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That is a matter that the Parliament will have to respond to.

Ah, right—okay. Regarding leavers’ destinations more broadly, some of the challenge relates to the pandemic generation, and we have talked about some of the impacts in that regard. How we measure what success looks like is a broader challenge.

In its report, the committee highlighted the disconnect between the aspirations that are set out in the national improvement framework and the stretch aims. That challenge is partly borne out by the fact that today’s broad educational offer looks totally to different to when you and I were at school, and lots of different qualifications are delivered. At the current time, I am not clear—headteachers will probably agree with this—that we are gathering the totality of achievements in all our measurements.

Some of that is quite unhelpful for the full story. Last week, on the radio, Mr Briggs received a bit of pushback on that from a headteacher, who said, “If you look narrowly at one measure, what you are saying is right, but actually, you need to look at the totality of achievements”. Historically, we had a cohort of young people who left school with no awards or qualifications. Nowadays, they are more likely to have national progression awards or national 3 qualifications and be supported to achieve and go on to a positive destination as a result.

Therefore, the gap is in part due to our measurements—you might have a view on that. Local government has a view on it, and it uses the measurements that are set out in the stretch aims. Officials will correct me if I am wrong, because it is a long time since I looked at this, but it does that because Insight, which is the tool that is used by headteachers and school staff, looks at the totally of qualifications across the piece. It presents a truer story in terms of the full picture of destinations.

I am comfortable, convener, because, if I do not move now, we will not have an operational board to fulfil the functions of the new body. There is a requirement on me, on which I have been advised by my officials, to move forward on that—to have the board ready to operate.

It is worth saying that, if the motion on the order is not agreed to today, it will not be possible to start making regulated board appointments to qualifications Scotland before its establishment. It is hugely important that that body has a working board that is ready from day 1 to undertake the work that we expect it to do.

Such matters will be discussed in relation to the amendments that are lodged. As I have made clear to the convener, we will look to engage with committee members across the Parliament on that basis.

We will then have parity across the group.

The ACEL data are official statistics and are rigorously tested and assessed by our analysts. That is important.

That is when the ACEL data was introduced.

Which other measure—

The stretch aims that Ms Taylor talked about have been fundamental. When the Government looked at the nine challenge model and accepted that we would take the strategic equity fund approach for all local authorities, we attached that funding to a requirement for local authorities to report on their stretch aims. Mr Rennie and I have previously discussed the stretch aims, and perhaps his views in relation to ambition, but if the stretch aims were adhered to, we would close the poverty-related attainment gap by 30 per cent, I think, by the end of this session of the Parliament.

It is important to say that when we are talking about closing the poverty-related attainment gap, we are talking about actions at local level. That requires central Government, yes, but it also requires local governments—which are not here today—to adhere to the requirements that are set out in their stretch aims, which they have committed to working towards. I go back to Mr Rennie’s points about the data, which I hear he is not necessarily convinced about. I will bring in Mr Gregory in relation to his team’s work on the issue and the improvement that they have seen throughout the attainment challenge.

To build on that point, the role of the school has changed since I was last working in a school and even in the past 10 years. Schools are now doing so many other things—members will be familiar with that from their visits in their constituencies. Schools provide services that they did not provide 10 or 15 years ago.

Part of that is due to the Scottish attainment challenge—schools are thinking again about how they support the broader community. It is also because schools are open and accessible to families, while many other places are not. Families go to schools and find support. The primary school in Kirkcaldy that I mentioned is doing a lot of work with parents and with mums in the morning on supporting their mental health and wellbeing. That did not happen when I was at school, and it certainly did not happen 15 years ago when I was teaching.

The way that we fund our schools is different. However, schools are also mopping up a lot of societal challenges. In that context—this may be a political point—all parties going into the 2026 election need to think about how we sustainably fund our schools. SAC and PEF will meet some of the need, but we will be required to look again at, for example, how we provide support for health outcomes in schools, which we know are being supported across the country.