A senior special advisor to education minister John Swinney telephoned Education Scotland last January, saying Mr Swinney was “getting twitchy” about the delay to publication.
The report on Argyll & Bute’s delivery of education emphasised several flaws, with Education Scotland demanding “urgent and sustained action” from senior staff.
However, the council had consistently opposed the content of the report, the way in which it was produced and the timing of publication.
Education Scotland is meant to operate “independently and impartially”, according to its website, despite the fact it is an executive agency and ultimately accountable to ministers. This status “safeguards the independence of inspection, review and reporting”.
Colin McAllister, the government’s head of policy, phoned Lesley Brown, an Education Scotland official, according to internal emails released under Freedom of Information legislation. Ms Brown later told colleagues she had “just taken a call from Colin McAllister about the Argyll and Bute report”.
Mr McAllister told her “the DFM (deputy first minister, Swinney) is getting twitchy” about the delayed publication and also that the local authority were preparing an impassioned defence of their work.
Mr McAllister said that because of this “we need to move to publication as soon as we can”. The report was published in March before council elections.
This is not the first time that concerns over the independence of Education Scotland have been raised. The EIS union has previously called it “increasingly politicised”.
A spokesman for Education Scotland said: “Education Scotland’s status as an executive agency means that we operate independently and impartially. We also have strong governance arrangements, which ensure inspection activity is independent and provides reliable and impartial evaluation.”
But Scottish Labour’s education spokesman, Iain Gray, said: “There have been concerns in the past about the independence of Education Scotland from ministers.
“In this case it would appear they published a disputed report under pressure from John Swinney’s special advisor. The proximity of local elections in which Argyll schools would be a highly charged issue, makes that all the more inappropriate.”
A Scottish government spokesman said it was “entirely appropriate for ministers to press for timely publication in the public interest”, given that significant issues were raised in the report about the council’s handling of the education of children and young people.
After the report’s publication, the local MSP, former education secretary Mike Russell, called for the resignation of several senior staff within Argyll & Bute.