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That should happen—absolutely—but not at the cost of others. We might not agree on this.

Those were not my words about development and progress; they were Audit Scotland’s words. That groundwork does not really make a difference to the kids who have already gone through the process. It might in the future, but there are young people who have lost out and whose life chances have not improved.

In your own situation, Ms Binks, there are young people who, over the coming years, will lose the resource of some of the teachers or classroom assistants who are now in front of them. Last week, my colleague Ruth Maguire highlighted the 60 posts that will be lost in North Ayrshire. In Dundee—my home city—100 posts will be lost, which is a 79 per cent cut. We can talk about the longitudinal side of the experience, but those are real cuts that will affect the experience of young people now, are they not?

Does the decline in the number of people aspiring to headship suggest that pressures have grown in recent years? Is that something that you recognise?

I want to focus a little on issues of additionality, with particular reference to the pandemic. Witnesses earlier questioned a quote from Professor Paterson and what dataset that referred to. It referred to the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment data regarding the decline in more affluent pupils’ attainment. We know that things have become worse since then, because of the Covid pandemic. We have touched on additionality, cuts to council budgets, cuts to parts of the education budget and backfilling. Mr Thewliss gave examples of that.

I am particularly concerned about whether we are backfilling the impact of the pandemic now. We know that things have become worse. We also know from the Audit Scotland report that progress had been limited before the pandemic, with £1 billion of Scottish taxpayers’ money rightly being spent on the activity, but with limited progress. Need has increased, but where do we find ourselves now? Are the measures to cope with the impact of the pandemic that are being taken by the Scottish Government sufficient? As far as I can see, this is it: the Scottish attainment challenge process is the allocation of resource. I will start again with Andrea Bradley.

Mr Thewliss, do we risk being here in a few years, looking back on the reshaped programme for the Scottish attainment challenge and closing the attainment gap and saying that that might have been adequate pre-pandemic but post-pandemic it was not fit for purpose?

I want to get your views on the shift away from an approach involving challenge authority areas, where poverty is deepest, to one involving the more general allocation of funding across Scotland. That change is already having significant and difficult consequences for some of the previous challenge authorities. In my view, it is also a significant departure from what was a settled Scottish understanding of the particular challenges of communities that face severe multiple deprivation. Can you explain the rationales you understand for this departure from a focus on the deepest poverty?

Greg Dempster, we have talked a lot about additionality but, for many in the poorest communities, these cuts are very serious. In your discussions with Government, have you had a better and a more comprehensible justification for this action?

What has the response to that been? What rationale for that have you been given? I share the concerns of your members about the cuts for the poorest people in some of the poorest communities in the country. What has the justification been? I have not heard one.

Mr Thewliss, you were a headteacher in Dundee for many years—20 years at Harris academy, I believe—and you well know the local authority area and the challenges that it has. From my figures, there is a 79 per cent cut for Dundee, which affects about 100 staff across its schools. Can you imagine how Dundee will cope with that?

There is a significant context for Dundee pupils. Having that on the record from Mr Thewliss, with his experience in Dundee, is very important.

Mike Corbett, could you give us your reflections on the same, please?