John Swinney warned in the Scottish Parliament last week that budgets were under “enormous strain” and that “difficult choices must be made”.
Swinney, the deputy first minister and cabinet secretary for Covid recovery, was in the process of outlining £500 million of cuts.
Fast forward to Wednesday night of this week, and it seemed education was not going to be spared. Social media exploded with the news that the £9 million Youth Music Initiative was to be cut as part of the Scottish government’s emergency budget review.
But that was “incorrect”, culture minister Neil Gray later insisted. The government wasn’t planning to cut the scheme and funding was “secure”, he said.
Later, Tes Scotland was told in a statement from Mr Gray that there would be “a brief pause in the distribution of funding while the Cost of Living Emergency Budget Review is completed”, but that funding “is secure and will not be reduced”.
Yet, with Swinney’s warning that “there is no unallocated cash” still ringing in our ears, it’s hard to be optimistic. It might not be the YMI for the chop but it seems inevitable that education is going to face cuts - and that there could also be implications for the teacher pay campaign.
Swinney said last week he was setting out the scale of the challenge “so that no one in the Parliament, or anyone who is negotiating pay deals, can be unaware of it”.
He also made a point of highlighting that the police had settled for a 5 per cent deal, as had ScotRail staff, firefighters and train drivers’ union Aslef.
At the time of writing, the results of the EIS teaching union consultative ballot on the 5 per cent offer made to teachers have yet to be revealed but the advice is to reject - the EIS has been clear that it is seeking a 10 per cent rise.
A poll run by the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) - the results of which were published earlier this week - revealed that 80 per cent of the teachers surveyed were in favour of rejecting the 5 per cent offer, and 70 per cent were willing to strike to secure a better deal.
Swinney has said the government’s job is “not to fight low-paid workers’ pay claims; it is to fund those pay claims” - but will the Scottish government be inclined to class teachers as low-paid workers?
We know, however, that when the bins in Edinburgh started overflowing during the refuse workers’ strike, the Scottish government was quick to act and has now reached a proposed local government pay settlement thought to be equivalent to a 5-11 per cent increase depending on post.
And, given that the SNP is always desperate to avoid any accusation of being “Tartan Tories”, there can be few less attractive propositions than the sight of chained school gates, teachers standing on picket lines, pupils wandering the streets instead of being in lessons, and parental fury exploding through social media.
Surely, then, it won’t come to that?
Who knows - but SQA staff and local government workers had to walk out before they got a pay deal they could accept. Perhaps teachers will, too.
Emma Seith is a senior reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith
