Education reform: evaluation strategy 2026 - 2034

6. Stakeholders

The key stakeholders for the evaluation are:

• Ministers (Top level of sign off)
• Teaching Unions (Impact of reforms on membership – engagement)
• Education Scotland (Synergies with data collection, impacts of reform, delivery)
• ADES (Research interest)
• Local Authority Directors of Education (Gatekeepers for research, delivery, practitioners)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities / COSLA (Engagement and collaboration)
• Society of Local Authority Chief Executives / SOLACE (Engagement and collaboration)
• Attainment Advisors (Delivering reforms)
• Qualifications Scotland (Synergies with data collection, impacts of reform, delivery)
• Learners and their parents and carers (Inform and are impacted by reforms)
• Scottish Council of Deans of Education (Interplay with curriculum and teacher training)
• Centre for Teaching Excellence (Engagement)
• Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership / SCQFP (Engagement)
• Universities Scotland (Engagement)
• Colleges Scotland (Engagement)
• General Teaching Council Scotland / GTCS (Engagement)

A Research Advisory Group (RAG) with key stakeholders and academic experts will be set up to provide external, independent scrutiny of the evaluation approach and outputs at regular points throughout the evaluation.

The evaluation is led by independent members of the Government Social Research profession in collaboration and supported by the curriculum, qualifications and assessment reform programme policy teams. The evaluation will be steered by the programme governance arrangements which have been put in place by the programme, as well as the RAG, who will allow us to report and refine our approach as we progress.

There are significant linkages with a number of other stakeholders and programmes and the evaluation will ensure close working as far as possible to realise the ambition of conducting the evaluation with the minimum expenditure and duplication whilst retaining the independence, quality and impact of the findings:

• Post School Education and Skills Reform programme evaluation: There are significant policy and evaluation linkages with this programme. The lead analysts for these programmes meet regularly to ensure we are joined up in our approach to evaluation, drawing from shared recognised principles and quality assurance standards as set out in the Magenta Book. Both evaluations are sited within a joined up PPM governance structure. This collaborative approach brings the benefits of analyst peer review and support for evaluation design, shared relevant evidence and insights and the chance to reduce the participation burden on shared participant groups (learners, educators, public sector partners and stakeholders)
• Education Scotland’s Curriculum Improvement Cycle evaluation: The evaluation team is meeting regularly with Education Scotland’s CIC evaluation leads and other specialists to ensure that the evaluations are joined up and data is shared and used effectively across the system. Education Scotland has a key role in collecting data to inform the CIC feedback mechanism and will help provide evidence to answer the process questions
• HMIE: The evaluation team is engaging with HMIE colleagues to ensure the evaluation takes into account as far as possible HMIE’s planned data collection initiatives to underpin thematic and narrative understanding of cross-cutting themes and system readiness, whilst ensuring their independence
• Scottish Government Fiscal Sustainability project: this sits within the education reform programme and the evaluation team are working with the project lead to maximise data sharing and usage opportunities
• QS: the evaluation team will explore with QS the evidence sources that have been generated and data collections that are planned, to ensure synergies are maximised between this evaluation and their activities
• ADES: the evaluation team will work with ADES, to ensure synergies are maximised between this evaluation and their activities