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I will go back to the convener’s line of questioning about the children and families for whom lockdown provided an opportunity for engagement with education that was not happening before. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland made that point to us a few weeks ago, and I am interested in Joan Tranent’s perspective on it. She talks rightly about the need for us to bear that engagement in mind and for social work teams to bear it in mind for their future strategies for schools. However, schools have been back to something approaching normal since August. In-person learning has been the default since that point.

From what Joan Tranent has seen and heard so far, for the children who re-engaged with education—perhaps for the first time in quite some time—through lockdown and remote learning, has learning at local authority or school level been preserved or are we already seeing instances of children who were disengaged pre-pandemic and engaged by the unique circumstances of remote learning starting to disengage again because the adaptations that were made for them have not been continued? Are there good examples of schools, local authorities or social work teams that have managed to continue the link with children for whom it was challenging before March last year?

That would be much appreciated. Turning to the broader question, for the past few weeks, the committee has been struggling with how to distinguish between the substantial amount of anecdotal evidence that we have now received and rigorous, verifiable data that is being collected on exactly how the pandemic has affected children, young people and their families—precisely because of the issues that we have just discussed. We know that the pandemic has had negative consequences across the board, although there are unique circumstances in which it has done the opposite. However, it has not inflicted the same level of harm on everyone for whom it has been harmful.

Mike Corbett, you mentioned the US and the Netherlands, where surveys, diagnostic work and so on were done before targeted funds were deployed. I am keen for you to expand a little bit on that. What would the NASUWT like to happen here in terms of further study and further evidence gathering before we deploy additional funds?

The difficulty in tracking PEF money has been a long-running source of frustration in Parliament.

Paragraph 11 of your submission mentions the need for “ongoing system-level evaluation” if we are to verify whether recovery is happening. However, I am conscious that that could easily be done in a way that simply increases the workloads of teachers and support staff in schools and at the local authority level. What would an effective system of on-going evaluation look like? I hesitate to use the phrase “a light-touch system” but you know what I mean by that—a system that will not unnecessarily increase the workload of those who are already overwhelmed.

From your experience of Government, do you think that all boards are held equally accountable by ministers? There are a substantial number of public bodies and some ministers are responsible for a substantial proportion of them. Boards such as Scottish Enterprise, SQA and Creative Scotland are the high-profile public bodies—a large section of the population will have some interaction with them—but a number of other bodies fall a little bit into the background. At ministerial level, is there sufficiently consistent scrutiny of the performance of boards?

That would certainly be the case. It is my view that Parliament has not been as effective as we could have been in scrutiny of the boards of public bodies. That said, Parliament could always do more than it will ever have capacity for.

I will take the example that you gave of Scottish Enterprise and the letter of guidance. Is it core to the board’s purpose—separate from the senior management team and the people who deliver for and operate the organisation—to scrutinise how effectively the organisation, through its senior management team, have delivered what is in your letter of guidance in terms of strategic priorities? Perhaps it is the board’s purpose to scrutinise the internal governance of the organisation—it is almost divorced from the purpose of the organisation—as would be the case for any other public body.

I have a final question. Is there sufficient turnover on the boards of public bodies? I refer to people who have active experience on boards. I am aware that a number of individuals move from the board of one public body to the board of another and will be involved in corporate governance of public sector bodies over a continuous period. Is there high enough turnover in Scotland as a whole for us to bring in people who have direct experience of the sector in which the board works, or who have other relevant experience? Could we do with a little bit more scrutiny of an individual’s length of service across public sector governance, rather than just the individual board on which they might be serving at any given time?

I want to return to accountability. I am interested specifically in the Government’s position on the role of boards of public bodies and of non-departmental public bodies. It seems to me that the board of a public body could play a variety of roles. There is a bog-standard corporate governance role—whereby the board focuses on issues such as human resources practices—or it can look more at the operational policy decisions of the body for which it is responsible.

I will give an example that I used in a previous evidence session. The board of Creative Scotland is largely made up of professionals from the creative industries who understand that area of public policy. By contrast, the board of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, with which the cabinet secretary will be familiar, has a teacher on it, but it also has three management consultants. That would be entirely legitimate if the purpose of the board of a public body was to focus on corporate governance issues such as HR, but it seems to me that there is inconsistency in how the boards of public bodies in Scotland understand their functions and purpose. What is the Government’s position on the purpose of those boards?

Convener, I think that John Dickie is looking to come in with a word on Bob Doris’s final question.

We will probably want to return to that issue.

I go back to the deputy convener’s line of questioning on the positive interventions that have been made over the past 18 months. Last week, the committee heard evidence from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. He made the point that the pandemic—perversely, given its overwhelmingly negative consequences—did allow for some breakthroughs and positive developments. For example, in some cases, remote learning gave schools an opportunity to connect with young people who were already disengaged from school, and with their families, in a way that they had not been able to do successfully before.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on whether there have been any positive interventions or developments caused by the pandemic that we are now in danger of losing as we return to normal, whatever that means. Are there any particular changes in practice that, although they were caused by a change of circumstances that was overwhelmingly outwith our control, we should look to preserve because of the benefits that they brought about? I am thinking about developments beyond the stuff that John Dickie mentioned, such as additional funding and free school meals. I am interested in changes in practice, in particular. Perhaps John can start on that.

Before I go on to my main line of questioning, I will pick up on Colin Morrison’s point about the UNCRC. During the bill process and since the bill was passed, everyone in the public sector and politics that I have encountered has broadly been speaking the same language about the UNCRC, but I am concerned that there is inconsistency in understanding how it will change the practice of service providers and so on. Colin Morrison made a valid point about the difference between local flexibility and inconsistency in compliance with rights. Do you think that there is a broad and consistent understanding across Scotland about what the UNCRC will actually mean for service providers and their practice?