ALMOST half of Scotland’s local authorities are running into difficulties funding the McCrone deal, leaders of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities will be told at their meeting in Edinburgh today (Friday).
Up to pound;156 million extra will be needed in 2003-2004, to fund teachers’ pay rises and additional support staff, rationalise promoted posts and introduce the chartered teachers scale.
Early calculations by the Scottish Executive and Cosla were based on teacher numbers in 1999. The revised figures are based on increased numbers in November 2000 but even these will underestimate the sums that councils will need to fund the pay and conditions package.
Brenda Campbell, Cosla’s head of finance, said it was still unclear from the Executive’s three-year spending review how far ministers would go to meet the authorities’ demands. It was likely to be November before precise allocations were known.
Councils have been warned that gap may be worse than expected. Ministers originally costed the agreement at pound;430 million over three years against a figure from the councils of pound;545 million.
Other dimensions to the deal such as fee rises for independent special schools and cuts in class contact time have yet to be costed. Authorities also report increased costs from the first year of the guaranteed one-year scheme for probationers.
They are unhappy with the way the Executive has distributed its extra cash, based on pupil numbers and not teacher numbers. This disadvantages primaries with fewer than 30 pupils, small rural secondaries and Gaelic-medium units. Councils with lower pupil-teacher ratios are also affected.
Thirteen of the 32 local authorities are suffering, according to Cosla’s figures. Just pound;7 million would be needed to correct the national imbalance in the current spending round, Cosla argues.
“This is a small sum of money in comparison to the overall resources available for the pay agreement. Those local authorities experiencing difficulties with the implementation due to a lack of funds will risk the credibility of the national agreement being taken forward,” it states.
Spending would rise by a third in Shetland and a quarter in the Western Isles based on teacher numbers, Cosla says.
Extra bills for 2003-04
* Teacher pay - pound;103 million
* Support staff - pound;20 million
* Probationers - pound;22 million
* CPD - pound;1 million
* Job sizing - pound;7 million
* Chartered teachers - pound;3 million
* Total - pound;156 million
