Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is great—thank you.

It answers my question to a certain extent. What I am looking for is similar to what John Mason was asking about earlier with regard to how we drive cultural change. Some of that is structural—who is on the board and so on—but it is also about the approach to engaging with learners and teachers.

I accept that there is provision for a learner interest committee, but that will be quite small compared with the spread of learners across Scotland. How can the board and other bodies within qualifications Scotland be made more accessible and welcoming to learners and teachers to ensure that on-going feedback can be taken forward?

Thanks, convener—the confusion that comes with two Gillians.

This question is for Fiona Robertson. The current SQA board comprises 11 members, none of whom, as far as I am aware, is a registered teacher, and none of whom has any experience of undertaking a current SQA qualification. I welcome the bill’s provisions to add teachers and learners to the board, although I think that they should be expanded to ensure that the board has a majority of registered teachers. How should the new board enact those provisions to ensure that the new body, qualifications Scotland, is more engaged with those groups than the SQA?

I have a very quick question. A lot of reform is going on, and the bill is only one part of it. Arguably, most of the reform that the Government wants to take forward is outwith the legislative space. Are we doing things in the right order, with legislation being introduced and then non-legislative reform work being done, or would you have liked to have seen something different?

A huge amount of reform work is being done, and the bill is only part of that. It could be argued that most of the reform that the Government is considering sits outside legislation. Do you believe that we are undertaking the reform work in the right order? Should we start with the bill and then move on to other non-legislative reform work, or would you have preferred us to take a different approach?

I will come to Anne Keenan first, because she has touched on all the other reform work that is under way.

I will come back to you, Graham, on the point about those jigsaw pieces. What are the dangers of potentially having to take a hammer to those jigsaw pieces to make them fit in that context of reform, rather than the whole-scale review to make sure that everything sits together neatly, as the Hayward approach might have achieved?

Thanks for having me. I have no relevant interests to declare.

It answers my question to a certain extent. What I am looking for is similar to what John Mason was asking about earlier with regard to how we drive cultural change. Some of that is structural—who is on the board and so on—but it is also about the approach to engaging with learners and teachers.

I accept that there is provision for a learner interest committee, but that will be quite small compared with the spread of learners across Scotland. How can the board and other bodies within qualifications Scotland be made more accessible and welcoming to learners and teachers to ensure that on-going feedback can be taken forward?

Good morning. With the previous witnesses, we had a discussion about the good things in the bill that could be separated from other things to allow us to take a longer time to look at the more structural reforms. Anne’s law is one of those things, and there is a lot of focus on people who access services and carers, relating to advocacy, short breaks and so on. Are there other things in the “good stuff” category that the witnesses want to progress? Many people have said that they could be progressed without the bill.

Frank Reilly is nodding the most, so I will come to him first.

Good morning. The theme of my questions is everything else that we have not already spoken about, so I apologise if it turns into a random run around the bill.

So far, we have had a chat about the unions now having withdrawn their support for the bill. Some of them are looking for the bill to be withdrawn, although other organisations are still in the works to try to make it better.

There are obviously some good things in the bill in relation to those receiving care, such as Anne’s law, the right to short breaks and advocacy provisions. Do the witnesses believe that we are at the stage at which we need to go back to the drawing board on some of the reorganisation and some of the provisions around fair work, but that we also need to make progress on the good things so that we do not lose any more of the good will that is left around the co-design that has already happened? I absolutely appreciate what people have said so far about the workforce’s input into co-design and how the workforce is feeling. On the other side of that, there are people who receive care and their families who have put their time in and have seen something come from that. Do the witnesses support a position in which we progress the good things where we can and have a wider conversation around what whole-scale reform looks like in more detail?