06/09/2016 Scotland 2016

Nicola Sturgeon has reiterated that education is the "defining mission"

But after more than nine years in power, what changes

Hello and welcome to Scotland 2016 on the day the SNP announced

The First Minister is building her reputation on improving the lot

I'll ask the Education Secretary John Swinney what changes teachers

and parents will see and how quickly.

The Scottish Conservatives say they want to see

genuine education reform - so I'll ask their leader

Ruth Davidson if she's backing the government's plans.

And Parliament unveils a portrait of one of its most formidable

and well-known former members, Margo MacDonald.

A ?500m fund to help Scottish businesses,

a bill to combat child poverty, how to use new powers

on tax and welfare and a new domestic abuse law.

Nicola Sturgeon covered plenty of political ground as she unveiled

But there was also a sharp focus on education, in particular

the ambition to close the attainment gap between children from poorer

and wealthier backgrounds - as John Mcmanus reports.

Let me turn now to what I have already described as the defining

mission of this government. Education. It wasn't the first

subject she mentioned in her address to Holyrood, but there's no doubt

that education has moved centrestage in Nicola Sturgeon's political

drama. She announced more free childcare and ?150 million of extra

funding to tackle deprivation in schools. But it was these comments

on assessments that are likely to leave observers wanting more.

Detail, that is. Our additional investment will be matched by

reform. Implementation of the new National improvement formwork is

already underway. Standardised assessments, not tests, but

assessments, that inform teacher judgments, will be piloted before

the end of the year and implemented across Scotland next year. That on

assessments, not tests, was deliberate, because many in the

educational establishment are lukewarm about the plans. One of

them is this lecturer, who claims he spent a year using Freedom of

information legislation to try to find out what advice the government

received on the subject. He says the written advice from external sources

was not much. That amounts to four e-mails from two individuals. The

government haven't only received those four e-mails defends the

positions by saying they had lots of meetings, and that is true, but they

have also been forced to admit those meetings were not minuted. There is

no written evidence of the advice the government received. Given there

is such a small amount of advice we can see, it is concerning to find

out that, actually, several recommendations in that very limited

written advice have not been accepted. The curriculum for

excellence focuses on giving pupils a rounded education. But some within

the profession say that tests or assessments may have a place. It's

not about narrowing down to a single test, but looking at broader

achievement. What we are discussing at the moment its assessment that

support teachers multiplayer -- teachers' judgment. Test scores are

used to compare schools, that has proven to be the very thing that

actually write and is the attainment gap rather than narrowing it.

Bridging that gap is a priority, but they will have to get their heads

down. Recent figures were an eye-opener. We know the most recent

results from the Scottish survey of literacy and numeracy have shown a

dip that is significant in numerous and literature -- literature over

the last two years. She's open to the idea of testing, so long as it

does not start at tables arms race between schools. She says changing

attitude is key. At school, research shows that very young children in

primary one to three, if they are middle class and can't do work will

instantly asked the teacher. If they don't get the help, they will follow

the teachings of the get the help. The child in poverty does not have

that sense that the adult is there to dance attention on them. They

will sit quietly with their hand up waiting for the help to be provided.

Obviously, the middle-class child gets the help more quickly and get

some better. I have said I want to be judged in our success in

narrowing and ultimately closing the attainment gap. We must not tolerate

a situation where some children from deprived areas do less well at

school than those from affluent areas. There is a lot riding on this

for Nicola Sturgeon. She will have to work with the education

establishment. It is a old ambition. There are vulnerabilities because

she is not necessarily in control of the process. She cannot just tick a

box and make it happen. She will be dependent, very much, on partnership

working, with communities, families, schools, with the teaching

profession. That will be in order to close the attainment gap. It is a

old ambition, a genuine one, but very difficult to achieve. Not

impossible, though. But if standards do not rise, parents will make their

own assessment of the First Minister's efforts.

So what practical changes will teachers and pupils

I've been asking the Education Secretary, John Swinney.

The government has set out that, over the next ten years, we are

working to close the attainment gap in Scottish education and to make

significant progress during the course of this five-year term that

is in front of us. You're working towards it over the next ten years.

You say this is the defining mission of her government, that is a long

time frame. I don't think you will sort these issues overnight. We have

to accept there is a challenge to close the attainment gap, but the

government has put in place the necessary lift leadership and

direction to focus the whole of the education system and our wider

public policy system on that objective, because it is absolutely

essential that we ensure every individual is able to fulfil their

potential as they move through the education system. That's direction,

that leadership, that the Scottish movement has offered, to focus on

the question of attainment, I think, is now very well embedded in the

education system in Scotland and we continue to work to achieve those

objectives. Nicola Sturgeon talks about giving more power to school,

she is offering funds directly from central government. By the day 's

number for the role that local commonplace in our schools? No, I

have made it expressly cleared that local authorities will continue to

exercise democratic control over Scottish education at a local level.

That has been a long-standing part of Scottish education policy and the

Scottish Government has absolutely no intention of taking that power

away from local government. Not when cash from the council tax changes.

We intend to make sure that more decisions are able to be taken in

schools to reflect the circumstances that pertain for the individual

groups of children and young people in different parts of the country.

We want the teaching profession to be able to exercise the leadership

and the direction in which we know the teaching profession is capable

of doing at local level to make sure that the quality of education and

the needs of young people I met in a very direct way in every single

school in the country. Explain how you gauge the cash going directly to

the head teachers as being well spent. There has to be

accountability over all public expenditure that is undertaken. If

we have a cohort of teaching professionals who are leading

education in every single classroom in our country, if we trust these

teachers to undertake the education of our young people, then we must

surely be able to trust them to take the right decisions about the way in

which resources are used as local level to maximum effect in the

classroom. That is the central objective of the reforms that I will

set up further detail about in a consultation exercise next week. To

establish exactly how we can ensure that the teaching profession has

that level of responsibility to take the decisions that are appropriate

to meet the needs of young people in everything but what of the country.

They have had that responsibility until now. We have seen problems

with the attainment gap. What is the accountability year in terms of the

money being spent? There must be accountability around all public

expenditure and these are issues upon which we will consult and the

detail about the cause of the government review that I will set

out next week. The purpose of these reforms is to make sure the teaching

profession is properly and fully empowered to take decisions that are

appropriate for young people in every single part of the country and

to make sure that young people are supported in fulfilling their

potential. That is the key way that we can close the attainment gap, by

making sure that the needs of young people are addressed and we provide

the support and the educational intervention that will most

adequately meet their requirements. What is the difference between an

assessment and a test? The approach we intend to take is the approach of

standardised assessments, which will essentially be information that is

gathered through young people participating in these assessments,

and that will be used to inform teacher judgments so that we can get

an appropriate assessment at various stages in the educational journey of

young people. Sounds suspiciously like they are sitting tests. What

they are doing is participating in assessments that will inform teacher

judgment. There will be asked questions and had to give answers

and that those answers will be assessed. That is a test, isn't it?

What it is is an assessment that will be part of the judgment that is

made by teachers about the progress that young people are making through

the education system. The key purpose of that assessment is to

identify where we need to undertake additional intervention to ensure

that we can close the attainment gap we young people within Scotland. We

will only be able to close the attainment gap if we have good,

thorough and comprehensive and comparative information about the

performance of young people and how we can intervene to address their

particular needs and their challenges. That is the purpose of

standardised assessment. It is to make sure we can undertake a

comparative process across the young people in the schools in Scotland to

inform the judgment of teachers and to make sure we can most effectively

fulfil the potential of young people in our education system. We heard

from an education writer and campaigner who says he spent eight

year is admitting Freedom of information requests which

ultimately show you base your decisions on standardised testing,

although you are calling that assessment, on a couple of e-mails

from two educational experts and a series of meetings when no minis

were taken. That doesn't seem like a very rigorous process. It was a huge

body of international educational debate and opinion about the role of

standardised assessment within education. That body of opinion is

information that we have looked to undertake and views from a range of

different people as part of the process to ensure that we arrive at

a situation that enables us to make informed judgments... To enable

teachers to arrived at informed judgments about the forms of young

people within the education system. We want particular to be able to

intervene and to act to deliver the best outcomes for the latest young

people as part of the education system. Standardised assessment

is... Sue Ellis is an expert at submitted e-mails here. She told a

website to match that there should be more sources supplying evidence

to Scottish Government consultation processes. Given this is such a big

decision, it doesn't sound as though you cast your net very wide. It is

interesting observation. I spend two days last week with the

International Council of education advisers, who are advising the

Scottish Government on education policy. These were two very, very

rich and intense days of discussion and dialogue with some of the

leading international experts in Scottish education. We are a very

lucky country to have access to such a body of information and advice at

our disposal. I also, in the short time I have been Education

Secretary, I am listening very directly to the teaching profession.

I have established a teachers panel. A panel of experts involved in our

classroom, some of our finest teachers in the country,

contributing to the discussion of policy in Scotland. That is before

it gets to the assessment and qualifications group which brings

together a whole range of different stakeholder and professional opinion

within the professional associations to advise me on the right steps to

take in Scottish education. I don't think there is any shortage of

advisory sources that the government looks to to inform public policy and

make sure our policy meets the needs of people in Scotland. We are

grateful for your time this evening, thank you.

In their manifesto this year the Tories talked

about giving schools, teachers and parents more freedom

so that every school has the chance to become a unique and great local

school - in or out of local authority control.

So is their Leader Ruth Davidson wholeheartedly supporting

We have had closing the attainment gap as a top rarity for some time

now but there were concerns about what was available today. In order

to show that -- make sure that the gap is narrowing we need to be able

to measure that. We would like to see national tests reintroduced.

When the Scottish Government says in classrooms it will be assessments,

not tests, you would like to call them tests and make them tests. They

haven't ever clarified the difference. They started off by

calling it the reintroduction of testing and that is different to the

tests I was just speaking about, that is international tests where we

measure Scottish pupils against pupils in other countries, but

internally we want to be able to measure, because we think it is

wrong that parents can wait until a child is 14th before they have any

idea of how a child is doing in school against their peers. -- is

14. My colleague asked today exactly what the difference between testing

and assessments was and there was no answer. Your last manifesto talked

about targets particularly for reading and numbers. What would be

your assessment of what would happen if children didn't meet those

targets? Would schools be taken out of local authority control? We have

to be able to measure if schools and pupils in those schools are doing

well enough to stop then you have to be able to give extra support where

it is needed. There is a bigger issue here, we heard today about

reforms of schools. We have been well in front of the curve in saying

we need to empower local teachers and school leaders. What we didn't

hear from today's programme for government was what form that reform

would take, whether it would be further centralisation, taking

control from councils to some supranational body, or whether that

is about empowering the people who know their pupils best, the teachers

and school leaders. You talk about schools becoming great, and I'm sure

every politician has that aspiration, but you talk about him

in or out of local authority control. The Scottish Government has

given ?100,000 directly to schools, actually ?200 million directly to

schools, to close the attainment gap. Would you give more money to

schools? We supported that at the last election and we haven't been

ideological about this. It is not about whether it is in a local

authority or a mixture. I have talked on this programme before

about the teachers in mill guy who want to be able to run St Joseph's

out of local authority control. That case is still sitting on the First

Minister's desk. I think those people deserve an answer because in

many ways it is a test case of how ideological the Scottish Government

is going to be about schooling rather than focusing on what works.

Today you called for tax cuts for business, you complained about

personal tax being higher than the rest of the UK. There is a ?15

million deficit for Scotland, so this is not the right time for it,

is it? We need to grow the economy, and you don't increase productivity

or the number of businesses set up if it is harder to do business in

Scotland than elsewhere in the UK. There are also some things the

Scottish Government have put in in terms of the economy weaken support,

money for research and development, things like the manufacturing

Institute. When you say that one in eight businesses have to pay over

the odds to do business north of the border than south of it, that

hampers growth, it tells people that we are not open for business and it

doesn't encourage the local business sectors. You saw a letter written by

13 business organisations across Scotland yesterday telling the

Scottish Government to drop this large business supplement.

Interestingly you today made the point that there may be trouble

ahead with the economy pros to Brexit, as Theresa May has said, but

you also said we don't see a lot of scope for SNP conservative

consensus. -- the economy after Brexit. We said there were things we

could support, like... You don't see much scope for consensus in the

economic path forward. The biggest economic lever they could pull in

the Scottish Government is to take demand for a second independence

referendum off the table. It is a subject you love returning to

because you made it one of the central planks of the recent

election, the first thing you mentioned in your manifesto in the

last election. I would be delighted to never talk about this again

because the SNP would respect the referendum we had, the country voted

for the union by a massive margin. To continue to talk about that is

hampering Scottish business and the economy and we know that because

companies are telling us. Giving that you supported the Remain

campaign in EU referendum, were you was appointed by the lack of detail

that David Davis had yesterday. I recognise there will be difficulties

ahead because of the Brexit result, you are right that I wanted us to

remain, but it is right to not show your hand before you have to in

negotiations. In Chequers last week the decision was made around the

Cabinet table that the UK Government wouldn't be putting the negotiating

position in the public realm before negotiating. You will be part of the

negotiating team so can you tell us what kind of post Brexit deal,

immigration package, would the good for Scotland? All through the summer

I have met with representatives from the fishing industry, financial

services and energy industries, and they are all looking to make sure

that any problems on the horizon can be addressed, like passport thing in

financial services and opportunities for the future. There are number of

representatives keen to get a much better deal out of Europe then on

the way in. That is what many people across Scotland want to see, trying

to find the best way to protect what we value and increase the

opportunities of that which we have been denied through Europe in the

past. Thank you for joining us. She "left a legacy of ideas

which have inspired a generation". The words of Jim Sillars

as he unveiled a portrait of his late wife Margo MacDonald

at Holyrood today. Her 40-year contribution to politics

saw her serve as an MP, MSP Now her likeness -

painted by Scottish artist Gerard M Burns

- graces Holyrood. I was married to Margo for 33 years.

You would expect that I loved and adored her but also I as one

politician to another admired her. Margo had a wonderful mind that

encompassed an incredible intellect and from that intellect flowed ideas

that have inspired more than a generation and I still get people

coming up to me telling me that they remember a speech or statement she

made that made the light bulb come on in their heads. Her view was that

somebody who disagreed with her in a democracy was not an enemy but an

opponent and there is a world of difference between the two and how

you treat people. I would sometimes hope that today's

generation of political activists would take a lesson from Margo,

because the abuse that is now widespread in the social media is

actually damaging to democracy. She was a star of the independence

movement and also I believe that the work that she did in relation to the

protection of prostitutes in our society, not a very easy one to take

on but she took it on, and the other one of course is the question still

unresolved of assisted dying. I don't want to burden any doctor,

any friend or family member. I am so pleased this is here because

this is where Margo used to sit and gossip will stop -- and gossip. I

would phone and say, your tea is ready. She would say, I will be home

in ten minutes. It never happened. When we saw the painting at home for

the first time ten months ago it was a shock because there was Margo with

us in that particular moment. I am so pleased that it is now

permanently hung in this parliament that she graced with star quality.

Jim Sillars talking about his late wife Margo MacDonald.

Joining me now to discuss today's news we have health journalist

Pennie Taylor and the former SNP advisor Andy Collier.

Good evening. Let's run through some of the measures we haven't talked

about within the legislative programme today. The first thing the

first Minister mentioned was a passenger duty and her long-standing

commitment to cut that. Labour say that is a tax cut for the rich. Is

that true nowadays, is it only the rich who travel by air? A lot of

people would be relishing the thought that it would cost less to

go on holiday from Scotland and I suppose the plan would be that

business would come our way but Patrick Harvie of the Green party

said how does this square with climate change legislation and

cutting emissions's only this morning we had research that seemed

to link air pollution with rising rates of dementia. There are serious

environmental issues that you have to square with whatever benefits

there are two cutting air passenger Judy. You could argue it is a

populist measures because politicians like to be popular. Of

course. Personally I think it is a good measure, it will make a big

difference to business, it is a reduced cost. People like Michael

O'Leary from Ryanair might be not the most popular, but as a

businessman he thinks it would stimulate air travel. There are

climate implications, I accept that. It is not as if Glasgow airport is

Heathrow or Gatwick. We were told initially it was to help stimulate

the economy but these airports are growing pretty well without this

cut. They are, but aside from the issue of growth there is the issue

of how many particularly international destinations that we

serve from Glasgow and Edinburgh. If you lick at a country of Kim Barrett

pulled -- can parable size, Dublin has more than twice what our main

airports have. -- can parable size. This measure will help to grow the

traffic without the real pain of having to go to an airport like

Heathrow or Manchester. It is the only tax cut in the package. The big

elephant in the room is exit. These measures are being brought forward

but we don't know how Brexit will ink up the economy. When there is an

announcement that there will be support of that size, ?5 billion to

attract funding, that caused to me a real intake of death because it

indicated there is a real problem coming our way, compare it to the

amount given to health care. It is the big unknown, how Brexit will

affect us. Politicians in London say we have bounced back from the post

referendum gloom. We don't know what will happen, there is very little

implication of what will happen but very little has happened yet in

terms of withdrawal. I think the ?500 million towards business will

help enormously, it is medium-sized dozens is which particularly need

access to finance them but there is other good stuff, the education

programme is very ambitious, the domestic violence stuff is good. It

is a well rounded Rob Gramm and the Scottish Government has produced a

90 page booklet which goes into great detail. -- well rounded

programme. Is it deliver a? The SNP is a minority so they will have to

look across the chamber at Holyrood to get this through. -- can it be

delivered? Can the nursery sector cope with the new deflation? There

has been a welcome announcements about the living wage being

introduced and somebody has to pay for this. A lot of nurseries are

private nurseries, care homes will be affected by this as well, people

providing care at home. How are they going to be expected to meet those

costs? I think there will be a lot of discussion further down the line.

Wonderful announcements like for instance 100% coverage of superfast

broadband. That will be seriously welcomed by those people who live

out with the central belt. -- outside the central belt. Other

questions about the availability of funds? I have no doubt the whole

question will be very carefully costed and they will be additional

money in inflation terms I imagine from London. The figures will have

been worked out but I think it will be a chance to meet these

objectives. Money will come in from the council tax going up next April

that has been dedicated to deprived schools, which seems sensible, but

there will have to be a lot of calculating going on to see if they

can make these numbers stack up. And some of it will fall on private

companies who are providing these services. I haven't heard any

pledges about meeting there extra costs will stop there is going to be

a lot of debate as this gets unpicked and we see what really

happens out in the real world. A lot of work to be done in terms of

ringing others on in the chamber. It will be tricky, some will be fine

but they don't have a majority any more, two seats short, so a lot of

talking will have to go on. We will watch with interest, a lot to be

delivered over the coming weeks and months and years. Thank you both

very much for coming in to join us tonight.

I'm back again tomorrow night, usual time.

In an unforgiving time, Scotland had its heroes.

Then, as our sense of Scottishness flourished,

our football saw unprecedented decline.

Scotland over-estimate how good they are.

They are a limited group. They're an honest, solid, limited group.

We've now got to look forward to the dreams. We can do it.