Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning and welcome to the 11th meeting in 2024 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. We have received apologies this morning from Ross Greer.

The first item on our agenda is an evidence session on the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland’s strategic plan for 2024 to 2028. I welcome Nicola Killean, who is the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. I also welcome Nick Hobbs, who is the head of advice and investigations, and Gina Wilson, who is the head of strategy, at the office of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. Good morning.

I invite the commissioner to make a brief opening statement, which I understand will include a video clip highlighting how children and young people helped to develop the strategic plan. Thank you, and welcome.

It was interesting that, prior to the recess, we had a session with some young people that was facilitated by Who Cares? Scotland. Hearing from them was quite a frustrating session for us. A note about that will be published, and I would certainly direct your office to have a look at that and take great cognisance of it. They specifically said, “You just send out a survey and then we never hear from you again.” Perhaps that was that survey. We did not quite get to understand what survey they were referring to—maybe it was yours.

What role do you see the commissioner’s office having in relation to keeping the Promise by 2030? The feedback that we got was that that is quite aspirational.

That is fine, but Mr Macpherson’s supplementary questions might feed into that, too.

I would like to go back a bit. You spoke about some of the decisions that will be made about budgets and how you will always advocate for youth work and so on. How do you help young people to understand the decisions that are taken? They will not understand why those decisions have been taken. Are you doing work to help them with that?

Good morning, and welcome to the 10th meeting in 2024 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. We have received apologies from Stephanie Callaghan, and Stuart McMillan will be attending in her place. Stuart will join us slightly later.

The main item on our agenda is the committee’s fifth and final evidence session for its additional support for learning inquiry, which is considering how the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 has been implemented and how it is working in practice some 20 years on. Today, we will hear from the cabinet secretary and her officials.

The committee has focused on three themes throughout the inquiry: the implementation of the presumption of mainstreaming, the impact of Covid-19 on additional support for learning, and the use of remedies as set out in the act. We are joined by Jenny Gilruth, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, and, from the Scottish Government, by Clair Henderson, team leader, supporting learners, and Laura Meikle, head of the support and wellbeing unit. Good morning and welcome to you all.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make an opening statement of up to three minutes.

We are aware that, in some local authorities, there has been a growth in specialist units or bases—-they all have different terminology—within mainstream schools. We have also heard about some of the challenges with the language that is used with regard to people’s understanding. Is the legislation working, given how schools are evolving to include those new environments?

I have a number of requests for supplementary questions and will go to Willie Rennie first.

We have spoken at length about new schools and how those might be adapted with regard to the work involving the Scottish Futures Trust. Some buildings in our existing school estate are more than 100 years old, and others were built in the 1960s and 1970s. What support and guidance can be given to local authorities, consistently, to ensure that those facilities are much more appropriate for those with additional support for learning needs?

I am sorry to interrupt, cabinet secretary, but a witness from one of the unions spoke about an ASL cupboard. That is the space that they have—

Liam Kerr wants to come back in, as he started off on this theme.