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Along with me, the member will have sat through several evidence sessions that the committee has held with stakeholders. As well as hearing the same evidence from stakeholders as the member has heard in committee, which I think is reflected in the amendments that we have lodged, I have engaged with Education Scotland, the SCQF Partnership, previous inspectors and Ken Muir, as well as pupils, parents and the profession. As the member would expect, I have engaged widely on my proposal. Giving Education Scotland the accreditation function would ensure that we had a robust and respected qualifications system in which the awarding body was not marking its own homework.

Contrary to the cabinet secretary’s concerns about resourcing, I think that there are ways and means—as my colleague Stephen Kerr said—of ensuring that there could be a simple transfer of resources. The resource implications of my proposal should not preclude it from being an option. For the sake of clarity, I point out that the transfer of the accreditation function that amendment 291 provides for would not apply to the accreditation of degrees.

Thank you, convener. I was a bit premature when I intervened earlier—I should have said good morning to the cabinet secretary. Thank you for appearing before us, cabinet secretary.

I am quite disappointed that, on one of the most contested aspects of this version of the Government’s bill, the cabinet secretary has set out that the Government is not prepared to accept any amendments other than its own. That is not in the spirit of how I thought the cabinet secretary was engaging in this process, nor is it what the people who gave evidence to the committee would have been expecting. Indeed, some other committee members have surprised me slightly by their approach, too.

This issue really gets to the heart of why we are here and why we have this bill. To say that the bill has been a long time in coming is a bit of an understatement. The cabinet secretary has rightly pointed out that it predates her time in office, and it predates that of a previous cabinet secretary, too. In fact, it goes back to the current First Minister’s own bill, which did not succeed. It has been quite a long period of time, during which learners, staff in schools and staff in the SQA and all the other education bodies in Scotland have been left in limbo. Therefore, for the cabinet secretary to come here with an amendment that merely puts them into limbo for another two years is not, in my view, satisfactory.

The case for separating the accreditation function from qualifications Scotland has been made not just by people who have given evidence to the committee, but by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Professor Muir and, indeed, other Government advisers. However, the bill does not implement any meaningful reform in that regard, nor does it address some of the issues of credibility—or incredibility, if that is a better way to describe it—that have arisen as a result of some of the practices of the SQA, which my colleague Ross Greer has alluded to, not least the 2020 exam debacle, in which the poorest students were downgraded.

The profession, pupils and experts have all spoken with clarity on the matter. They have all said that the failure to separate the accreditation function makes the bill process a bit of a performative exercise and means that it stops short of meaningful reform. Allowing the new agency to mark its own homework would damage credibility. We need to restore credibility to the system, which is what my amendments and those in the name of Willie Rennie, which I support, would do.

The good thing about this group of amendments is that it gives the Government a lot of options, so it is disappointing for the Government to say that it will not pick any of those but will instead go with a two-year review. My amendment 291 would give Education Scotland the accreditation function, and amendment 357 is consequential to that. Amendment 292 would place a duty on Education Scotland to prepare and publish an annual report, in line with its having the accreditation function. As has previously been said, the purpose of those amendments is to provide the separation of functions that was suggested in Ken Muir’s report “Putting Learners at the Centre”.

If Jackie Dunbar lets me get to the end of what the amendment does, I will let her in then.

I think that amendment 295 presents opportunities arising from the extensive research carried out by a lot of the reviews, not just Ken Muir’s. I am thinking of, for example, the national conversation’s review of education and others. It could ensure that the expertise of subject specialists and the needs and views of young people are taken into account when the curriculum is being developed, and I think that placing the accreditation function with the new body would bring some really useful coherence to the system.

If curriculum Scotland had that function, it would kill two birds with one stone—for want of another way of describing it—and it is probably the most cost-effective way of doing everything suggested in Ken Muir’s “Putting Learners at the Centre” report. I also think that it would ensure that qualifications are developed and accredited in conjunction with the aspirations and ambitions of the national curriculum.

That is okay, convener. I was about to make a similar point. Nobody really wants to end up at a tribunal. Parents, local authorities, young people and even you, I am sure, do not want to end up there, but the reality is that, in some cases, that is what needs to happen. That mechanism is there because there must be something that enables people to uphold their rights. Are you considering what you can do to bring some systemic policy change to light, in the absence of what might otherwise be a relatively valuable legal ruling?

The issue is not so much about the pilot and its scalability at this point, as the pilot is still on-going. The point is that, during the process, organisations said that one of the issues that would always make the work difficult to do, even if the pilot was found to be good and useful, was that there is not an ease of data sharing.

We are trying to get a commitment from the cabinet secretary. We have previously been under the impression that the Government was considering the idea of a unique learner number. That was for a number of reasons, not least in the light of the Hayward review and in relation to the issue that we are discussing today. That is why I have raised the matter today, when we are talking about data sharing.

To be really clear, can the cabinet secretary confirm that the Government will now engage the Information Commissioner in considering whether a unique learner number would potentially be something that it could bring in, for data sharing and for other purposes?

Sorry, but I am finding this a little bit frustrating. I am not talking about any action that the Government takes on this being contingent on the learning from the pilot. In the discussion that the committee had, it was put to us that the ULN could be one solution not only in relation to the pilot in the north-east but in other areas, including in relation to what Hayward suggested in the review.

The minister said, “We have looked at it, but we cannot do it, but we are not sure why we cannot do it”—I have to say that he was not all that clear—but now, the Information Commissioner’s Office has said that the Government has not discussed the matter with it. I am trying to get some recognition of that and to give the Government an opportunity to say that it will now consider the suggestion, given that there was some acceptance from the minister that it might be useful. In fact, the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise also said that.

This is an opportunity for the Government to say that it will look at the matter and will engage with the Information Commissioner’s Office, regardless of what happens with the pilot. The pilot could be helpful in that regard, but pursuing the ULN issue is not necessarily contingent on the pilot.

That is helpful—thank you. You mentioned that a couple of the cases that you have looked at were settled so they did not necessarily change policy or strategically change the picture. Will you tell us a bit on the record about what you were concerned about and what you saw happening?

Are you able to share that sifting tool with the committee, or would that be difficult?

Does anyone else on the panel have anything to add on that before I ask my final question?

We received a letter from the Information Commissioner’s Office, which said:

“The committee should note that we have not, to date, had any discussions with the Scottish Government, local authorities or institutions on how data can be shared fairly and proportionately to support widening access to university ... Nor have we had any engagement with the Scottish Government on the Data Protection considerations associated with establishing an identifier like the ULN.”

I was surprised to read that, given the undertakings that we have had about the Government’s willingness to consider a unique learner number. Will you now engage with an open mind with a view to progressing that?