Seòmar agus comataidhean

So “very soon” is June.

Colleagues will remember that the committee recently completed our evidence sessions on my colleague Liz Smith MSP’s Schools (Residential Outdoor Education) (Scotland) Bill, which has now completed stage 1. The general principles of that bill have been supported by the Parliament. Amendment 25, in the name of Liz Smith, is designed to ensure that, where a relevant educational establishment provides outdoor education as part of its curricular or extracurricular programme, that provision will be part of the inspection process.

My amendment 176 seeks to improve how recommendations are made to a school and how that establishment can respond. My colleague Sue Webber eloquently outlined that it is about what we do with an inspection when it is delivered and what quality it provides. The bill presents an opportunity for teachers and the wider school community to have more understanding of where they can take recommendations forward as well as responding to them, so that we do not see inspections left hanging. I hope that that is a positive step forward.

For the many teachers and others who work in our schools that I have spoken to, an inspection could be a career-defining moment, but in some cases inspections are not providing that detail in what they offer parents, guardians and carers. My amendment therefore specifies what would be expected, how the independent inspections may be responded to, and a more constructive way of taking them forward.

I also support Sue Webber’s amendments in the group.

As with my amendment 176, amendment 181 seeks to improve inspection reports by requiring the chief inspector’s annual report not only to describe inspections and other activities but to cover any recommendations made as a result of those inspections. Allowing the public to see the wider role that the inspectorate plays would, as other members have outlined, add value, and such an approach would ensure that we highlight not just the inspectorate’s role but what is covered in an inspection. I should say, too, that amendment 181 complements amendments that have already been agreed to.

I move amendment 181.

I appreciate what the cabinet secretary has said and look forward to hearing about those conversations.

I put on record my hope that the petition will be heard—we will see how the Government responds to it. More importantly, some timescale for that is needed because, given the pace at which the Government wants the bill to be voted on and passed, the petition will not be part of that process. The petition has been sitting unaddressed for the duration of this parliamentary session, but I hope that it is progressed before the election so that a new organisation can be created or further inspection changes can take place.

I will not press amendment 157 or move my other amendments in the group.

Amendment 157, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 306 and 307 not moved.

On a point of order, convener. My colleague Stephen Kerr had a lot to say on this amendment. I do not know whether it would be appropriate—[Laughter.]

Good evening, cabinet secretary and colleagues. I will speak to amendments 157, 166 and 178. As we have heard throughout the committee’s deliberations, culture change is not easy to legislate for. In the area of child protection, we need to look to strengthen the specific safeguarding child protection responsibilities and place those into inspections. I have lodged these probing amendments to consider how we can provide for the complaints function and improve HMIE’s inspection plans in relation to it.

I have developed the set of amendments as part of an ask that is contained in the on-going public petition PE1979, on whistleblowing and safeguarding. I pay tribute to the petitioners Alison Dickie, Bill Cook, Christine Scott and Neil McLennan for their on-going campaigns and important work in that area. The petition, in short—as the committee will be pleased to hear—calls for the establishment of an independent national whistleblowing officer for education and children’s services. Although the proposal does not sit comfortably as part of the bill, I want to probe how the new inspectorate could take forward a new function or, indeed, how Parliament could create such a role at stage 3.

I welcome the amendments in the name of my colleague Stephen Kerr in this group, too. I believe that there is a clear gap in safeguarding and child protection responsibilities as part of a school inspection, and that is what has motivated the amendments. If we are to ensure that safeguarding and child protection are at the heart of any educational establishment, we need to look towards how that is being measured and taken into account. Specifically, establishing a complaint function would allow for a mechanism whereby the chief inspector could have confidence and means to hear from parents, carers, teachers and other persons who want to report concerns about any relevant educational establishment. Those concerns would be recorded and then used to inform HMIE’s inspection plans.

As members know, I have tried throughout the stage 2 process to embed parent and carer voices in the matter of school inspections and in the bill. I believe that we need additional measures to take those voices into account.

On amendment 169, our preference was for an independent inspectorate, and the amendment outlines our expectation in the form of a requirement on the inspectorate to have regard to

“the statutory roles and responsibilities of any persons or bodies”

that it works with. We heard from Pam Duncan-Glancy that it is important to include a range of stakeholders—I hope that that answers the question in that regard.

Amendment 169 is my only amendment in the group, and in the interests of getting something out of tonight’s session, I will be moving it.

Given the cabinet secretary's comments, I will not press amendment 181.

Amendment 181, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendment 40 moved—[Ross Greer].

First, I put on record Liz Smith’s apologies, as she is unable to attend this evening’s session and was also unable to attend this morning.

Amendment 24, in her name, is an important amendment that I support, especially as a Lothian MSP. Members will recall the tragic incident that occurred in April 2014, when Keane Wallis-Bennett died while changing for a physical education class, as a result of a prefabricated wall collapsing at Liberton high school here in the capital. That was despite repeated warnings about the instability of the wall for several months before the fatal accident.

We all understand that there are situations when freak accidents—storms, for example—can cause unforeseen damage to a school building. That happened at Oxgangs primary school in 2016, when a cavity leaf wall collapsed. Notwithstanding that, there are other situations that naturally give parents and carers cause for concern.

In 2018, my colleague Liz Smith made a freedom of information request to all 32 local authorities, which brought out that 150 safety incidents had been reported in our schools. Since then, we have had the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete situation in schools, including the worrying incident at Queen Victoria school in Dunblane.

To be fair to the Scottish Government, it has put in place measures to ensure that there are additional checks on school buildings. I suggest, however, that parent, pupil and teacher anxiety remains, especially in areas where some aspects of poor school estate still exist. I fully appreciate that local authorities have a statutory obligation to carry out building inspections of their school estate. That is right and proper, as Willie Rennie has outlined. It means that, for each school, there is certification of safety, or, if there are issues, the relevant local authority is obliged to take urgent action. In the independent sector, that would apply to the board of governors.

The key thing is to ensure that there is full transparency when it comes to the physical school estate and school campus. Through her amendment 24, Liz Smith suggests that, when the results of the usual school inspection are published, currently by Education Scotland, accompanying certification should be signed off by an independent qualified building engineer professional to prove that the school campus has been declared—

Yes.