Has the SNP presided over an increase in the education attainment gap? 

An answer to this question becomes increasingly difficult due to the wholescale changes to the Scottish education system over the past 11 years.

Their latest hare-brained scheme is for statutory testing of primary one children. Despite repeated warnings from teachers, parents and education professionals the SNP has ploughed on with this very sinister plan.

There are enough children in our society who have low self-esteem and suffer from mental health issues and poverty. These kids need the care and support of experienced education experts; the teachers.

The experts say these tests offer little or no statistical value and create a data monster to be analysed by civil servants and argued over by future generations of politicians. Meanwhile, our teachers and very young children will be traumatised and upset by the unnecessary disruption and extra workload.

The answer to the original question? A significant attainment gap has endured, but now one in five children leave primary school barely able to read and write.

The micro management of our education system is a sinister development and a sign of the control freakery that our government seems to readily indulge.

Our children are not robots and neither are our teachers.

An update on the council’s new zero tolerance approach to tackling domestic abuse within West Dunbartonshire – No home for Domestic Abuse – has been produced for our next housing committee meeting.

A recent report outlined that the highest rate of incidence of domestic abuse recorded by Police Scotland was in West Dunbartonshire. The police changed their approach to this major social problem many years ago and continue to be a major factor in tackling it.

The council policy states “The central principle of the No Home for Domestic Abuse initiative is to create the conditions that allow victims and families to remain in their home and to move the perpetrator.”