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Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 14 July 2025
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Displaying 1423 contributions

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Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

I think that the cabinet secretary has met with Beth Morrison about her Calum’s law campaign. I do not know whether Daniel Johnson’s bill will time out in the current parliamentary session, but it seeks to improve data collection, the recording of incidents and the training of individuals. It does not look as though that is captured in amendment 88, so perhaps the cabinet secretary would look to lodge an amendment at stage 3 to include that.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

I fully respect the point that the petition that I have mentioned is still live, but will the potential discussions that the cabinet secretary has referred to include the establishment of what the petitioners have been seeking—that is, an independent national whistleblowing officer not just for education but for wider children’s services in Scotland? That is currently missing, and I point out that we have moved to provide such a function for health services, for example. Is that something that the Government would consider?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

I am not sure that I can get the cabinet secretary to make another intervention on Pam Duncan-Glancy, but I think that it is important that there is an opportunity for a refresh. I wonder whether the member, along with the cabinet secretary, could go away and think about a suitable amendment for stage 3. We all want confidence to be rebuilt in the new organisation, and I am sympathetic to what the member is trying to achieve. I do not know whether the Scottish Government needs to be a bit more flexible on what the transitional arrangements look like. Where people are not performing, we need to build in opportunities for a review to take place.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

I take on board those points. The amendments would expand the new inspectorate regime to include what people want, which should be welcome. We know that there are on-going issues with the school estate, with RAAC being one of those issues. It is welcome that the vast majority of schools have now, I think, corrected that, but parents will want to be confident that there is an on-going inspection regime and that the certificates, which are sometimes provided by private companies, will not be lost, because they will be asked for when an inspection takes place.

I take the member’s point, and given my colleague Stephen Kerr’s point about when inspections take place, there might be a different or better framework for making that documentation available from local authorities. I understand that, and I am sure that Liz Smith will be open to discussing and developing that further.

As with Liz Smith’s amendments, amendments 165 and 209 in my name are probing amendments to consider the opportunity to explore how we can improve child protection and safeguarding in educational establishments. Given what the cabinet secretary has said, I do not intend to move them.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

Good morning. As we have touched on, scrapping the Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board, as the bill proposes, presents many questions. I go back to a point that you made, Clare Reid, on further involvement from regional employers. How would you see an apprenticeship committee, if one is established within the SFC? What role would industry play in that? I have specific concerns in relation to where private training providers who provide certification and registration would sit in that structure. I put that question to you again. What is your understanding of what that structure would look like?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

The bill does not include any targets for apprentices or set minimum levels for service agreements, for example, for either apprentices or employers. Have your members raised that aspect?

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

I just caught the cabinet secretary at the end there. The matter goes back to conversations that the committee had following the tragedy at Liberton high school. It was then quite clear that, with regard to parliamentary scrutiny, there had to be an opportunity to at least review where that documentation is being held. My colleague Ross Greer referred to issues in another council area. Will the cabinet secretary be open—perhaps not as part of the bill—to consider what that will look like?

Having been a member of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, I have specific concerns that a similar situation exists for social housing, specifically with regard to RAAC. However, I think that most people would expect that documentation to be held and viewed when inspections take place in our school estate. I do not know whether the cabinet secretary could at least review the matter, given that local authorities are the ones that currently hold that documentation. I have not seen a practice in place to provide public transparency on that.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

Could another approach be to look at reforming SAAB? Any potential transition period raises concerns, and some of the things that you suggest could be included and taken forward by reforming SAAB, rather than almost throwing the baby out with the bath water as we transition. I take on board what you say about the economic opportunities that are coming, but we know about those and we see that different sub-committees have been working on some of that already. Those concerns, which I think that we are all hearing about, are taken forward without a completely new organisation having to set up the expertise.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Education (Scotland) Bill: Stage 2

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

Amendment 168 would expand the list of matters that the chief inspector must have regard to when exercising their functions. As I have outlined in regard to previous amendments, those include safeguarding children’s rights and welfare, specifically in relation to issues raised by the children’s commissioner and in relation to the views and satisfaction levels of “relevant persons”.

My amendment 171 provides the definition of “relevant persons”. Given the previous conversation on child protection and, I hope, constructive discussion going forward, I will not move amendments 168 or 171.

Education, Children and Young People Committee [Draft]

Tertiary Education and Training (Funding and Governance) (Scotland) Bill

Meeting date: 7 May 2025

Miles Briggs

Why would it then take until September for the reports to be published? That is the question that most of us would ask. Once you have received those forecasts, the work will have been done on that.