Call to ban zero-hours contracts in school data

Calling a zero-hours contract a “positive destination” for Scotland’s school leavers is no longer “fit for purpose”, Iain Gray, Scottish Labour education spokesman has said.

Scottish Labour is proposing an overhaul of how the Scottish Government measures where 16- to 19-year-old school leavers end up.

He has released proposals including banning zero-hours contracts from government statistics and reintroducing the “longitudinal” approach of the previous Labour-libdem Scottish Executive’s Scottish School Leavers Survey, tracking youngsters’ progress over several years.

Mr Gray said: “SNP ministers have long hidden behind ‘positive destination’ statistics which count almost any job, no matter how temporary or insecure, as a success. There’s nothing positive about the rise in zero-hours contracts, but that’s how they are classified by the SNP.

“We can’t start to improve outcomes until we know what a successful transition from education to employment is. The Scottish Government’s criteria is no longer fit for purpose.

“If SNP ministers are serious about improving life chances for the next generation, they have to get serious about facing up to how well, or how badly, their policies are working.”