Last month in the Scottish Parliament, when under fire over job insecurity for teachers, education secretary Jenny Gilruth said: “We are providing an extra £145.5 million, ringfenced, to protect teacher numbers.”
What she failed to mention, however, is that this money has never made it into local government coffers - because for months, the Scottish government and local authorities’ body Cosla have been at loggerheads over the conditions attached to the cash.
Cosla has a longstanding position of not supporting the requirement to maintain a specific number of teachers. It argues that this is an “input measure” not focused on outcomes, and does not recognise the pressure on councils’ budgets.
Education makes up the biggest chunk of council spending; local authorities say that ringfencing money for teachers is illogical, in that it forces deeper cuts on services such as additional support needs, social work support, early-intervention services, culture, youth work and libraries - all of which they say are crucial to supporting children and young people.
Cosla is now seeking a meeting with first minister John Swinney to see if a resolution can be reached; also on the agenda will be learning hours, which has become another point of heated discussion, largely as a result of plans in Falkirk.
Backing down over teacher numbers would be a bad look for the government. The SNP pledged to increase teacher numbers by 3,500 over the course of the current parliamentary term (2021-26) and this pledge is inextricably linked to another SNP promise: to reduce class contact time by 90 minutes a week.
However, for two years running teacher numbers have fallen. The reasons for this are many and varied, from the big cuts to Scottish Attainment Challenge funding in some councils to problems recruiting in more remote and rural areas.
This year’s teacher census was carried out last month; the results will be made public in December. With no agreement on teacher numbers reached, another fall seems likely.
Last year there was no financial penalty for the 15 councils where teacher numbers fell between 2022 and 2023.
Gilruth said she did not think reducing council funding was in the best interests of pupils; equally, she did “not wish to create a risk of services having to be withdrawn at short notice due to action taken on staffing by a local authority”.
Pressure on education secretary to take action
This year, however, she may feel compelled to act.
If penalties are in line with conditions previously outlined by the government, this means that in councils where the census shows a drop in teacher numbers, they will not lose the entirety of their share of the £145.5 million grant - rather, “funding will only be withheld from councils on a ‘per [full-time equivalent]’ basis”.
For a council such as Glasgow, which has been hitting the headlines for its controversial decision to cut 450 teachers over three years, this would mean losing a relatively small proportion of the £16.5 million that makes up its share.
Today, Gilruth is quoted in a BBC article saying she is withholding the £145.5 million because “protecting teacher numbers is a really important choice…because it protects outcomes for our children and young people”.
This sounds like she’s taking a tough stance. But remember, the government was meant to be dramatically increasing teacher numbers - not just maintaining them - and now it is facing the prospect of failing to deliver on even this much watered-down pledge.
Emma Seith is senior reporter at Tess Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith
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