New data has revealed key trends in Scottish local authorities’ budgets for education and children’s services. 

The Improvement Service today released the Local Government Benchmarking Framework’s National Benchmarking Overview Report for 2018-19, which also looked at issues such as attainment and satisfaction with schools.

It predicts that, despite “many achievements in a difficult fiscal environment”, times are only going to get tougher for local authorities.

Here are some of the key findings:

1. Education spending has been largely protected over nine years compared to other services, with spend growing by 1.5 per cent since 2010-11.

2. In the past 12 months, education spend has grown significantly, by 4.5 per cent. This reflects the recent teacher pay award, funds from the Scottish Attainment Challenge and Pupil Equity Fund, and the early years expansion programme.

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3. Early years expenditure has grown by 38.8 per cent since 2010-11, and by 12.3 per cent in the past 12 months. Real costs per pre-school place have risen for the fifth year in a row, increasing by 11.5 per cent in the past 12 months, from £4,547 to £5,070 per place. Since 2010-11, the percentage of funded early years provision graded “good or better” has improved from 87.1 per cent to 90.6 per cent. However, rates have shown a small year-on-year decline in the past four years.

4. There has been 22 per cent growth in expenditure for looked-after children since 2010-11, including a 1.3 per cent increase in the past 12 months.

5. Pupil attendance rates have remained at around 93 per cent since 2010-11.

6. Measures of educational outcomes have shown “substantial positive progress since 2011-12”, going by measures used in the Local Government Benchmarking Framework, particularly for children from the most deprived areas. There has been “substantial long-term improvement since 2011-12 in the attainment of all pupils”.

7. The rate of improvement has slowed over recent years by many measures of attainment, and “achieving further significant improvements in closing the attainment gap will be increasingly challenging”.

8. Scottish schools continue to have “a strong focus on employability”, thanks to national policies such as Developing the Young Workforce. Participation of 16- to 19-year-olds in further education, higher education, apprenticeships, training and employment increased from 90.4 per cent to 91.6 per cent between 2015-16 and 2018-19. In the past 12 months, there was a 0.2 percentage point decrease in the participation rate, from 91.8 to 91.6 per cent - the first reduction recorded.

9. Satisfaction with schools has fallen by over 10 percentage points from 83.1 to 72.5 per cent since 2010-11. However, satisfaction rates improved in the past 12 months, from 70 to 72.5 per cent.

In a statement, the Improvement Service said: “Despite many achievements in a difficult fiscal environment, performance improvements gained in recent years are now beginning to either slow or decline, a pattern emerging across all councils and in key service areas.

“Whilst too premature to call a trend, the data does highlight that with the status quo there is a real risk to the future delivery of key services.  Councils are delving into their reserves raising questions as to how they will cope delivering services and maintain the momentum they have gained without a change in funding.

“It concludes that the next phase will be more challenging for Scottish local government with a greater need for collaboration and a focus on priorities.”