The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has announced that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE)and Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS) will be brought together into a new executive agency- the Scottish Education Quality and Improvement Agency (SEQIA). The agency will be operational from 1 July 2011.

Its role will be to:

• lead and drive forward Curriculum for Excellence
• encourage and support effective innovation
• inspire practitioners and managers to meet new challenges and to be comfortable about doing so
• ensure that quality, standards and outcomes for learners are continually driven upwards to deliver educational excellence
• provide the necessary assurance to parents and others that Scottish education really is playing the key role it needs to in facing the challenges of the 21st century.

Published statements appear to make no reference to the fact that this also involves the merger of Scotland’s two major practice development and quality improvement agencies for Community Learning and Development (one of which (LTS) has so far had less than a year of responsibility for this field).