Scotland’s red tape challenge spawns document 154-pages long

Education secretary John Swinney, who has pledged to tackle excessive bureaucracy, defended the draft benchmarks issued to every school as the “definitive levels” for young people aged between five and 18 to attain.

However, Tavish Scott, a Liberal Democrat MSP, told the Scottish Parliament’s Education Committee that it was hard to reconcile the latest output with stated policy: “I am wondering how the aim of clarifying and providing simplicity is helped by the vast amount of paper that has been sent. Teachers are wondering how all this is consistent with the education secretary’s rhetoric to reduce bureaucracy.”

Mr Swinney replied that teachers would be able to utilise the parts of the guidance that were relevant to their pupils, although he admitted any risk of a “box-ticking exercise” would contradict the goals of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).