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I might defer to my officials on that. I think that the decision was taken prior to my time.

No—I do not think so. It is really important that the advisory council is there to challenge the chief inspector. It is not about having cosy consensus but about disrupting and challenging some of the status quo thinking around inspection. Part of that work lends itself to Janie McManus’s review of the strategic approach to inspection and how that will change in the future.

The point that I was trying to make in my earlier response is that, at the current time, there are a number of areas that we might have expected to be flagged up in inspection reports but which have not necessarily been. Perhaps our inspection reports are not looking at the right things. A number of stakeholders that the committee has heard from have a range of views on that matter, and the strategic advisory council will be helpful in providing that level of challenge.

I answered a Government-initiated question on that in June, and I set out a clearer approach for my view of Education Scotland as a body.

I should probably declare an interest as a previous employee, but Education Scotland has become an organisation that, to my mind, is involved in lots of different things in Scottish education. I have asked the chief executive to provide the sort of much more focused approach to curriculum support for the teaching profession that Learning and Teaching Scotland previously provided. We need to refocus some of the organisation’s strategic priorities to look at how it can better support the teaching profession. Historically, that is what it was all about; over time, though, it has become more about advice and guidance to the profession, and advice and guidance to teachers does not necessarily always land well. Practical support is better, and it is better if we can develop it with Scotland’s teachers.

The approach that we have used for curriculum improvement also speaks to the role of practitioners in the organisation. I know that it is a bit of a niche point, but I was a secondee to Education Scotland in 2012, when a team of us came out of school to support the development of the new qualifications. The approach to staffing had secondees coming in and out of school, and it was good for the system. It was good to get the opportunity to come out, work at national level and go back into school again.

The current approach to the staffing structure in that organisation, which Gillian Hamilton has inherited, is one of static employment. That is challenging, because it means that we need to look at the skill set that we have in the organisation. We also need to look out to the teaching profession, which is why the appointment of Andy Brown is really important for leading on numeracy. However, I want the same approach to be replicated in every curriculum area.

We need to think again about how we get teachers into that organisation. I see the centre for teaching excellence as playing a key role in that regard, by providing opportunities for folk to come out of school on short-term secondments and engage with pedagogy and practice in a way that professional development opportunities do not always allow for at local authority level.

They will not be the same organisations, because they have to change. We have spent a lot of this morning talking about what that change might be, whether it be structural, in relation to governance approaches, or whether it is cultural, in relation to how people are treated and how stakeholders are engaged with.

Obviously, a financial memorandum sits alongside the bill, so committee members will interrogate that. If there is an ask from Mr Kerr for additionality, I am happy to hear it. It might be challenging to deliver it in the current climate, but we have to consider these things in the round. We have to deliver meaningful change, and that is the challenge with this bill. The new organisation cannot be a replication of what came before.

I know that there is a range of views about the bill perhaps not satisfying everyone’s expectations. That is okay—we are at stage 1, so I will listen to views on how we can improve the legislation. However, standing still is not good enough, and I cannot deliver on the aspirations of Louise Hayward’s report unless we reform the qualifications body. The chronology is really important.

The funding is attached to the financial memorandum. Mr Kerr asked about engagement with stakeholders and how that might be better facilitated or supported financially. Again, I am happy to work with him on that. If he has strong views about our needing to reconsider the approach, we will look at what we can deliver, while recognising the challenging state of our public finances.

I think that there is a recognition in the SQA and in Education Scotland that things have to change, and they want to be part of the new change. It is not my role as cabinet secretary to talk for the staff, but in general, I would say that they are supportive of improvement and reform. However, they want to be part of it—they do not want it to be done to them—so it is important that we take them with us.

I am very amenable to that suggestion. We will reflect on it and provide an update to the committee, but I broadly agree that we need to be very mindful of BSL’s place as a language and how we can better reflect that in legislation.

When we go on school visits, we all see a side to schools that is presented to politicians, but I also know classroom teachers well. In schools, we need to try to build the opportunities for young people to be engaged. It is a bit like voter apathy. You have to try to reach those people. Scotland’s teachers do a really good job of reaching young people every day. I will pick on modern studies because it is a subject that is unique to the Scottish curriculum. It allows not only for decision making to be talked about in class but for apathy to be challenged.

Qualifications Scotland will have to work hard with Scotland’s teachers and schools to engage young people in decision making through the new approach to the charter and the learner interest committee. I suppose that your point is that we do not want to hear a host of the same voices that we routinely hear from the same stakeholders. I know that the committee has taken evidence on that. We routinely hear from the same stakeholders in Scottish education and we need to think critically about how we go wider than that. Although the voices that are heard at this committee are important, there are other voices out there. How do we pull out those who are perhaps, as Mr Mason has pointed out, apathetic?

They are referenced in the policy memorandum, but they will also be part of the learner interest committee and the charter. We will also look at developing guidance on how we can support further clarification on that point.

I heard the challenge in relation to the point regarding parents and carers. I should also say that, more broadly, as committee members might be aware—I think that Ms Duncan-Glancy asked me a topical question on this not that long ago—we have changed the way in which we fund parental organisations in Scotland. We are now providing additional funding to Connect to develop a national assembly. That approach to having a parent voice at the national level will be very important to challenging the Government on a range of issues, not least qualifications.

In the policy memorandum.

We can consider that. Again, we must be mindful that too much stipulation in primary legislation can be challenging. It can limit and dilute the pool of people who are available to fulfil some of these opportunities. I am happy to hear views from committee members to that end. If the committee is minded to ensure that that is specified, we can look at that, although there might be some unintended consequences of doing so.

Mr Mason’s point is about whether that representative might be there to speak on their own behalf or on behalf of a trade union, for example. I will work with committee members on that if the committee has a strong feeling about it. At the moment, it is fair to say that we are taking an open approach.