Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank both witnesses, as it has been a very interesting discussion.

One of the things about virtual meetings—this meeting is a kind of hybrid version—is that, when I make a facial expression or twist uncomfortably in my chair, the witnesses cannot read my body language. A lot of the commentary has been made through a Westminster lens on a Westminster culture, and I think that things are very different in the Scottish Parliament. First of all, there are 129 members of the Scottish Parliament. I think that, across parties, it has been understood that it is much easier to get access to ministers and to feed in views extremely quickly. For example, we are in a hybrid meeting but I could see Edward Mountain shaking his head. It is a positive strength of a hybrid meeting that I could read Edward Mountain’s body language.

Before I move things on a bit, Professor Russell said a lot about equality, but there are various strands to that. There is equality of opportunity as well as equality of access. If some women are deterred from getting into Parliament in the first place because they do not see it as being family friendly, that means that they do not have the same opportunity as men have to be elected representatives. There are questions of equality of opportunity for carers and for dads—I have a young child in the house, so I know about this—to still have contact with their young children from time to time.

I think that this Parliament is talking about having a hybrid Parliament rather than a virtual Parliament and that there is a cross-party will to not put the hybrid Parliament that we have now back in its box, but to get right the balance between inclusion on the parliamentary campus and the dynamic that Professor Russell and Dr Fox explained extremely well, while ensuring that we do not deny underrepresented groups the opportunity to participate or to be supported as members.

Do you think that, for people to have opportunities to be elected representatives in the first place or to sustain their incumbency as an elected representative—for example, some women gave up being an MSP in the previous session because they did not see it as being family friendly enough—it is important that the hybrid arrangement endures, rather than being thrown out? I put that to Professor Russell in the first instance.

This is a really interesting discussion. I was particularly taken with Dr Childs’s points about the technology that we have today. The immediate is not the future, and Dr Childs and Dr Williamson were very strong about looking forward to where we want Parliament to be.

One of the things that we want Parliament to be is more accessible, including for existing MSPs, and I will come on to people who might stand for election. There is a whole list of groups that we could talk about, including women, carers, parents, disabled people, those who are in remote and rural areas, and black, Asian and minority ethnic members of the community. I am keen to get a flavour of what both witnesses think are the opportunities for current MSPs with those characteristics to get a better balance in their lives and to have greater access to Parliament as things stand or perhaps in the future. I should note that the committee paper talks about unintended consequences as well—with every upside there could be a downside. Any comments from both witnesses about that would be very helpful.

I am pleased that I pushed on that issue, because we got some valuable evidence from Professor Russell and Dr Fox. Thank you for your responses.

I have a more general question. It is clear that some form of hybrid Parliament will remain, and this committee’s task is to touch, feel and smell what that would look like and make recommendations to the Presiding Officer and Parliament about that. I am guessing that that will be an iterative process, so whatever the committee comes up with and Parliament agrees to would not be the end point.

Professor Russell has helpfully talked about monitoring some of the dynamics at Westminster. Whatever reforms we recommend and implement in the Scottish Parliament, we will initially want to monitor those. How can we monitor hybrid and virtual proceedings to measure how interactions have changed and whether that has been beneficial, what the benefits have been and what the drawbacks have been? We will want to monitor whatever we recommend on an on-going basis—that will not be the end of the story—so any suggestions that you could make about how we monitor the quality of those interactions and the negatives, as well as the positives, would be very helpful.

That is very helpful. Of course, the nine authorities that were already attainment challenge local authorities will have developed expertise, which I hope can be shared across local authorities. I absolutely take on board the point that was made about the guidance having just come out and that we are at the exam diets, particularly for secondary schools. Mike Corbett, when do you anticipate those conversations happening at the school level? Will there be a couple of in-service days before the summer break or early in August?

Secondly, if sizeable decisions are being made at the moment—there might not be—in how the funds should be spent, would it be better to have interim provision for the next few months, say to Christmas, so that there is time to engage with teachers and to allow for a more fundamental, effective and systematic roll-out of PEF funding that engages fully with teachers, parents and carers? Would it make sense to have those conversations as soon as possible and maybe hold off some of the decisions on how the money is spent to get it right, rather than rush to spend the money for August?

With the indulgence of the convener, I have been given permission for a brief final question. I thought it very helpful that the revised guidance says that a report should be given to parent councils at the end of each year so that it is clear what PEF has or has not achieved in that academic year. That report would also be part of the process of refreshing and changing the approach each year. I will bring in Greg Dempster for this final question. Has some of that been happening already? Is there an annual trawl of parent councils about that direct engagement? Is the approach just affirming good practice, or is it patchwork across the country? I also see that Mr Thewliss would like to come in on that—I am sure he will do so very briefly, of course—with the indulgence of the convener.

I want to look at evaluation of PEF. I was struck by something that Jim Thewliss said at the start about the longitudinal study in relation to the impact of PEF over a number of years. I have raised that at committee before, and the convener mentioned it this morning. I will give two encouraging statistics. This year, there were record high positive destinations for pupils from secondary schools, which is quite outstanding, given everything that we have been through with Covid. The hard work for that will have been done this year, but a lot of the work to get young people ready for the wider world and the world of work will have been done in previous years. We are told that we are not very good at measuring that.

Also, in the two years before lockdown, literacy went up 3.1 per cent and numeracy went up 2.7 per cent. That is a two-year snapshot in time. There is need for longer-term research and evaluation. I am interested in hearing briefly—more briefly than my question, perhaps—from Jim Thewliss about what such research might look like: should it follow a cohort of students over their school career? I would like to hear a little bit more about that because, if we are to make recommendations on that area for the longer term, we would like to better understand what a robust research process would look like.

Convener, that is something that we can consider as a committee. Thank you for that, Jim.

The more that I think about evaluation in the short term, the clearer it is that you must embed evaluation in the planning process from day 1. Much of the chat this morning has been about what that planning process should look like and how teachers, carers, parents and the wider community should be involved. I note that the refresh of the attainment challenge was announced in November 2021, with associated documents being published in March this year. That guidance is pretty explicit about the things that should happen in the planning process. It goes as far as to talk about carrying out a participatory budgeting process, meaning that everyone, including the wider community, would have their say.

I am unsure whether that already happened in some areas or whether that will now happen more consistently across the country. If we are planning for next term, that planning should already have started. As I said, the revised guidance came out in March. When do our witnesses think that schools will be able to take account of and put into practice the refreshed guidance? Maybe Greg Dempster could start off the reply to that.

That is helpful. From the perspective of an employee or a classroom teacher—of course, you are an educationist, Mr Dempster—what do the unions think about that planning process and the new guidance? Andrea Bradley, have there been any discussions so far at a local authority level with the EIS, for example, about how, through the refreshed guidance, teachers could be engaged more in the planning process?

I think that committee members were looking at one another to see who was going to comment first. I do not know whether I drew the short straw.

I thank the Deputy Presiding Officer and the Conveners Group for writing to us to raise the issue, which is important. As someone who was previously a member of the Conveners Group, I know that the conveners of the Parliament’s committees offer a very well-considered and well-rounded view, so we must take seriously their desire for continuity of committee membership, including substitutes.

That said, I can see that the Conveners Group is trying to be helpful. It acknowledges that, during the pandemic—which, sadly, is not quite over yet—significant flexibility was required. In fact, complete flexibility was absolutely necessary. For the time being, that flexibility continues, but at some point it will have to draw to a close or be formalised in a way that is more in keeping with the continuity that conveners seek, by having two named substitutes. Therefore, I think that we should give serious consideration to that suggestion.

I would be very interested to find out what the Parliamentary Bureau’s thoughts are in relation to the Conveners Group’s suggestion, which I am very open to, and I would like to find out why the bureau thinks that it might be beneficial to have such open-ended flexibility embedded in parliamentary practices. I am not so sure that that is required, but it is, of course, the job of members of this committee to look at the evidence and to come to a well-considered and well-rounded view. I think that we need a wee bit more information before we can do that.

Sue Webber has raised an interesting point. In relation to illness and family requirements, one would absolutely expect confidentiality and privacy for members. However, some of the other reasons, such as required parliamentary business, could be open to interpretation. An example might be a ministerial visit in a member’s constituency. Some MSPs might deem that to be required parliamentary business, but others might not, and it might be a grey area for others. It might be useful to know how often that reason has been used.

I am in no way suggesting that we should police the situation, but that would allow us to get a feel for whether the flexibility has been used for fairly obvious and evident public health reasons due to the pandemic or for other purposes. Members are entitled to use the flexibility, but that would allow us to get a sense of the spread of reasons why it has been used—with complete anonymity for the MSPs involved, of course.