Scotland’s new chief inspector has promised to shake off accusations that Education Scotland is too close to government, predicting a dramatic shift in approach that will give him an “independent voice” more like his equivalent in England.

In his first interview since taking up the post on an interim basis last month, Graeme Logan also tackled some of Scottish education’s most controversial issues, arguing that standardised national assessments would reduce the burden on schools and that devolving more power to headteachers would make leadership jobs more attractive.

The EIS teaching union told MSPs last November that Education Scotland had become “increasingly politicised” and unwilling to oppose government, but Mr Logan said: “I want to make sure that we…provide a challenging voice to the system.”

After being asked if he would act more like Ofsted in England, where successive chief inspectors have been outspoken about the education system’s perceived failings, Mr Logan said it was “very clear” that the chief inspector should have “an independent voice”, used to “challenge where it is required”.

He added that his responsibility was to be an “ambassador” for learners, and “report without fear or favour how things are going”. He insisted, however, that splitting Education Scotland’s inspection and curriculum-development roles - the recent Education Governance Review ultimately decided against such a move - would have been a “retrograde step” as combining them is common internationally.

Past failings

Mr Logan, a former primary headteacher who stepped up from a strategic director role at Education Scotland, did not shy away from past failings and said people had been “unsure of what the agency is for”, but that the governance review would “revitalise” it and make it more relevant to schools.

“The whole model of operating will change,” he said. “The days of us sitting at the centre and firing out lots of stuff are gone.”

Education Scotland was criticised heavily in Parliament last year after it emerged that there were 20,000 pages of Curriculum for Excellence guidance on its website, but Mr Logan said: “We will no longer be flooding the system with guidance and materials [teachers] have to search for.”

Instead, Education Scotland would work with the new Regional Improvement Collaboratives to “get much closer to the action” and set up local support systems for teachers, as there is currently “far too much variability” in the help offered locally.

Mr Logan was upbeat about the government’s controversial standardised national assessments, which begin across Scotland this school year despite critics predicting increased workload and pressure to teach to the test. He described assessment as “the unfinished business of Curriculum for Excellence”.

Mr Logan, whose new job also includes the role of chief education advisor, sees them as “a chance to reduce the burden of assessment” by helping schools streamline myriad assessment methods. By the end of this month, he said, Education Scotland would release new guidance to steer local authorities away from “frequent and intense” standardised assessment.

He added that the national assessments should help teachers gauge the types of learning appropriate to their classrooms - he wants to ensure that “nothing trumps the judgement of teachers” - and that they should not have more status than other evidence, such as classwork or pupils’ jotters.

Mr Logan, who was appointed at the same time as interim chief executive and accountable officer Karen Reid (Ms Reid also remains in her previous role as Care Inspectorate chief executive), said the proposed devolution of greater powers to headteachers would liberate those heads “frustrated by potential constraints” when they wanted to try something new.

There have been concerns that the new approach would add to headteachers’ load and increase the difficultly in attracting applications for headships, but Mr Logan said that improved regional support would free up school leaders from administrative tasks and that it was a “myth to say that suddenly there’s going to be all this extra stuff”.

He added: “I think [headteachers] will step up to the plate…with the right support behind them, this should enable them to do the job that they want to do.”