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It is important that we look at this issue in the round, particularly when we look at the senior phase. Our school-college partnerships are exceptionally important and becoming even more so.

We are linking in with the colleges, as demonstrated by the fact that Colleges Scotland has been invited on to the Scottish education council, which it was not on previously. I hope that that demonstrates our commitment to look at this in the round and to recognise that we cannot look only at what happens in schools. When we look at attainment and achievement, we need to view it in a wider sense, and colleges play a very important role in that.

As you will appreciate, convener, discussions about the case have been on-going for some time, but the Supreme Court’s judgment has come out while I have been at committee.

To be clear, the Scottish Government does not, and will never, produce league tables of schools.

As I think I said earlier, we need to look at that to ensure that we are gathering the correct data about the correct areas. Although that is more challenging in some areas of curriculum for excellence than in others, we need to be up to that challenge.

There will be a review of the national improvement framework measurements in 2022. That will allow stakeholders to assess, with Government, how we have measured for the NIF in the past, whether that is correct, what needs to change, and what they would like to change it to. Although areas to do with health and wellbeing are, of course, already part of our analysis, it is the right time—as we move out of Covid—to ensure that we are doing that correctly. That consultation will happen early next year.

As I said, it is considering the four harms approach as a whole. Disruption to learning is one of the key issues. The sub-group advised that face coverings should be included in the mitigations that are in place in our schools, because the balance of the four harms approach included face masks as an important mitigation measure that allows less disruption in schools, which has a major impact on children’s health and wellbeing.

We already carry out functions in relation to the curriculum.

Forgive me, convener, but a variety of sectors across the country would absolutely say that some of the skills gaps have been accentuated as a result of Brexit. I do not think that that is too much of a political point; it is merely a statement of fact.

There are issues that have been going on for some time in certain areas. You quite rightly raised the issue of digital. That has been an on-going challenge.

To ensure that there are no structural challenges at the national level that have an impact on that, we are keen to ensure that SDS and the Scottish Funding Council work well together to assess skills gaps and what is happening in our education sector. The skills alignment work that has been done is very important in ensuring that, at Government level, our national agencies are working as effectively as they can from a skills point of view and an education point of view, and that they are working well together.

Another issue that we will need to look at as we move out of Covid is the challenge in providing support to key sectors. That is why there have been national transition training funds, for example, and why we have the flexible workforce development fund and individual training accounts. This year, we will evaluate the flexible workforce development fund and ITAs to assess whether more can be done to simplify and strengthen the lifelong learning offer, and to challenge ourselves on whether we can do more on that.

On digital shortages, a great deal of work is, of course, going on in that specific sector, which I probably do not have much time to go into today. However, I would be happy to give further evidence in writing on that to the committee, if that would help. Work is being done to deal with the short-term challenges that we have seen and to address the fact that we have a competitive market, which is making it difficult for small firms, for example, to take part.

At national Government level, we are looking very closely at what needs to be done by our funding streams and our national agencies to ensure that we are providing effective support to people when they need it.

I will look at the OECD report in its entirety. My officials and I have not only read the executive summary and recommendations; we have read the report, substantial as it is, so of course I have looked at every aspect of it. As I said in my previous answer, as we respond in full to the OECD review, I will challenge myself and we will challenge ourselves about whether more needs to be done on data to ensure that people have confidence in what is collected and that it is done in the right way.

We must be clear about what the OECD report said on standardised assessments. As I said at the start, standardised assessments do not judge the totality of curriculum for excellence. That was never their point. It is not what they were designed to do and, therefore, it is not surprising that they do not do that.

That has been discussed at great length in what is now the NQ22 group. Clearly, there were understandable concerns about the workload pressures that the alternative certification model presented to staff last year. We are not in that circumstance this year, as we are not doing the alternative certification model.

The key point that has been looked at, and on which a discussion is taking place, is about what the contingencies are, and a reassurance that no additional assessments will be required that teachers will have to carry out. That is a very important reassurance for teachers because, as I have said, they are still in the middle of dealing with the pandemic. The Government and the SQA were very keen to ensure that we took cognisance of the impact that decisions would have on teacher workload.

You will forgive me if I do not say too much about the refresh of the attainment challenge, as I will be making further announcements on that in due course. However, I can reassure the committee that the empowerment of schools to make decisions will remain very much at the heart of that, because they know their communities best and how best to use the PEF funding to support children and young people.

One of the challenges that the Government faces as we look to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap is that, despite the fact that we can do so much in education and despite our determination to do so, the issue of child poverty has to be tackled, too. I am working very closely with my colleague Shona Robison to see what we can do in our portfolios in that respect. The UK Government has, of course, taken away the equivalent of the Scottish child payment through its cut to universal credit, which will inevitably impact on children and families throughout the country and, in turn, impact on their preparations for school. The Government can do what it can to support children and young people through, for example, the school clothing grant and free school meals, but it does not help when another hand takes away part of our support.