A commitment to maintaining teacher numbers above a certain level forces cuts to other education services, MSPs heard today.
They were also told - during evidence from leading figures in local government education and finance - that the Scottish government position on teacher numbers could change to allow more flexibility in council spending.
“We are concerned that budgets are stretched right across local government - there just isn’t enough budget to do everything that we want to do,” said Kirsty Flanagan, Argyll and Bute Council executive director.
Ms Flanagan also told the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee of hopes that the Verity House Agreement agreement signed between local and national government in June would give councils more control over education budgets.
The agreement stated that “the default position will be no ring-fencing or direction of funding, unless there is a clear joint understanding for a rationale for such arrangements”.
Ms Flanagan, who was representing the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy Local Government Directors of Finance in Scotland, said the agreement was “a positive step forward because of the relaxing of the ring-fencing” in education, such as arrangements around “absolute teacher numbers”.
She said that the precise implications of this were not yet clear, but that she expected 2024-25 to be a transitional period and that existing requirements for teacher numbers were likely to remain in place for at least that year.
Plans to cut teacher numbers blocked
In January, then first minister Nicola Sturgeon said any plans by a local authority to cut teacher numbers would be blocked by the Scottish government after news emerged of a proposal by Glasgow City Council to remove hundreds of teachers.
A few weeks later, in February, then education secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville warned that councils which failed to keep teacher numbers above certain levels could be hit with fines - while stressing that this had also been the case a few years earlier, but that no fines were ever levied.
Today, Ms Flanagan said there was a danger that maintaining teacher numbers above a set threshold was “not providing value for money or efficiency” in certain cases, such as in local authorities with a declining school roll.
She said that “funding needs to be looked at, not just within education, and I think that the relaxing of ring-fencing might help”.
Ms Flanagan added that “if we’re trying to maintain absolute teacher numbers, it is to the detriment of other services right across the local government portfolio”.
‘Focus on absolute teacher numbers is a challenge’
She suggested that aiming for certain pupil-teacher ratios was not a perfect answer either, but that it was better than protecting teacher numbers at rigidly set levels regardless of changing local circumstances.
Douglas Hutchison, president of education directors’ body ADES and executive director of education at Glasgow City Council, said: “I would agree with Kirsty that the focus on absolute teacher numbers is a challenge.
“It’s been done this year, it was done previously when Mr [Michael] Russell was cabinet secretary [for education, from 2009 to 2014] and there was a year when we had to focus on absolute teacher numbers - and it’s difficult to see the logic of it if you’re in a local authority with a declining roll, compared to if you’re in West Lothian with an increasing roll, building new schools.”
Dr Hutchison also echoed Ms Flanagan in saying he could understand the rationale behind a required pupil-teacher ratio, but not a situation “where you’ve got a falling roll and you’re forced to keep teachers”.
He added that in around a decade as an education director in South Ayrshire and Glasgow, he had had to deal with constantly shrinking budgets - the Covid years aside - and that an unchanging teacher numbers threshold simply shifted pain to other education services.
Burden of saving money falls on others in education
Dr Hutchison said: “If we’re protecting teachers then the burden of saving [money] falls on others, like support-for-learning workers, educational psychologists, home-school liaison workers, technician-support services, admin staff, schools’ offices.
“There are a range of people without whom education can’t function and if we protect one group - albeit a very important and very valued group - then the burden of savings falls heavier on others within education.”
Carrie Lindsay, ADES executive officer and Fife’s former director of education and children’s services, also talked up the benefits of greater flexibility in deploying non-teaching education staff, including school counsellors, staff charged with improving school attendance, and early years officers who could work with P1 classes to help with socialisation and the after-effects of Covid.
“Teachers are absolutely essential to the business of teaching and learning, but there are lots of other things that families and children and young people need support with,” said Ms Lindsay.
The Scottish government has promised to increase teacher numbers by 3,500 over the course of the 2021-26 Parliament.
However, the most up-to-date government statistics, published in December 2022, showed a drop in teacher numbers compared to the previous year.
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “While it has always been the responsibility of local councils to recruit and employ teachers, based on local needs and circumstances, the Scottish government is providing councils with an additional £145.5 million in this year’s budget to protect increased teacher numbers. Where this is not being delivered by a local authority, we will withhold or recoup funding given for this purpose.
“Teacher numbers across Scotland are currently at historically high levels and Scotland has the highest teacher-per-pupil ratio in any part of the UK.”
