Seòmar agus comataidhean

Thank you. I will let other members come in. I again apologise for the disruption at the start of the meeting.

Hello.

I find that last comment very helpful. Can I infer from what you are saying that the purposes, the values and the objectives are things that your office may have been doing anyway but that people cannot just take that for granted? It is about putting that out openly in the public domain, and, as you expand the staffing team in your office, making sure that staff are clear about what it means. I particularly like the bit about whether members of the public feel you are upholding your purposes, your values and your strategic objectives. I think that that is really helpful—it was a helpful answer.

Page 5 of the draft strategic plan sets out some key changes that you wish to deliver, such as

“Recruiting and developing staff to ensure consistent high quality of our professional skills base”.

I think that there are six or seven key changes. I will not run through them all because of time constraints and the fact that my eyesight probably will not allow me to see the tiny typing on the handout that I have. How do you think that the key changes that you have set out will improve the quality of the outputs from your office? You may want to pick one or two of them and flesh out the differences that you think they will make.

The commissioner has probably dealt with the issue in his exchange with Mr Mountain. I just wanted to put on record that it might be worth seeking information on the role of the Social Security Committee in the previous session in relation to the appointment of commissioners to the Poverty and Inequality Commission. I do not want to tie up the meeting with this, but that might give a real-life example of a committee not going through a tick-box exercise or jumping through the hoops but, instead, having a dynamic and practical process.

I am going to move on to another line of questioning, but I offer a brief reflection. Commissioner, I think that, in the way that you are navigating these questions, there is a diplomatic corps job for you as well as a commissioner’s role.

If you want to reflect on this, that would be interesting. Clearly, the role of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland should be about making sure that the public are aware of your office, that they can complain to you if they believe that those ethical standards are not being met and that the process is open, transparent and accessible. The more effectively your office does that, by the nature of things, the more complaints will come in that may not meet the criteria or that may be inspired by an individual tweet or a campaign for people to complain about an individual MP, MSP or whatever.

I think that you are in a very difficult position, because, even if you were to get many more complaints coming in that were not upheld, that might be deemed a success for your office. It would mean that your office was more open, transparent, visible and accessible, even if the complaints that were coming in were not of a substantial, material nature. I am interested in your comments on that before we move on to the next line of questioning.

That is very helpful. Sometimes a significant increase in complaints does not mean that something untoward is going on with an elected representative. It might actually be a success in that the office is more accessible to people who want to complain, as difficult as that is for elected representatives.

I was pleased to see in the draft plan that there will be a new statement on purposes, values and strategic objectives. I suppose that it is stating the obvious to say that that is a good thing, but it does beg a question. If that statement did not exist before, what was missing and what added benefit will the new statement give?

Convener, you make a very important point about putting statistics, data or facts that change over time into the purpose of CPG. Gordon MacDonald was quite right to draw that issue to our attention and to seek permission to change the group’s purpose.

I note that the sector employs 47,000 people, has sales of £4 billion and contributes £40 million in gross value added to Scotland’s economy per annum. I am delighted to put that on the record for my colleague Gordon MacDonald, but I suppose that it is also a snapshot of time. What if a new report comes out and that data changes? If we have such data within the purpose of a CPG, should there be a reference to the nature of those figures? They could be from one year ago, two years ago or a report that was published last week—I have no idea. So, as soon as we approve the purpose—and I think that we should do so—they may be out of date.

My second point is about the procedure. If such things are put into the purpose of a CPG and the statistical data changes but the group wishes to keep that information within the purpose of the CPG—in this case, I think it is to draw the importance of the sector to the attention of Parliament quite clearly up front, and I get why they wish to do that—we could simply note the change and it could be a procedural matter rather than needing to be a formal agenda item. However, I am not sure of the process around that.

I hope that those two points are helpful.

—[Inaudible.]

It has been a fascinating evidence session so far. I have a few questions on some of the recommendations on what the report sees as the mismatch between the senior phase of school and curriculum for excellence. One point is that there is too narrow a range of learning activities in the senior phase. I am keen to know how that might be improved and how you would broaden out the activities. There is much talk about diversity of pathways being required and about lack of time to go into detail in some subjects. I wonder about the range of learning activities and about going into detail on subjects.

If I have it correctly, the OECD’s suggestion is that there should be a limited number of core subjects in the senior phase, and some subjects in which students go into much more specialist detail. I am open minded on that, but I wonder whether it might have the unintended consequence of narrowing options for young people in the senior phase. I am interested in hearing your comments on that.

That is very helpful, and I absolutely recognise that two-term dash. I do not think that the OECD has been prescriptive about how that could be fixed. Some schools currently do nat 5 or highers over two years. They pace the curriculum and syllabus at a much more appropriate level for students. I get that. On additional provision of the further education that is already dropping down into schools, I absolutely get the idea of expanding those pathways and broadening that out.

My follow-up question relates to assessments. I see reference in the report to much more use of portfolio work, continuous assessment and teacher judgment—with appropriate moderation, of course. I also see that some of that moderation for continuous assessment should be external to the school, in order to build much more chunky checks and balances into the system. There is a lot to welcome in there.

My question is in the context of the poverty-related attainment gap. In years gone by, when we have given young people more content to produce, the young people who had better support at home for preparing folio work were, quite often, from higher-income backgrounds. They had more time and space at home, and they had tutors and that kind of thing.

I support what has been said, but would we have to be careful to broaden out continuous assessment, and not to build in an advantage, as we did with external assessment, for a cohort of young people who might be in a better place to take up the benefits of continuous assessment because of all the additional advantages of things such as tutors and parental support?