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I am mindful that ministers are currently subject to a pay freeze, although we have now moved to take the MSP salary, which is a shift in our position. However, we have taken that position to show restraint as a Government, and I am mindful of the pressures that people face. It would be remiss of me, as Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills—or of any minister—to comment on the salary levels at independent, autonomous institutions. I am very mindful of the challenge that we currently face with one institution, which I am sure that we will come on to discuss, but I do not think that it is for ministers and the Government to talk about the salary levels of independent institutions. However, the point that you made about restraint is important.

I know that that issue was dealt with previously through a letter of guidance from the Government. The minister and I might wish to reflect on that, given the committee’s evidence from last week’s session.

That goes back to the challenge that we have been discussing about the relationship between local and central Government and how that is enacted in our classrooms. We have spoken about the reality that workload, in the main, is not being driven by national Government. In the main, as you all know, I do not have many levers that I can operate in my relationship with local authorities, so I have to work in partnership with them.

I have said to the professional associations that we must revisit the agenda with our local government partners to ensure that they are not adding to teacher workload. One way that we can do that is through the curriculum improvement cycle. I do not know whether we are going to talk about that today, because time is short. However, the curriculum improvement cycle allows us an opportunity to re-evaluate what we prescribe at national level and what we allow to be open to choice and local discretion, and a key issue that has come out of the headteacher events is the need for greater clarity and greater standardisation. Teachers want that to be spelled out for them in a way that I am not necessarily sure that we have done through the curriculum for excellence. Arguably, there has been too much fluidity in the system, which has not necessarily been as supportive as it could have been.

When we talk about reporting requirements, for example, or about tracking and monitoring, a bit more prescription and rigour in the system, particularly in primary education, would help to alleviate some of what is being asked for at the local authority level, given that we see local authorities doing lots of different things. If we had greater consistency on, for example, ASN, behaviour or how literacy levels are recorded, it would automatically alleviate the workload. I have been keen to press that point through the education assurance board.

We have also been in discussions with COSLA about the role of SEEMiS, which Mr Greer will know is the main reporting system that is used in Scottish schools. It is quite clunky and old, and we might be able to work in different ways in the future. For example, that system does not join up with the system for early years education, although we have been developing a new approach to that.

I am keen to revisit that agenda in partnership with local government. I appreciate the challenge from Mr Greer. There are opportunities through curriculum improvement and education reform. Mr Greer will also know about my cautiousness in relation to some of the work on education reform. That is because I taught in a school not that long ago and I know that we need to be mindful about the workload implications of changing our qualifications system. I am not sure that we reflected on that in the right way the last time that we did that, so, this time, we have to work with the profession.

That is why we have people such as Andy Brown, who is a maths specialist and a former headteacher, on secondment. He is leading all our work on numeracy. He is a subject specialist and he has credibility with the profession. It is only by using the profession to drive the curriculum change that we can also reduce workload. The profession must be part of leading some of the change that we need in our curriculum and, in so doing, alleviating the workload issues at the classroom level that Mr Greer rightly raises.

Convener, I was just checking with my officials that the Government-initiated question has now been published.

Eight local authorities will be funded through our test of change work, which allows us to look at how we might be able to scale up the delivery of free school meals in the future. Schools across the country have different needs. The GIQ sets that out in more detail, but it looks at secondary schools in particular.

I think that that information in relation to that local authority is in the public domain. I have absolute faith that COSLA will want to stand by the deal, which was made in good faith. We will continue to engage with councils such as South Lanarkshire Council to ensure that it maintains teacher numbers at 2023 levels, which was the condition of the funding that was provided in response to the budget ask.

We do not want to be in the situation that cabinet secretaries prior to my time in office have faced—it is also a situation that I have faced—whereby we get the teacher census in December and there is a cliff-edge moment in relation to whether the Government will claw back funding. I do not want to be in that position again, and it is not a position that any cabinet secretary should be in. We should operate in good faith, and when we make such agreements in good faith, the Government should rightly be able to expect that they are delivered on. We will continue to work with local authorities to that end.

I think that Ms Don-Innes gave a response on the mothballing guidance earlier. We are going to engage with local authorities throughout the summer in relation to responding to that consultation. I think that Mr Briggs and his colleagues have asked me a number of written parliamentary questions on the matter recently.

The matter is a concern to me. We have challenges across the country in relation to recruitment, which I think are playing out in some of the challenges that local authorities are experiencing. However, the important point in relation to the mothballing or closure of schools is that, ultimately, that is the responsibility of local authorities. The schools belong to them and not to Government ministers, so we need to respect their autonomy. In doing so, however, we also need to work with them to support local communities.

The matter is a concern, but we are committed to working with COSLA on it. I think that the updated guidance will go some way towards alleviating some of that concern and perhaps to alleviating the concerns that parents and carers groups have raised with me in recent months.

I hear Mr Rennie speaking over me and ask him to allow me to complete my point.

Extra funding was provided in the budget and there was also extra additional support needs funding, which was ring fenced to local authorities for the provision of specialist staff. It is in their gift how that funding is deployed; that is not my role as cabinet secretary. If Mr Rennie wishes the Government to employ teachers, I would be interested in hearing him expand on that point because I often hear that in the chamber.

The second point is about primary teachers moving into secondary teaching. We are working with the General Teaching Council for Scotland on that very point and we are also looking at creative ways in which we might be able to use professional learning to support some of that work. I met with School Leaders Scotland last week and that body is amenable to that. I must say that the issue of having primary teachers working in secondary schools is not without debate in Scottish education and that our professional associations have differing views on that. I am a secondary specialist by trade, as Mr Rennie knows. I do not think that there is any support, quite rightly, for primary school staff being involved in the delivery of national qualifications and the GTCS would certainly have something to say about that, but there is a role for us in looking again at the role of primary teachers in the early years of secondary education. I know that a number of headteachers are now using primary teachers to deliver the broad general education. That is happening across the country and what matters is how we work with our professional associations to support them in that.

I can come back to Mr Rennie on his substantive points about numbers, but I must also say that we were not provided with any detail in advance of today’s meeting about what the committee wanted to consider. If Mr Rennie wants me to obtain that information from local authorities, which employ our ASN staff, I am more than happy to write to the committee with that detail.

I am sorry—it has declined since last year, but, in totality, there has been a great improvement since 2007. We have narrowed the attainment gap, particularly on the number of young people going on to positive destinations. We know that, historically, that was not always the pathway that they would have found after school. Ms Duncan-Glancy and I are of similar ages. She will remember that, when we were at school, at the end of secondary 4, there was often a cohort of young people who were encouraged to leave and go elsewhere. Their destinations were not tracked, their pathways were not supported, and they often did not go on to positive destinations. We have completely transformed that post-education pathway. There is now far more support for young people at school.

I accept that there has been a slight movement since last year, but, when we consider the statistics in the round, that level is still the second highest on record, so I am not sure that I can accept your overall negativity about our education system. It is clear from the ACEL data that we are starting to see improvement there, too.

I accept that we are moving into an election year, which might characterise some of our debates in the coming months. However, it is not all doom and gloom in Scotland’s schools and our education system. We do a disservice to those who work in our schools, colleges and early years facilities if that is the way in which we choose to characterise the situation.

The member will be well aware that there are currently a number of challenges on teacher numbers. Historically, there has always been a challenge on subject gaps, but we are currently seeing it present in some subjects in more ways than in others. More broadly, we also accept that there are challenges on primary staffing and impermanence, and I am sure that we will come on to discuss those in more detail.

We all know—because we regularly debate these matters in the chamber—that the Government does not employ teachers; local authorities do. I have been clear that, through our budget negotiations with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, I need to agree with local authorities on a funding approach that will protect teacher numbers and also deliver on the point that Ms Duncan-Glancy rightly raised on reducing class contact time, which we know will make a difference in alleviating the workload. She rightly mentioned the burnout that the profession is currently experiencing.

I am sure that that partly relates to the issues that Ms Dunbar raised in relation to PEF because, post-pandemic, schools are doing so much more to meet the needs of their children and young people. The expectations on our classroom teachers in particular are now completely different from what they might have been prior to 2020.

The responsibility for local workforce planning rests with local government; we have a responsibility nationally and we work with local authorities on that planning every year. However, through the work of the education assurance board, and through Ms Duncan-Glancy’s debate and another debate in this space more recently, we have agreed to have a national approach to workforce planning, with COSLA at the table—indeed, as the employer, local government must be there.

Finally, on teacher numbers and how we resource them, although we have our battles at the Cabinet table over the issue, I put extra money into the budget. We managed to uprate funding to £186.5 million to protect teacher numbers and there is £29 million of funding to support additional support needs in our schools. I must observe that Ms Duncan-Glancy and her party colleagues chose to abstain on the budget, which I do not think was the right call. The extra funding is there for a purpose; without it, I am not sure how we answer the challenge that Ms Duncan-Glancy has put to me today.

The premise of Ms Duncan-Glancy’s question is that ASN can be met only by an ASN teacher, but that is not the case. As we know, 95 per cent of pupils who are identified as having additional support needs are in mainstream education. Classroom teachers in Scotland have a responsibility to meet additional support needs, which is why they are provided with support to do that in their teacher training—