Local authorities are warning that education can no longer expect the same protection from budget cuts as in the past.
Tes Scotland analysis of councils’ budget plans - some already agreed, others proposed - has also found admissions that they are taking action that may reduce attainment or damage the prospects of poor children.
Reductions in teacher numbers and schools’ devolved budgets are increasingly regarded as a viable means for saving money. Angus Council, for example, last week agreed to save £1.59 million in teacher costs over three years, seeing “scope to reduce teacher numbers” while still contributing to the “maintenance of the national teacher-pupil ratio”.
Councils are increasingly passing on responsibilities and costs to schools, justifying such moves by alluding to the Scottish government’s controversial Headteachers’ Charter and its intention to devolve power to schools.
Education budgets savings
Some eye-catching savings are for relatively small amounts, but include plans to scrap primary swimming lessons, modern language assistants and schemes to support LGBT pupils and promote financial education and outdoor education.
There is no immediate sign of the situation improving: a report published this month by local authorities organisation the Improvement Service shows that, even with special protection not afforded to other services, education spending in Scotland fell by 3.8 per cent in real terms from 2010-11 to 2016-17 and that “it is likely that councils face continuing funding reductions for the foreseeable future”.
Education unions, based on early feedback about this month’s budgets, fear that additional support is particularly vulnerable.
Joanna Murphy, chair of the National Parent Forum of Scotland, believes “the trend is that education is taking a hit - it’s been shielded these past few years in most local authorities”. Plans around teacher numbers are “particularly worrying, but equally things like cuts to janitors impact on the children”. Murphy added that increases to charges for school meals and music tuition are also common concerns.
The Improvement Service report finds much to be happy about in Scottish education in recent years, as “the current generation of Scottish school leavers is the best-qualified in our history, with the highest rate of participation in higher education in our history” - although there remain “major inequalities in attainment between the most deprived pupils and others”.
‘Far from out of the woods’
But even with an improved Scottish government settlement last month, local authorities body Cosla fears such progress will stall. Resources spokeswoman Gail McGregor said this week: “This year’s deal means Scotland’s councils are far from out of the woods - and not cementing this funding into core budgets [in future years] would be an extremely bad result for the delivery of essential services.”
A Scottish government spokesman said: “Local government funding to schools is increasing. We want more decisions on school funding to be in the hands of schools and our education reforms are focused on giving schools and headteachers more power and money to raise standards and close the attainment gap.
“Despite continued UK government real-terms cuts to Scotland’s resource budget, we have treated local government very fairly. In 2018-19, councils will receive funding through the local government finance settlement of £10.7 billion.”
He added: “This will provide a cash-terms increase in funding for local revenue services of over £174 million - a 1.8 per cent rise - and capital spending of £89.9 million - an increase of 11.4 per cent.”
This is an extract of an article published in the 23 February edition of Tes Scotland. Subscribers can read the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. Tes Scotland magazine is available at all good newsagents
Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook
