Maintaining teacher numbers will have “an unavoidable impact” on the ability of local authorities “to fund any pay offer” for teachers, according to a paper produced by the council umbrella body Cosla.
It also says maintaining teacher numbers will force “even deeper cuts” to other services “vital to supporting children and young people”, such as support for pupils with additional needs, youth work and libraries.
The paper - seen by Tes Scotland and due to be discussed at a meeting of council leaders on Friday - puts the cost of the teacher pay claim, of 6.5 per cent for 2024-25, at £250 million.
Impact of class contact time policy
In the paper, Cosla also accuses the Scottish government of weakening the hand of councils when it comes to striking a pay deal with teaching unions.
It says that because cutting class contact time by 90 minutes a week is “a decided course of action”, this “undermines the opportunity to include it in any negotiations”.
At a meeting of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers last month, “the Scottish government reinforced their commitment to the reduction in class-contact time”, the paper says.
This will be music to the ears of teachers, but reducing class contact time means increasing teacher numbers, which councils say will come at a high cost - and that one of the things in jeopardy is teacher pay.
The Cosla paper says that modelling work by the education directors’ body ADES, carried out in 2022 and based on returns from 30 councils, found teacher numbers would have to increase by more than 3,800 to enable the 90-minute weekly reduction.
Cosla says it has made it clear that “maintaining teacher numbers greatly impacts on any pay offer and comes at the expense of services outwith education”.
However, the Scottish government argues that reducing teacher numbers is detrimental to young people. It is making £145.5 million of funding contingent upon councils maintaining teacher numbers by the time of the September 2024 census. In a letter earlier this month, education directors received their teacher-number targets for this year and confirmation of their share of the funding should they achieve them.
Friday deadline for funding deal
The government has set a deadline of Friday for councils to sign up to the deal, but Cosla is advising council leaders not to do so “at this time”. It argues that authorities should be judged on outcomes, not inputs, and the money should not be ring-fenced but should be “distributed to councils as general revenue grant, as it was previously”.
According to the most recent figures, published in December, teacher numbers fell in 15 councils and were maintained or increased in 17 councils.
In the 17 authorities where numbers were increased or maintained, the government has set the target of keeping the number of teachers at the same level in 2024.
However, in some councils where teacher numbers fell - and the government did not accept the mitigating circumstances set out by authorities - 2024 targets have been set “lower than the 2022 census figure but higher than the 2023 number”.
It is unclear from the Cosla papers how many councils this affects.
Tug-of-war over teacher numbers
It means that councils such as Glasgow, which is planning to cut teacher numbers to help plug a funding shortfall of £27.8 million, could be forced to roll back on its decision.
In the city, there have been protests over plans to cut 172 teaching jobs by August, with 450 posts to be cut over three years, as first reported by Tes Scotland in February.
Now, if the Scottish government prevails, the city could end up increasing teacher numbers this year - or at the very least maintaining teacher numbers at 2023 levels.
If Glasgow fails to do so - for a saving of £6.7 million in year one - a total of £16.5 million is hanging in the balance. This was Glasgow’s share of the £145.5 million pot of cash to maintain teacher numbers last year, according to figures contained in a Tes Scotland freedom of information request.
The Cosla paper says that if targets are missed, it is unclear if a council’s share of the £145.5 million funding “will be reclaimed in its entirety or if it will be proportional (and on what basis that might be calculated)”.
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