³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Yes, we do have that. I would be happy to provide some information about how the money has been spent. There was a clear increase in the number of teachers. If we look at 2021, we had 54,285—I mentioned the reduction of 92 teachers in that regard—but, in the previous year, we had 53,400 teachers. Overall, we have seen an increase, from pre-pandemic levels to where we are now, of an additional 2,000 teachers.

On how the money was given to councils—this was Covid money, so it was before the baseline—there were two parts to that. We saw an increase in the number of teachers in employment, particularly from that first batch of Covid money. It is quite challenging to know whether the second batch was spent to improve the number of teachers and pupil support assistants, as we might have thought that it would be; it was Covid money, and there are a number of ways in which that could have been spent. Again, I would say to councils that there was more flexibility for them at that point. I would be happy to provide the information about the breakdown over the years and a breakdown of our expectations about where that money would be spent.

A great deal of work is being done to model what happens with the teacher workforce. The Scottish Government does not undertake that work alone; a lot of it is done with stakeholders. The model that is used looks at, for example, the number that has to go into initial teacher education to maintain pupil-teacher ratios, the number of teachers who are in the system, retirements, the number of people who are returning from maternity leave and so on.

There is then a group that looks at that modelling but, as I said, it is not just the Government. It involves the universities, the funding councils, the General Teaching Council for Scotland and, importantly, the teachers union and the local authorities as the employers—I should not forget to mention them. A number of stakeholders are looking at the best modelling and forecasting that can be done on the numbers of teachers who will leave the workforce and who might have to come into it. Such groups will also analyse what has to be done to assist the Government with its proposals, which are supported by the Bute house agreement, for additional teachers.

Changes to teacher contracts are an issue for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers to look at. The Government is part of that committee, but it is only one part, quite rightly. The SNCT meets regularly. Unsurprisingly, the SNCT agenda is currently taken up by the teachers’ pay dispute although we still are still having on-going bilateral discussions with teaching unions as well as through the SNCT about a number of issues such as workforce, workload, the impacts on staff and their mental health and wellbeing and so on.

We have clearly laid out that we would withhold the last tranche of funding if councils do not follow through. That is important. Clearly, that will have implications for councils, which is the whole point of having a system that attempts to prevent councils from reducing teacher numbers.

That is not a blanket approach. There may be reasons why teacher numbers go down, in which case there would not be any financial penalties for local authorities. We have been very clear, right from the start, that there will be financial penalties if councils are seen to take strategic decisions to reduce teacher numbers. That will have implications for councils.

What was the alternative to protect teacher numbers? We tried very hard with local authorities to find out what that would be, but that was a challenging conversation and we were unable to come to any conclusion, so I had to take the action that I took. There is no alternative that I have in front of me or that has been presented to me that would have protected teacher numbers.

I will make a final point. We concluded the budget process yesterday. At no point in that process did any Opposition party come forward with costed plans on how to increase the amount that is given to local government, if they wanted that. There are more demands for spending money but few to no suggestions about where that money would come from. I am afraid that the reality of the situation is that there is a lack of alternatives.

Yes, I think that we are agreeing with each other.

As the Deputy First Minister tried to explain to you yesterday in the chamber, Mr Kerr, £33 million of that comes from the 2022-23 budget. That has been done with exceptional difficulty and not without consequences, to ensure that we can improve the offer for 2022-23.

It comes from the decisions that we have taken on savings and analysing the money that we have for 2022-23 to ensure that we can—

Well, indeed, and every single time, Mr Kerr, you demand that I put a new offer on the table—

I will say a couple of things about that.

Overall, local authorities spend £6.4 billion on education. I note that figure to give some balance to some of the numbers that you have mentioned.

I have a funny feeling that, if we, as a Government, did not come in and do something that would protect teacher numbers, Opposition parties would be jumping up and down—indeed, they were at First Minister’s question time—