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As you well know, as a former minister, the Government has the capacity to ring fence funds for certain things that it passes along to local government. The Government can make a party political point if it does that rather deftly, so it is something that the Government could do.

That is helpful.

Gerry Lyons, have you been plugging gaps in core funding with attainment challenge funds?

That brings us to the end of this agenda item. I thank Ruth Binks, Gerry Lyons, Tony McDaid and Mark Ratter for their invaluable help to the committee as it pursues its inquiry. I wish them all a pleasant day.

We will have a short suspension to allow the witnesses to leave.

And the school might decide that it disagrees with the authority and is going to keep the staff.

We might come back to teacher contracts, which, as the witnesses will discover, is a bit of a favourite subject for the committee, because we are exercised by the fact that one in eight of our teachers is on a temporary contract. We think that that is, to be frank, outrageous.

I ask Mark Ratter to come in on my original question.

I have a supplementary to Willie Rennie’s question. Gerry Lyons mentioned a key leadership strategy. What do you do for new headteachers in order to help them to feel empowered as leaders?

That is not what it says in the Glasgow Herald.

Gerry, you were a superhead, were you not? I said “superhead”, not “Superman”, but perhaps they are interchangeable. In any case, will you start us off on the headteacher question?

Our next petition is PE1668, on improving literacy standards in schools through research-informed reading instructions. The petition, which was lodged by Anne Glennie, urges the Scottish Government, first, to provide national guidance, support and professional learning for teachers in research-informed reading instruction—specifically, systematic synthetic phonics—and, secondly, to ensure that teacher training institutions train new teachers in research-informed reading instruction, specifically systematic synthetic phonics.

Our committee papers provide an outline of the action that was taken on the petition during session 5 by the Public Petitions Committee and the Education and Skills Committee. The session 5 Education and Skills Committee was undertaking an inquiry into initial teacher education and the early phase of teaching. Ahead of the formal evidence sessions for its inquiry, the committee agreed to take evidence from the petitioner to allow the broader issues raised by the petition to be explored. It also agreed that the session would include a focus on any issues that could inform the inquiry.

The session, which was set for 18 March 2020, did not take place, as a result of the Covid pandemic, and the committee was unable to restart its inquiry on ITE owing to other work that it undertook on scrutinising the response to the pandemic.

Do members have any comments on the petition?