Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will you consider the suggestion? I do not know what is difficult about saying that you will consider it.

That is why—

Mr Ware! That is why I believe—this is a personal opinion—that an independent review would have been better. You are using the word “we” a lot and talking about what you think. It would have been better if you had assembled that evidence in the construction of the review. Cabinet—

Of course.

For the migration and empire option, the marks were down by 26.9 per cent compared with 2019. That is a huge drop. Surely you, as the head of the SQA, thought, “Minus 26 per cent? Someone’s got to look into this.” However, you did not do that. You waited until the controversy was raised in this building by parliamentarians and teachers were speaking up on social media before you launched a review. I do not understand what took you so long.

Will you be happy to share that feedback with the committee?

I am sorry, but paragraph 8, on page 2 of the report states that

“overwhelmingly ... the poor standard of responses provided by learners in this year’s examinations”

led to a 13.1 per cent drop. Please do not come to this committee and say that your report does not say that, when it is on page 2, in paragraph 8.

Why did you not launch the review straight away? Why did it take you until 11 September? I am sure that the cabinet secretary looked at the figures that were coming in. Surely you looked at them and thought, “Why has there been a 13.1 per cent drop in higher history this year?” You knew that there were complaints, but you seem to have launched the review because there was a bit of backlash, both politically here in the Parliament and on social media. Why not launch the review on the day you saw the figures that were coming in?

Welcome back, members, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome our second panel of witnesses. Laura Caven is chief officer in the children and young people team and co-chair of the additional support for learning project board at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Alison Bavidge is national director of the Scottish Association of Social Work, Ben Farrugia is the director of Social Work Scotland and Stephen Smellie is the chair of the social work issues group at Unison Scotland.

I know that some, if not all, of you were listening to the previous session, so you will have heard what our first witnesses said. My questions will be largely the same; you will have heard the responses to them. Those witnesses said that you might be better suited to answering some of my latter questions, but on the workforce issue, what are the challenges that are facing the workforce in delivering the Promise and the commitment that has been made?

Thank you for your evidence. We have overrun a little bit, which just shows the interest from committee members, who are very grateful for your time and answers.

I suspend the meeting for five to 10 minutes.