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What did it say?

With the various amendments—and, indeed, the bill itself—we have been trying to strengthen the central organisations that have a major role in the performance of education in Scotland. Confidence in those bodies was shattered by a number of different experiences, from the performance of the SQA through the pandemic to the inability of the inspectorate to identify the relative decline in the performance of Scottish education. The fact that it never identified that throughout that whole period raises a big question.

In order for Scottish education to function, we need to have central bodies that have the confidence of not only pupils and teachers but the wider educational movement, including local authorities, which are major players in the performance of the education system. We need local authorities to be subject to good challenge, which is why we need strengthened central bodies.

We have made significant progress by separating Education Scotland from the inspectorate so that we are not marking our own homework. That is a good step, and I hope that we are able to appoint significant people to run both organisations, because people believe that they are bodies of consequence in Scottish education. That is incredibly important.

We are trying to strike a balance between George Adam’s lone wolf, which has the potential for making something too independent, and ensuring that we have sufficient independence to give confidence to the wider system. We are trying to strike a balance between those two priorities.

I am mindful of what Graham Donaldson said about the fact that he had more independence in his day than the bill proposes to give the chief inspector. It is significant that somebody of his stature said that, and it indicates that we can perhaps go further than the bill proposes to go. My amendments, although they are in some ways quite minor, would provide a greater degree of independence, as they would remove the power of the Scottish ministers to appoint the deputy chief inspector, while the chief inspector would still be appointed by ministers.

Unlike Sue Webber, I do not want to abolish Jenny Gilruth. I want to keep her important role—alongside that of the King—in Scottish education.

Amendment 147 provides that the inspectors of education would be appointed on the recommendation of the chief inspector. The deputy chief inspector and the inspectors would be under the responsibility of the chief inspector. Decisions on the number of inspectors and their terms and conditions would also lie with the chief inspector.

I understand all the arguments that the cabinet secretary is making, but the education inspectorate is in a different position from the inspectorates of the police and the prisons, because we have had what some would call a crisis in recent years. Although we are separating the SQA from Education Scotland, we need to go further. Does the minister think that there is any avenue that she has examined that we could pursue to give greater independence? If she does not agree with any of the amendments, is there anything that she might consider in order to bolster that? I think that she agrees with me—because she was nodding away when I was contributing earlier—that we need to build up the confidence of the central bodies. Is there nothing that she has looked at that we could pursue to give greater independence in order to build that confidence?

Just to seek clarity, is it the Government’s position that we should name qualifications based on the SCQF?

With the various amendments—and, indeed, the bill itself—we have been trying to strengthen the central organisations that have a major role in the performance of education in Scotland. Confidence in those bodies was shattered by a number of different experiences, from the performance of the SQA through the pandemic to the inability of the inspectorate to identify the relative decline in the performance of Scottish education. The fact that it never identified that throughout that whole period raises a big question.

In order for Scottish education to function, we need to have central bodies that have the confidence of not only pupils and teachers but the wider educational movement, including local authorities, which are major players in the performance of the education system. We need local authorities to be subject to good challenge, which is why we need strengthened central bodies.

We have made significant progress by separating Education Scotland from the inspectorate so that we are not marking our own homework. That is a good step, and I hope that we are able to appoint significant people to run both organisations, because people believe that they are bodies of consequence in Scottish education. That is incredibly important.

We are trying to strike a balance between George Adam’s lone wolf, which has the potential for making something too independent, and ensuring that we have sufficient independence to give confidence to the wider system. We are trying to strike a balance between those two priorities.

I am mindful of what Graham Donaldson said about the fact that he had more independence in his day than the bill proposes to give the chief inspector. It is significant that somebody of his stature said that, and it indicates that we can perhaps go further than the bill proposes to go. My amendments, although they are in some ways quite minor, would provide a greater degree of independence, as they would remove the power of the Scottish ministers to appoint the deputy chief inspector, while the chief inspector would still be appointed by ministers.

Unlike Sue Webber, I do not want to abolish Jenny Gilruth. I want to keep her important role—alongside that of the King—in Scottish education.

Amendment 147 provides that the inspectors of education would be appointed on the recommendation of the chief inspector. The deputy chief inspector and the inspectors would be under the responsibility of the chief inspector. Decisions on the number of inspectors and their terms and conditions would also lie with the chief inspector.

That is a very fair point that I should have recognised before. I will take that into consideration.

On the scrutiny of the intervals for inspection, amendment 156 sets out that the minister must also seek the relevant committee’s view before issuing any directions.

My amendments are relatively minor, certainly in comparison with Sue Webber’s amendments. I still think that ministers should have a role, but I think that we should pull back and give the chief inspector greater independence in order to give greater confidence to the central bodies in education. Other members have lodged other amendments that serve the same purpose, which is to nudge the role towards greater independence, but without it giving it the lone wolf status that George Adam so clearly craves.

Some people would say—and I would agree—that the inspectorate did not identify the international challenge that Scotland was facing with its performance in education. It did not report on that.

I have two quick points. First, we should recognise that the SQA leadership has changed. I have had the same issue when it comes to meeting people from the SQA but, to be fair, I think that that is because they want to meet in person.

Secondly, I hope that your amendments will be rolled into the wider discussions that, last week, we agreed to have, because the issue of regulation is along similar lines to that of accreditation. The proposed curriculum Scotland is another part of that discussion. Are you considering rolling your amendments into those discussions?

If Clare has had her camera on the whole time, there must have been some technical problem. I suggest that, if she disappears again during a vote, we should just pause and check.

The plethora of amendments in this group indicates that there is a problem. The fact that the cabinet secretary, quite late on, has lodged an amendment that proposes a two-year review period indicates that the Government also now accepts that there is a problem, which is a step in the right direction. As the convener has set out, this group of amendments involves quite a complicated set of considerations for us, but I hope that the debate manages to elicit some clarity about the preferred option to be agreed either at this stage or at stage 3.

The issue first arose primarily during the pandemic, when we had difficulties with the SQA. More recently, the higher history debacle crystallised the problem, and in fact the chief examiner herself identified the issue. She said quite clearly—I am paraphrasing—that it was her job to do the checking of the higher history process in the examinations. That was supremely logical, but I think that it was unsatisfactory that, effectively, the SQA was marking its own homework internally, with some external oversight. We need to try to move away from such an event being able to happen again.

We have moved through a set of reforms to separate the inspectorate from Education Scotland because we do not want Government agencies or public agencies marking their own homework. That applies equally in this circumstance, where we cannot have the new qualifications body marking its own homework, as happened with the higher history arrangements.

We have a number of different options before us, and I am grateful to other members who have proposed various alternatives. Those include housing the accreditation regulation function in the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership or the inspectorate; removing the regulation function altogether; having a separate regulator, as the convener is proposing; having regulation through Education Scotland or a new body called curriculum Scotland, as Pam Duncan-Glancy is proposing; or, as the cabinet secretary proposes, having a review after two years.

I am open to all those suggestions, and the debate should elicit some clarity on all that. However, we need some change—we cannot simply carry on as we are. This is our opportunity—a set of reforms such as those in the bill is not something that will come along very often, which is why I will not support the cabinet secretary’s proposal for a review after two years. Although I can understand it, I just wish that the Government had proposed it two years ago. If it had, we might now have been in a position where we would have been able to legislate for something different.

For me, the three tests, or aims, for the new qualifications body are: ensuring its independence from the Government; avoiding it marking its own homework; and keeping our costs to a minimum, with no new quango or public body. Those are three legitimate aims, and none of the proposals before us today meets all those criteria, which is the challenge that we face.

The SCQF Partnership highlighted in its briefing that there continues to be a conflict. Education Scotland is perhaps too close to Government, and a new body would mean additional costs. I am not quite sure what the criticism is with regard to the inspectorate taking on the role; perhaps the cabinet secretary can clarify that a bit more. However, there is a problem with the status quo as well, because we continue to have a conflict of interest. We cannot, therefore, carry on as we are, and we need to look for change, so I am open to the arguments that will be set out today.

We may be looking not just at moving the accreditation function somewhere else, under a merger—we could look at hosting in order to cut costs. The function could be placed in one of a variety of bodies, and that body would provide the human resources and finance support arrangements. There are a number of different models, which I hope that we will be able to debate this morning.

I move amendment 115.