Swinney feels the heat over Scotland’s school crisis

The education secretary’s defeat on primary one testing is symptomatic of a wider malaise, writes Tom Peterkin

Holyrood defeat for John Swinney over his plans for primary one testing underlined that the education secretary is a more embattled minister than he has ever been before. As finance secretary, Mr Swinney was known for his mastery of his brief. The same cannot be said for the Deputy First Minister since he took over at education more than two years ago.

A large part of that must be down to the sheer number and the complex nature of challenges facing him.

As education secretary, Mr Swinney is experiencing the difficulties of trying to force through radical reform while meeting resistance from local authorities and teachers. There is also the complication that the SNP is no longer in command of a majority administration at Holyrood.

With Ms Sturgeon’s government unable to do as it pleases at Holyrood, last night’s vote was far from the first time a key policy for which Mr Swinney is responsible has found itself in difficulty.

This summer, faced with the prospect of parliamentary defeat, Mr Swinney shelved his Education Bill, which was supposed to be the vehicle for his flagship reforms to hand more powers to headteachers.

It had been envisaged that the bill would introduce a new Headteachers’ Charter giving school leaders the power to set the curriculum, hire staff and control their own finances. Also within its remit were Mr Swinney’s plans to create new regional bodies to support school improvement.

Mr Swinney’s pledge to try and work with councils to introduce the reforms sounded hollow, particularly when it is considered that the Education Bill was supposed to be a highlight of the government’s legislative agenda.

In addition, there has been the guddle of the named person legislation, which comes within Mr Swinney’s portfolio.

Dogged by controversy ever since it was proposed to give every Scottish child a named person, the scheme was condemned as unnecessarily intrusive and proved deeply unpopular.

Despite being introduced with the laudable intention of looking out for children’s welfare, it has been successfully challenged in the Supreme Court – presenting more problems for the education secretary.

Furthermore, Scottish education is suffering from a teacher recruitment crisis. Teacher morale is low and there are even threats of strike action over pay and conditions.

To suffer a humiliation on the scale of last night ups the ante on Mr Swinney, who is now under considerable pressure. To simply say that the problems he faces are down to the complexity of them does not tell the full story. Behind the scenes, some sources are suggesting that Mr Swinney is finding his travails tiresome and is growing a little fed up with the burden that has been placed on him.

That pressure is compounded by Ms Sturgeon’s high-profile promise to make sorting out Scotland’s classrooms her top priority.

Mr Swinney, however, is too much of a trooper to make such an admission himself. Blessed with a robust character and a strong work ethic, Mr Swinney will plough on.

But the long-term nature of his challenge was illustrated this summer when he made an appearance at the Edinburgh