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All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
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Displaying 1250 contributions
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Ross Greer
Where should that sit in relation to the bill? We cannot be incredibly prescriptive with our measures of success in primary legislation because we do not know where we will be in 20 years on all sorts of fronts. However, the bill is an opportunity for us to create some requirements in that space.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Ross Greer
Thank you. I will put the same question about measuring success to Donald Macleod and Joanna Peteranna. In the current policy landscape, before we take into consideration what the bill would do, are you clear about how you are supposed to be measuring success in your areas and what the metrics are? Is that something that you are able to do? Is the data available for you to confidently assess whether or not success is happening?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 15 May 2024
Ross Greer
I will put the same package of questions to Joanna Peteranna. Is Highlands and Islands Enterprise clear on how it should be measuring success currently? Will the bill change anything in relation to how you measure success?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Ross Greer
The Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee’s written submission suggests that more direct scrutiny of the commissioner’s budget separate from the scrutiny of the SPCB’s overall budget would be beneficial. Nothing is immediately stopping any committee from deciding to do direct scrutiny like that, but it does not ordinarily happen.
What are your thoughts on that? On the one hand, you could say that it would allow for a more effective level of scrutiny than currently. Given our incredibly tight timescale for budget scrutiny and every committee’s wide range of responsibilities, it would immediately come up against an acute version of the capacity issues that we have just discussed. Do you have any thoughts specifically on separating scrutiny of the commissioner budgets from that of the overall SPCB budget and specifically assigning that to committees as a specific part of their overall budget scrutiny?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Ross Greer
Finally on capacity, if every one of the currently proposed commissioner models were to be agreed to, how would that impact your committee’s workload? As a member of the education committee, I am aware that some of the proposed commissioners, whether for disabled people or learning disabilities, neurodiversity and autism, have direct relationships with substantial areas of the committee’s scrutiny. Would the obligation to scrutinise the work of those commissioners aid the committee’s ability to scrutinise or would it displace other important work?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Meeting date: 14 May 2024
Ross Greer
I am conscious that we are holding this inquiry while a wider debate goes on, marking the 25th anniversary of the Parliament, around Parliament’s capacity. The Presiding Officer and Murdo Fraser have both suggested that we look again at the number of MSPs, particularly in relation to our overall capacity to do committee scrutiny.
Mr Whitfield, a minute ago, you said something interesting about how the vehicles that are available to Parliament for scrutiny and accountability of the commissioners are not sufficient. Does that comment purely relate to capacity or could we reform other structural and process issues without opening the wider capacity question? It does need to be opened but for plenty of other reasons.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 8 May 2024
Ross Greer
Yes, please do.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 8 May 2024
Ross Greer
I am keen to hear from Gillian Munro and Lydia Rohmer on that, but first of all, I just want to check something. Does the current pathway involve getting a higher national diploma, or did you say that it was a higher national certificate?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 8 May 2024
Ross Greer
And is that currently available only through UHI?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Meeting date: 8 May 2024
Ross Greer
I will stick with Dr Munro for the next question. With the three-to-18 curriculum for excellence model, we have, in essence, a curriculum that is designed and produced in English, and we then work backwards to deliver it in GME. Would there be particular advantages to a curriculum model that originated in Gaelic? What would be the challenges in developing that?