Seòmar agus comataidhean

People will be concerned by the response that you have given to my last couple of questions on contact time. Your words in the chamber on 14 December were clear. You talked about the Government’s

“commitment to reduce class contact time for teachers by 90 minutes per week”.—[Official Report, 14 December 2021; c 61.]

You made a commitment, but it sounds as though you are now stepping back from that commitment and saying that someone else will have to deliver it. That is how it is coming across to me. Is that how you mean it to come across?

Oliver Mundell has a supplementary question on that subject. We will then stay with him for his other questions for the cabinet secretary.

There was a rationale behind the £5 million, I take it—the number was not simply plucked out of thin air.

It would seem a bit ironic to pluck a number out of thin air for an air filter, but there you go—that is my joke for the morning.

Ross Greer has indicated that he wishes to come back in—he said earlier that he did, so I will bring him in now.

I will go back to Bob Doris. We have heard a couple of times from Bob, but I want to see whether he has any further contribution to make.

Thank you, Ross. Yes, I will try to get you back in when you indicate.

We will now go to Stephanie Callaghan.

On 18 August last year, you tweeted:

“£80m of COVID recovery funding to be made permanent allowing councils to offer further permanent contracts to teachers. This is in addition to the £65.5m funding announced last week for 1,000 additional teachers as part of our 100 days commitment.”

Just a few days before you sent that tweet, you confirmed in answer to my parliamentary question that 12 per cent of all Scotland’s teachers were on temporary contracts. In the light of your tweet and other comments that have been made in Parliament and elsewhere, can you tell me whether there are any teachers on temporary contracts as of today?

Thank you for that opening statement, cabinet secretary.

You will recall that the committee wrote to you on 10 November, as part of our pre-budget scrutiny. Having heard evidence, the committee agreed that setting outcomes and clearly explaining how success will be measured are critical to assessing the effectiveness of any intervention. The committee is therefore always keen to find out more from the Government about outcomes. Are you in line with the committee’s reasoning about measuring not inputs but the outputs that come from the expenditure that you have just described?

How far down can we get that number for the £80 million—[Inaudible.]

How much does a ventilation unit typically cost?