think that in other more rural areas, there are pressures and there are challenges there. Also, where those teachers who are interested in moving into that area of work in order to achieve the qualifications, there are a small number of universities across the UK that provide that support. Sometimes there are challenges around those members of staff being able to achieve the qualification that is required and is set out as a requirement that they have to in order to support those specific groups of young people. Where we have other challenges will be around access to speech and language therapists and support, and there are recruitment challenges there that I have been involved in discussions around. There is work nationally to address some of those concerns and to look at more support going into local areas where you have qualified experience speech and language therapists. There's work looking at regional improvement collaboratives, for example, where speech and language therapy input would be part of what would be offered there. So there are particular challenges there and if we think about what I said earlier on around early language and communication, there is clearly going to be an increased demand for support from those professionals. In terms of support for learning teachers, or sometimes referred to as additional support for learning, or people support teachers, one of the things that we're exploring at the moment is perhaps a certificated course, not an accredited course because there's always a constant involved in an accredited course, but a certificated course that we would explore and develop over a number of years that teachers who wish to move into the area of inclusion while being in equalities would be able to participate in. In the model that I was explaining earlier that we were doing with autism and inclusive practice, that's being considered in that way as well. We recognise that there is a need for staff working in this area to be able to access high-quality professional learning. Just a question for Cozlyff, I mean. We started off at the beginning and it's related to making sure that we have the support and resource, but we talked earlier about the increase that we've seen for all the various reasons that we discussed. We've also heard, when Mr Mahallan spoke about it earlier, about the excellent work that's happening in schools and the excellent support that's being provided to people with additional support needs. All of that is considered. I'm also mindful of what Mr Rennie highlighted in terms of the national conversation. As seven years as a constituency MSP, I'm aware of the great work that happens in my constituency, but also the challenges that there are because of the demand. The reason I'm interested in directing the question to Cozlyff is that, given the pressure on the public finances that we're all aware of and given that this is a collective issue for all of us in Scotland, has there been a realistic and robust analysis done on a figure that Cozlyff would ask of central Government to try and deal with this demand and or any flexibilities? Or has that quantifying of what additional resource would make a difference never been assimilated? Over to you, Laura Cavan on that, if you don't mind. Thanks for the question. I don't think that we have specifically looked at that in terms of budgetary requirements. Every year, Cozlyff produced a budget document around the needs of local government as a whole in terms of funding, but we haven't ever, I don't think, drove down into what would be required in additional support for learning. Part of that is because it isn't just about what happens in schools, it's about the additional support outwith schools and it's about the wider services that support children and families. Really, it would be difficult to do because we wouldn't just be wanting to think about the staffing requirements within a school or the teacher number requirements or anything like that because the flexibilities required to look at all of the support that children and families require in order for their learning experience and for their outcomes to be what we would all want them to be. All of those points are appreciated if a figure was able to be provided in terms of what would make a difference in the school setting. I think that that would be useful in our interest to the committee. Thank you very much for those questions. Can I move two questions now from Bob Doris, please? Thank you. I heard a lot quite rightly about teachers there. Of course, teachers coordinate and lead the planning and delivery of teaching and learning in the classroom, but they're not lonely individuals in the classroom. I spoke a little bit about pupil support assistance with exchange earlier, I think, with Mr Greer, about what the board may or may not have done to support the continuous professional development of pupil support teachers. I've got a couple of questions on that. Is there any comments at this stage that witnesses might want to make about what you feel the board has done to promote that continuous professional development to date? Through the subgroup 2, there will be a specific focus on professional learning, however, that will be a continuation of work that's already happening. So, from the Angela Morgan review, there was a specific recommendation about pupil support teachers and also about support for learning assistance. So, as I mentioned earlier, we do refer to them as pupil support staff because there are 32 different names and different remits. The PL framework was that first step. It's been very well reviewed. We've had really good reviews and downloads from that, but we know that work is needed to improve on that. For specialist teachers, we have a range of professional learning that's already available, and we know that staff are tapping into it. We have evaluations and feedbacks from that, and that's going to be incorporated into the new plan. I've got pupil support staff, but I'm particularly interested in those who are non-teachers, but they're still professionals within a classroom and wider school environment. I think that we've heard at the start from Laura Mikle. There's 2,203 more of those in recent years. How many do we have in total, and how many of them have taken opportunities for continuing professional learning to save the last two years? Sorry, that definition of pupil support staff includes not just people in the classroom as well that I was talking about, that's who it's targeted at. It includes well-being officers, youth workers as well sometimes too. Okay. Laura Mikle, do you want to come in? I want the number. There are currently 16,606 pupil support assistants, 184 behaviour support assistants, 497 homeschool-linked workers and 398 educational psychologists. All of those have increased over the most recent years, but we'll provide that data to the committee as agreed earlier. That's really helpful. If you could hold down on the pupil support assistants, because I suppose they're all really important jobs, convener, but they're day-to-day at the coalface, directly involved in pupil interaction and working directly with other education professionals named mostly teachers in relation to delivery of support loads with additional support needs. Of those 16,606 to be tracked, how many of them are given professional development opportunities each year, and how many avail themselves of that opportunity? We explored that in the recent pupil support staff engagement programme, which the report will be published in July, and it's variable. We don't track it. Local authorities are their employers. Some pupil support staff reported that they don't have access to quality professional learning. Some would report that they do have access to it, but it's not actually time within their contract. The engagement programme had no locus to look at contracts with the scope. We had some staff saying that they were able to participate in really good professional learning opportunities. They felt very valued. One of the comments coming back from quite a number, was that people understanding their role is really important and how they are valued by teachers. Sometimes there is a bit of a misunderstanding of the role of pupil support staff, the classroom assistant, if that's what they're called in that local authority. It's really important, as Scott mentioned earlier, to get the best out of the resource. We have some highly skilled pupil support staff in Scotland. They don't necessarily all have the same qualifications, but they can build fantastic relationships with children and young people and they are at the front face of working with some of our most vulnerable children and young people. They may know them better than the teachers will know them. We've also got pupil support staff, if I may say, are more qualified than teachers. It just suits their stage in their life, their time in their life, to become a pupil support staff. It is really variable. Just before I bring Scotland to London, it does appear as if what you are saying, I don't have the words in your mouth, is that you believe that this absolutely should be tracked, that there should be more inconsistent opportunities for continuous professional development and support for pupil support staff who are pupil support assistants. I don't want to misrepresent what you are saying in front of the forum, but to be helpful for the committee if that is what you are saying. The report has not made a comment on whether or not their professional learning should be tracked. That is a decision that will be up to local authorities, but what we are doing in part of that professional learning framework is creating an induction pack that they could use if they want to, and we feel that that would be very beneficial. I'll bring Scotland to London, but I'm just a wee bit frustrated because it's no one's fault, but I'm frustrated for informant. It's just that I would have thought that the board would have a view on that, and that's kind of meat and potatoes of what the board would be doing. I'll leave that hanging there for Scotland. There is a recommendation about widening access to that high quality training for all staff, including our pupil support assistants in school. At a local authority level, there will be variation across the country in how this is recorded or tracked, but staff are entitled to a PRD, and as part of that PRD process there would be consideration to other training that they would benefit from to undertake their role. So what we are looking at across the country is looking at that induction for those staff, so in order to be able to do their role, they need to be able to be given the tools really, to be able to do that job as effectively as they possibly can. So that work is on-going, and as Fran has mentioned, is part of the consideration of the work of the board. Can we make your questions a bit more concise, please, if that's possible? Okay, can we not try to get as much benefit out of the evidence session as we can? Do you have a view, any of the witnesses, as the board or whatever, in relation to how the 16,606 pupil support assistants are deployed within each local authority? Because, of course, we've heard earlier on about the different parts of transitions to primary school, S2S3 and secondary school, the track of additional support needs. Are those pupil support assistants deployed consistently within each local authority and across local authorities? If so, could you say a little bit more about that? If not, is that something we have to do more about? So the deployment of additional support staff, so pupil support assistants, as we'll call them just now, will vary between local authority. There are different approaches that may be formula-based, taking account of the data that's available alongside the identification of the individual needs for individual children and young people, but I think in terms of having a consistent approach across the whole country, there's a danger there that the local need and the identification of very specific local challenges then gets missed as part of what would potentially be a national approach to the deployment of those staff. So the local authorities employ the staff and the local authorities through their own self-evaluation, through their own work with families, their own work with schools, and the data that's gathered are able to determine how those resources are deployed. As I said earlier on, more resources will always be welcomed by schools, but the finite resource we have, each local authority, could articulate how they deploy that resource. Okay. My final question is just a culture question, a general one, so I'm moving away from that more generally. How will the work of the board deliver the culture chain that we're hearing about more generally today that has been envisioned within the Morgan review, and I should note that Laura Carvin quite rightly justised me earlier on in relation to terminology and language being quite important when trying to deliver that culture chain? The response to the culture chain will maybe come to you first, Laura McAven, and then Laura Meecall, and then we'll move on. That's okay, I've got something I want to do. Laura, online, Laura. Thanks. I think that the membership of the programme board is important here, because the membership is incredibly diverse across professional organisations from local governments, but also unions, national parents board in Scotland, children in Scotland, allied health professionals and social work, so it's enabled by many special schools. The membership is important in delivering that culture change because they can feed them and out of their groups and who they are representing in terms of the actions that the programme board are looking to take forward or are taking forward or asking them to take forward. The membership of the board is important in guaranteeing that culture change, which, as Laura McAven said earlier, culture change takes time, but because we have that diverse membership and stakeholder groups, that contributes significantly. Laura McAven, if you can respond briefly, not quickly. Absolutely. I was going to offer that we could certainly provide, as part of the package of information, a breakdown of where we are in which elements of the education system that supports that for work. I know that you mentioned in your response to one of the questions that we have over 300 plus educational psychologists now, but I want to contextualise that, given some evidence that we heard in our round table from the Scottish Association of Principles, from educational psychologists who said that it was 85.8 children per educational psychologist in 2007, but we now have 659.7 children per educational psychologist in 2022. So, maybe consider that and maybe how you may respond to some questions, maybe from Stephen Kerr now, please. My question is very simple because we have only got minutes left. Does the board have a view on whether we have enough people support staff? I genuinely couldn't answer that question. Does the board have a view on whether people support assistants have a career structure? That's one of the recommendations of the review that they should have. So, you're recommending that they should have a career structure. And what about pay? The board hasn't—there is no recommendation in terms of pay within the report, and I believe that Fran said earlier that that hasn't been within the remit of the subgroup that she's been working on around that. But you did acknowledge that we've got some extremely talented and capable people and they are not well paid at all. No, no. We have provided funding for support assistants and I was one of the people who worked out what that would cost, so I'm familiar with those issues. You're familiar with that, right? I just wanted to get that over there. Drann was wanting to respond to those quick-fire questions. Oh, sorry, he was? Fran was sort of— Oh, sorry, okay, yes. There is another national working group. It's the national working group for people support staff that commissioned the engagement programme that I mentioned. But, obviously, it's reporting into the Morgan review, but it's also linked to the Bute House agreement. And there wasn't a locus at all to look at pay terms and conditions. We have included some information about that in the report because we received comments about that. But it wasn't in the locus. Yeah, it's a great pity. I'm a bit confused as to why you would have such a agreement and not include pay. But anyway, moving on. Speech therapists. How many vacancies have we currently got for speech therapists? I think we would have to provide that information to you. You don't know? You don't know. I mean, how many do we have? How many should we have in the system, speech therapists? Again, we would have to provide— No, okay. Sorry, Scott, did you want to answer? I can come in there as well. There was a report published by the Royal College in relation to the needs of young people. And they are highlighting the challenges around there in terms of the data. In relation to that, they provide some clear indicators around the challenge there and where we need to go next in relation to speech and language therapy across the country. Yeah, I'm familiar with what they have said. That's why I'm asking these questions, because I was wondering if the board had a view on how many we have and how many we need. I mean, do we need— Do you have a view on that? Do we need 10 per cent more, 20 per cent more? My personal view— Well, I wouldn't put a figure on it, but my personal view is that absolutely we would benefit from having more qualified speech and language therapists to support children and young people. And there is work happening across the country in my own health board area where we are looking at that investment over time. And the workforce. But you can maybe provide, convener, with more detail on the numbers as you began to with the PSAs. Yeah, yeah, current— Yeah, yeah, that would be very useful. I'm going to move on, if I might, to my last question, convener, and that is in relation to co-ordinated support plans. Because of the 34 or 5 per cent of Scotland's pupils who have additional support needs, how many would have co-ordinated support plans? So there are currently 1,401 co-ordinated support plans recorded within Scotland. Is that all? Yeah. What's your view on that? I think it's a small— a very small number of children and young people who are currently in receipt of that particular plan. I should clarify to provide context for that. There are currently 83,499 young people who have a recorded plan. There are a further 196,000 young people who are identified as having an additional support need and have a plan of some sort. But how many did you say co-ordinated support? 1,401. So why is it so few then? What should I assess? Because the co-ordinated support plan is designed to perform a very particular function, which is to co-ordinate across multiple agencies the significant support required for children and young people with additional support needs. Therefore, it relates to children and young people generally with quite complex additional support needs. But it's still a very low number, isn't it? I mean, it's been commented before, probably, repeatedly. Yeah, there has certainly been evidence provided previously to this committee about the number of co-ordinated support needs. And what's the board's view on what has to be done to address the gap? So there has been a review of the way in which co-ordinated support plans have been used and we're in the process of implementing that review currently. So there is work on going in relation to that. Part of that work, for example, is about considering how the statutory guidance on additional support for learning can be improved around co-ordinated support plans, particularly. But there are a number of actions under way in relation to that. It's quite disturbing, though, isn't it? I mean, we've got this very broad approach, very inclusive approach, which we've heard about. And yet, when it comes to co-ordinated support... There seems to be... It doesn't seem to add up. So there are... The number of co-ordinated support plans, I said a minute ago, there are 32,898 individualised educational programmes, so their education focus. Right. There are 49,200 child's plans, and those are also multi-agency plans for children and young people, which have been opened. They are not the statutory plan, however. And that's the distinction. That's what we're talking about, isn't it? Yeah, the co-ordinated support plan is the statutory plan. And the difference is that the co-ordinated support plan is in law established for children and young people who have significant needs, who require support from more than one agency. But, Laura, at the beginning of our session, you were... You gave a very succinct answer to the question, I think, the convener asked, about whether or not there was any legislative change needed. Is there... But you're suggesting... I don't think there needs to be a legislative change. You don't. I think that's why we've placed that work to improve. I think we recognise that in terms of... that there's a need to improve the approach around co-ordinated support planning. But the answer's not statute. If we were to look at... No, I don't think it is to change what the plan is. I think it's about how that plan is then used, and the statutory guidance is the place in which we would do that. So we've got the statute, we've got the guidance. Yes. It's culture we're talking about, isn't it? Or is it resources? No, I think it's probably a mix of culture and understanding what the plan is for, perhaps, as well. And we use the guidance, the guidance of statutory guidance, so therefore people are required to take account of it. And that's why we've... So is there something wrong with the statutory guidance if it has created a lack of understanding? The statutory guidance could be improved, and therefore we have agreed to take that action to do that. Okay, right. I think that's probably enough for me. That's good. I'll not say much more than that's good. I've got a final supplementary on these co-ordinated plans, topic, from our member Pam Duncan-Clansey. Okay, thank you, convener. I don't think I caught all the figures that you gave, but a couple of them include, thank you, if you could, 83,499 on recorded plans, 32,898 on individual education programmes, and 49,200 child's plans. So two questions, and there was another 100,000 figure in the middle there that I've missed. That's okay. If they're not co-ordinate support plans, what are they and what's the statutory basis for them? So the individualised educational programme and the child's plan are not statutory plans. The basis of those are practice, so they are recognised within the statutory code of practice as an appropriate planning mechanism. The child's plan obviously relates to the getting it right for every child policy approach, policy and practice approach, and the individualised educational programme is a long-standing individualised planning mechanism for children and young people's needs, which is a term-based programme around learning needs. Have I not answered one of your questions? No, I think you did. On the child's plan, then the current bill that's before this committee on caring support and justice for children and young people repeals the child's plan. So what would the impact that be? No, no, so the child's plan would continue. The child's plan is a policy approach, and therefore that would continue. Just to clarify, it doesn't repeal that plan, pan-dog and clansy. It doesn't? No. It's an expansion. A book can get some clarity of that later, so I think we'll discuss that perhaps in our... That'd be helpful. Thank you for clarifying the others, and if you could share the 100,000 figure that you had, that'd be well. The official report clerks will have caught all of those figures, so we'll have all of that there quite adept. So don't worry. We will, yeah, of course we will. So thank you very much. We have extended the session briefly there, so thank you to all of our witnesses for their time today, and it's been a really helpful discussion in informing what... The public part of our meeting has now concluded, and we will consider the final items of our agenda in private. Thank you.