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I have concerns about the possibility that, in Lothian, the Government’s target on waiting lists is being met only because people are being re-evaluated in order to remove them from those lists and send them to third sector services.

I want to move on, although I do not know whether the cabinet secretary can answer this point.

Good morning, cabinet secretary and officials.

We need to put on record that we are working to the Government’s timetable and that it has been the Government’s decision to leave the bill until the end of this parliamentary session. The committee does not have a choice in that regard. However, I would have liked to have seen the bill being considered much earlier in the session, and I think that every other member would probably agree with me on that.

I return to the convener’s point. I expect various amendments on the board to be lodged. The bill will establish a board, which other people will potentially join as a result of those amendments. Will you not need to come back to the committee after stage 3 with that anyway? Does that not present an opportunity for the Government to lay orders on what will be a reformed board? Given everything that you have outlined, would delaying the order until stage 2 not be more sensible, because by then we will have a clearer view of the political consensus on what the board structure would look like? As the convener has outlined, we are talking about a matter of weeks.

I am not sure whether the cabinet secretary will be able to directly answer this question, given her wife’s involvement, but how has the attainment Scotland fund been supporting outcomes for care-experienced young people? Specifically, how have outcomes been evaluated?

You say that the Government wants to work on a cross-party basis. Do you accept that the order makes members of the committee feel that the Government is putting the cart before the horse, and that it is disrespectful of the committee’s upcoming work?

I listened to the chair of the SQA impress upon us that this was an opportunity to get things right. However, it feels like the Government has its own agenda and has decided what it will do. It has already been said in the press that the replacement of the SQA with qualifications Scotland is only a nameplate change. We need significantly more than that. I hope that the cabinet secretary understands members’ concerns that they feel that the Government has decided what it wants to do already, before we have even got to the amendment stage, and that it is trying to railroad the legislation through the Parliament.

Thanks for that. I think that Mr Rennie might want a right to reply.

The committee has done a lot of work with care-experienced young people, and one of the key messages that I have heard is that identification is still not happening in schools.

I also put on the record the fact that young carers are very much in the same situation. I do not know why that is the case or where the opportunities are for using PEF to train teachers to help to deliver that—especially in secondary schools, given that different teachers are involved with the young people. I put that on the record as something for the Government to take away, because the situation does not seem to be improving. In the recent private evidence session that the committee had with care-experienced young people, they all pointed to that.

Good morning to the officials who have joined us for this session. I will carry on with questioning on the theme of tracking outcomes specifically. On educational outcomes, Scotland has the highest absence rates in the UK—according to Scottish Government figures, one in three children is persistently absent and missing 10 per cent of their education. With regard to PEF, therefore, how are we tracking impacts on the educational outcomes for those children, or is it just for teachers to look towards the projects that might help to improve those outcomes? I am thinking, for example, of the family link worker model that some schools have taken forward.

On Monday evening, we met some young people who have navigated the system. We got some really good feedback on some of the reforms, which we will capture and put on the record.

Given the conversation that we have just had, I will go back to the UCAS application process. On Monday, a suggestion was put to us on self-identification. Does the UCAS application form provide an opportunity to improve and broaden out the ability to self-identify early on? A number of people said that they did not think that it was fair to use SIMD20 as the measurement. They thought that taking a case-by-case approach, broadening it out and using school feedback on individuals would be far better. What are your thoughts on using the application process to do that?

Going back to John Mason’s point, some of the young people whom we spoke to on Monday evening referred to the UCAS application form. Although they do not tick boxes on that form, could there be boxes to enable them to do so, to perhaps passport them to a system in which they need not constantly repeat their stories? They felt that stigmatisation was almost built into the system. Do you have any thoughts on that? How could the issue be addressed at the very starting point, when people are applying for a course?

It was about the UCAS application form. There is a “care experienced” box for people to tick, but there are other characteristics that could be identified at the very starting point—