The Scottish government has been accused of “greenlighting” further cuts to education by providing councils with “a workaround to the requirement to maintain teacher numbers”.
The EIS teaching union is now predicting that, come the teacher census in September, teacher numbers will fall for the third year in a row - and that, ultimately, the government will fail to deliver on its 2021 Scottish parliamentary election manifesto pledge to increase teacher numbers by 3,500 by 2026.
The EIS hit out at the Scottish government after education secretary Jenny Gilruth wrote to councils on Wednesday clarifying the terms of the £145.5 million government grant for maintaining teacher numbers.
In the letter, Ms Gilruth says the government “remains fundamentally determined to maintain teacher numbers in order to support children’s education”.
However, she makes it clear that if teacher numbers fall, local authorities will not lose the entirety of their share of the £145.5 million grant - rather she says “funding will only be withheld from councils on a ‘per FTE’ basis”.
Gilruth offers ‘reassurance’ to councils
She hopes this will provide “reassurance” that councils will not lose “the totality of the additional funding for a small reduction in teacher numbers”.
What is unclear, though, is what will happen to an authority such as Glasgow, which has come under fire over its plans to cut 172 teachers by August, and 450 teachers over the next three years.
Under the grant conditions set out by Ms Gilruth, it seems it would stand to lose only a small proportion of the £16.5 million it is set to receive from the Scottish government to protect teacher numbers, even if it goes ahead with the cuts.
If a local authority is able to set out “mitigations”, this figure could be reduced further, given Ms Gilruth also says the government will consider “mitigating factors” when assessing if councils have met the conditions of the grant.
‘Limited number of exceptional circumstances’
Cuts to councils’ Scottish Attainment Challenge funding and funding from the government due to falling pupil rolls, she says, “will be taken into account”. She also leaves the door open to considering “a limited number of exceptional circumstances at a local level that will impact on councils’ ability to maintain teacher numbers”.
However, a government spokesperson said that a key difference in the way the funding is being distributed this year is that councils “must commit to maintain teacher numbers in advance of receiving the grant funding available”.
The spokesperson added: ”This is designed to give additional assurance that councils will meet their obligations to maintain teacher numbers.”
Councils have highlighted in the past that recent changes to how attainment challenge cash is distributed have forced them to cut teacher numbers. Previously, the Scottish Attainment Challenge targeted nine councils, but now that funding is being spread across all 32 authorities. The councils losing out have said that teacher numbers have dropped as a direct result.
Information obtained by Tes Scotland via a freedom of information (FOI) request shows the leader of West Dunbartonshire Council, Labour councillor Martin Rooney, wrote to the Scottish government at the end of April saying his authority was projecting that teacher numbers would fall this year to 911 - down from 938 in 2023.
He said, “the decline in teacher numbers correlates with a decline in pupil numbers”.
Mr Rooney added that his authority originally received almost £16 million via the attainment challenge but by 2025-26 this would fall to less than £1 million.
He said: “We have seen what started as an overtly socialist policy transformed into austerity policy since 2016 by the Scottish government.”
The same FOI reveals the teacher number targets the Scottish government has set for councils. All local authorities, barring four, have been set the goal of maintaining teacher numbers at 2023 levels by the time of the September census.
Glasgow is one of the councils where the government says teacher numbers must be higher than in 2023. Glasgow’s target is to have 5,693 teachers in its schools - 39 more than it had according to the teacher census last year.
The other councils told to increase teacher numbers on last year’s teacher census figures are East Ayrshire (12 more teachers), Moray (20) and North Lanarkshire (three).
‘Greenlighting further education cuts’
However, the “fair and balanced approach” that Ms Gilruth says she is now taking calls into question how meaningful these targets are.
Responding to the new teacher number grant conditions set out by Ms Gilruth, EIS general secretary Andrea Bradley said: “The Scottish government providing a workaround to the requirement to maintain teacher numbers is effectively greenlighting further education cuts by local authorities, whose budgets the Scottish government has been disproportionately cutting for years.
“There can be no doubt that this will make the teacher workload crisis even worse, and young people, particularly those with additional needs and/or who are disadvantaged by poverty, will miss out on valuable teacher time.”
She added: “Parents, carers, teachers and the whole of the trade union movement - all of whom are voters - are watching very carefully what happens in Glasgow where it has been announced that 450 teacher jobs will be cut over the next three years, starting with 172 from August; and are paying close attention across all of the remaining 31 councils.
“The EIS will not spare blame where it is due locally - or nationally - in the event that any cuts to teacher numbers are made. We will not shirk our commitment to our members, to the children and young people that they teach, and their families, to stand up for quality education.”
‘Commitment to maintain teacher numbers’
A Scottish government spokesperson said:“The education secretary’s letter confirms the Scottish government’s commitment to maintain teacher numbers and gives clarity on the basis in which funding may be withheld should local authorities fail to do so.
“This is not different to the approach taken previously. However, what is different is the requirement that local authorities must commit to maintain teacher numbers in advance of receiving the grant funding available. This is designed to give additional assurance that councils will meet their obligations to maintain teacher numbers.”
The spokesperson added: “We hope that councils, who are responsible for the employment of teachers, will accept these grants so they can continue to benefit from this significant funding.”
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