The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 1830 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Do you know how the money has been spent?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
Thank you, cabinet secretary. I will begin the questioning with a very simple question. Is it still your plan to close the attainment gap?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
When will we see improvement to the extent that the gap has been closed?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
What about setting expectations? What are your expectations for closing the attainment gap?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
None of that is very measurable, is it, cabinet secretary? That is the problem.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
The framework stipulates that your responsibility is to collect data, so when will the Scottish Government publish the data that you are describing?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
How much of the attainment Scotland fund has been spent so far?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
We want that money to produce the outcomes that we all want, which are that the attainment gap is narrowed, that the level of attainment in general rises and that the poverty-related gap is closed. We all want those things, and we need to see them happening with the commitment that the Scottish taxpayers have made of £1 billion in that direction.
I will ask one last, very quick question before I pass on to the deputy convener. In the time that you have been the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, you have not had a meeting with Education Scotland to discuss the detail of what is happening with this money and the progress that is being made or the measurements that need to be provided. That is correct, is it not? You have not yet had a meeting at which you have discussed those things.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
It is just that Education Scotland said that it had had one meeting with you to discuss the measurement of this money and the progress that has been made, and that was a meeting to discuss process—yes?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 18 May 2022
Stephen Kerr
The specific purpose of those meetings is the focus of our inquiry, but those meetings were not happening before now—that is what I am saying.