Was damning report on education watered down to hide the truth?
Warnings over pupils’ progress ‘taken out of original’
A DAMNING report on how Scottish schools are failing thousands of pupils was ‘watered down’ after originally being even more scathing.
Audit Scotland took out warnings that pupils in the rest of the UK were improving faster than Scots, after its draft report was viewed by civil servants.
In a scathing attack at First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Labour leader Johann Lamont told MSPs that the ‘first casualty of this government is the truth’.
The original report warned that pupils in Scotland were improving at a ‘ much slower pace’ than the rest of the UK.
It also highlighted a £184million – 5 per cent – budget cut in education spending over three years to 2012-13.
However, the final report said Scotland’s performance was similar to England and Wales.
The reduction in spending was no longer described as a ‘budget cut’, but rather the result of employing fewer staff.
Miss Lamont told the chamber: ‘The truth about our schools was in the draft report but the final report was watered down.
‘We are entitled to know who decided to do that. Is it not the case that the first casualty of the government is the truth?
‘Is it not the case that, just as with everything else, the First Minister does not trust the people of Scotland with the truth?’
However, Alex Salmond hit back by insisting education had improved under his watch and not when Labour was in government.
‘The problem for Johann Lamont is that the comparisons with the position under the Labour Party do not rely just on the report by Audit Scotland,’ the First Minister said.
‘They also rely on the PISA (Pro- gramme for International Student Assessment) statistics, which show t hat Scotland’s performance declined when she was a minister.
‘I do not hold her personally responsible but she was jointly and severally liable for that decline, but that attainment has improved since the SNP came to power. That is a substantial achievement in the circumstances of austerity.’
Even after being ‘watered down’, the report shows schools are lagging behind in global education rankings, with Poland and Estonia outperforming Scots pupils in maths, despite £3.8billion being spent on Scots schools each year.
Since 2006, the year before the SNP came to power, performance in reading, science and maths has ‘remained static’ and there is a ‘considerable gap between Scotland and top performing countries,’ according to Audit Scotland.
It is not the first time an unflattering report has been watered down after a draft was viewed by government officials.
Officials at Healthcare Improvement Scotland were said to have ‘doctored’ a report on care at Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital last year.
The Scottish Government was accused of a ‘culture of cover up’ after a draft of the report said 35 patients had been left on trolleys and wheelchairs for as long as six hours while waiting for a bed, but the final copy stated only that ‘some’ patients had been left on trolleys.
And last month, the Scottish Government was accused of ‘ manipulating’ committees by
‘We are entitled to know’
using ‘slavish’ Nationalist politicians to crush any dissent or criticism in reports.
The three opposition parties said Nationalist MSPs, who parrot the Government line without question, had created an ‘enfeebled’ Scottish parliament where the Government is not held to account.
However, the Scottish Government stressed that it was only one of several stakeholders who saw the Audit Scotland draft education report before it was finalised – a process that goes back years.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Audit Scotland has confirmed there have been no deviations from their standard drafting procedures, and decisions about whether to share draft versions of this report would be a matter for them.
‘Audit Scotland discussed the draft of the report with an advisory group, of which the Scottish Government is one of a range of members. They had full editorial control of the report throughout this process.’
An Audit Scotland spokesman added: ‘This report followed the normal process for all Audit Scotland draft reports of checking for accuracy with relevant bodies. The published report is the one signed off by the Accounts Commission for Scotland.’