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There are different funding streams in the attainment challenge. I will look at whether what you have suggested would be the most effective use of them. When I met various committee members at the start of my time as education secretary, they had different opinions on how these things might be done in future. I have listened to those comments, but I point out that a key part of the attainment challenge has been headteachers’ ability to make decisions directly, and that will remain.

On teacher numbers, the Government has committed to putting in place 3,500 additional teachers during this parliamentary session. As that commitment is separate and additional to the Scottish attainment challenge fund, it has not formed part of my discussions around the attainment challenge. Instead, it will go through the usual process of funding being distributed to local authorities.

If my memory serves me correctly, the answer to your written question also included teachers who might have been on a permanent contract but were in a temporary position. Some of those figures need to be used with caution.

That said, I have heard loud and clear, and directly from teachers, a concern about the number of them who are on temporary contracts, which is why I have taken action to baseline the funding that has been provided as part of our Covid recovery strategy. The money for the 3,500 additional teachers over this parliamentary session is additional to that. As I am sure that the committee would expect, I am keeping an exceptionally close eye on whether those teachers are additional and whether they are on permanent contracts. That is an issue for local government as the employer—I cannot insist that they are on permanent contracts—but what I would say is that, given that the money has been baselined, I see no reason for those teachers not to be on permanent contracts. However, as I have said, we are keeping an exceptionally close eye on that.

May I just make it clear that staff have the ability to have direct discussions with Ken Muir as part of his work? There is nothing stopping the unions having direct discussions with him. My understanding is that those discussions have happened already, so I do not need to interfere in that process, because there is nothing stopping them having those discussions.

I have listened very carefully to the discussions about what was said in the OECD report and what was said afterwards. We have to bear in mind the reasons for having national standardised assessments and what they can do and what they cannot and were never expected to do. The purpose of the national standardised assessments is primarily formative. They provide teachers with important and valuable diagnostic information on children’s progress. That is what they are there for.

The assessments were never designed to be the measure of everything in the curriculum for excellence. That is why other data is gathered within schools to support the national improvement framework. I have looked carefully at what the OECD said and at the information that was gathered for the review of the standardised assessments. We are seeing teachers making increased use of the results of the standardised assessments, and they have found those results more useful as the years have gone on.

We must look at what the assessments are for and whether teachers find them useful for what they were designed to do. We can see that teachers are finding them useful as part of formative assessment.

Forgive me, Mr Marra, but there are timings to when those reports will come out and data must be collated. I do not need the report to tell me that there has been an impact. That is why the Government has already acted to put in place additional teachers and additional pupil equity funding to support schools through Covid.

We have not waited and are already taking action. With the greatest respect, we cannot be both criticised for there being nothing new in a report about education recovery and told that we should not wait. We have not waited. We have already taken action. When further detail, such as the information about health and wellbeing or the data about curriculum for excellence levels comes out, we will self-check at that point.

There has clearly been concern about the timing of the report’s publication and the fact that it was the day after Fiona Robertson was here. I would like to make clear that the timing of publication was not the SQA’s decision. It had been hoped to publish the report earlier, which would have been before Ms Robertson’s committee appearance, and it was not the SQA’s decision to have the date that was finally settled on. That was for the commission to decide.

I agree that it is disappointing that the publication did not happen earlier, so that Ms Robertson could have discussed the issues with the committee. To be absolutely clear, that decision was not of the SQA’s making.

I heard that the First Minister answered an entirely different question from the one that you asked. I think that she misheard the question and answered a question about small businesses, so I came prepared for you to try again today.

The distribution for the £10 million has been agreed through Convention of Scottish Local Authorities leaders. Each local authority will receive an equitable share of the funding, on the strict understanding that it is for the purpose of improving ventilation. That includes covering the cost of monitors. The funding will be processed through the local government settlement. The capital element will be provided to local authorities as a one-off payment in November and the revenue element will be provided in March, as is the normal practice.

Local authorities have taken great strides to undertake their initial monitoring before the October holidays, which I stress are not all at the same time in Scotland. They are making good progress to allow that to happen. Some local authorities are reporting concerns about supply issues, which we always knew might be a challenge in some areas. We have been working closely with COSLA to give advice on procurement routes for quick supply and brokering discussions between local authorities to arrange the loan of mobile devices, if that is feasible when some councils are, perhaps, further ahead.

Once the October holidays have begun, we will collate the final position. I anticipate that we will provide a report later in October. That will allow an assessment of how the work has progressed. We will keep a close eye on what happens after October once the initial monitoring has taken place.

I was made aware of that a few weeks ago, prior to the public announcement being made.

I will take those two issues separately, as they are separate.

With regard to next year, the SQA has plan A, which is that exams will take place, and that is what we as a Government, the SQA and, importantly, schools and young people are moving forward with in their teaching and learning. There have, of course, been discussions around contingency measures that need to be in place. For example, if the public health advice at that point was that we could not have an exam diet, teacher judgment would be absolutely at the heart of those. However, the reassurance for teachers is that no additional assessments would need to take place. That is different from the alternative certification model.

In short, there will be no dual assessments. Normal assessments can take place and, at the end of the year, if there is no exam diet, teachers will be able to form a judgment based on what has taken place during a normal assessment year.

As for what will happen in future years, that is a very separate issue that will be looked at. I will make further announcements on that later in the autumn, as we have just had the Stobart report on what will happen in future. Exams will, of course, play a part, but the Stobart review has presented us with opportunities and questions about what these things will look like in the future. That is an issue not just for Government, and it will be taken forward very much in collaboration and discussion with others. However, as I have said, I will make further announcements in due course.

We will look very carefully at what the OECD has recommended. One of the challenges that we will have in taking the report forward is that there is a lot of change in it. Some of those changes can happen at the same time and some of them will have to happen on different timescales. Part of the reason for that is that our collaborative work with stakeholders to get the details of that change correct—which I believe that we should do—will take some time.

There is a lot to do. Some of it is work that we can undertake quite quickly, and in some areas, as I have said, it will take time. As I look to make further announcements on this, I will try to set out what we can do in the short term and to highlight the areas that will take longer. Part of the OECD’s suggestions about how to take things forward involved the time that it takes to take them forward.

The manner in which we do that is exceptionally important. As I said in earlier remarks, I am determined to play a collaborative role as education secretary. The committee and the Parliament will decide how it wants to take forward any work on these issues, but I will be more than happy to work with anyone and everyone who has a role. There are a number of challenges in the report, and not all of them can be addressed at the same time or quickly.