Schools (Local Authority Budgets)

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 17 January 2018.

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Photo of Ross Greer Ross Greer Green

1. To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has carried out on the impact on schools of its proposed reductions to local authority budgets. (S5O-01674)

Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party

The Scottish Government continues to treat local government fairly despite the cuts to the Scottish budget from the United Kingdom Government. The 2018-19 financial settlement for local government foresees an increase in revenue and capital investment as part of a wider package of measures. Together with the additional power to increase council tax, that will generate an increase of 1.6 per cent in the overall resources to support local services.

In addition, we are investing £179 million in the next financial year—up £9 million from last year—in raising attainment and closing the attainment gap, targeting funding at the schools and local authorities that will benefit the most. That funding contributes to our commitment to provide an extra £750 million for education during the current parliamentary session. The investment in Scottish education has enabled a total of 666 additional teachers to be recruited over the past two years.

Photo of Ross Greer Ross Greer Green

The Scottish Parliament information centre says that the real-terms cut to council budgets under this year’s draft budget will be £157 million. The cuts that local authorities have been forced to consider include a cut of £7 million from the teaching allocation in South Ayrshire, and a cut of £2 million by reducing curriculum subject choice and teacher numbers in Falkirk. Is the cabinet secretary seriously suggesting that, if he was running a council in Scotland today, he would be able to set a budget that did not include any cuts?

Photo of Clare Adamson Clare Adamson Scottish National Party

Can the Scottish Government give an indication of whether funding has risen recently and what the ratio is for individual pupils in primary and secondary schools?

Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party

Spending on education and training in Scotland rose by 4.1 per cent in 2016-17. Since 2006-07, the average spend per pupil in Scotland has increased in cash terms by at least 10.8 per cent for primary pupils and 13.1 per cent for secondary pupils. Since the Government came to office, total revenue spending on schools has risen by £349 million, or 7.6 per cent in cash terms.

Photo of Alexander Stewart Alexander Stewart Conservative

The cabinet secretary recently told the Education and Skills Committee that he has concerns about the low retention rate of experienced teachers, more of whom left the profession in the academic year 2016-17 than expected. Clearly, that places additional pressure on other teachers, but it also places budgetary pressures on local authorities to recruit sufficient support staff. What work is the Scottish Government undertaking in co-operation with local authorities to collect the relevant data about numbers of support staff and to assess the relevant gaps in schools?

Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party

The Government is actively involved with local authorities on a wide variety of issues on workforce planning but principally in relation to the number of teachers in the teaching profession. That work is bearing fruit because, as we saw in December, the number of teachers in our schools has increased by 543 as a consequence of the measures that we have taken and by more than 800 since I became the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. I very much welcome the increase in the active teaching population in Scotland. It is for individual local authorities to decide on and agree the deployment of staff in individual schools, and that will extend far beyond the teaching workforce. However, we certainly actively collaborate with local authorities, through the teacher workforce planning group, on the identification of an appropriate number of teachers for the education of our children.

Photo of Mary Fee Mary Fee Labour

On Monday, when the Education and Skills Committee met teachers in Glasgow, we spoke to additional support needs teachers and heard their concerns about a range of issues affecting ASN education, which included funding issues. Has the Scottish Government assessed the impact on ASN education of its budget cuts in previous years and in the coming year?

Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party

The data speaks for itself and is on the record: there has been an increase in the number of staff working with pupils with additional support needs in our education system. Obviously, we work with our local authority partners to ensure that the needs of young people with additional needs are fully met. I recently set out revised guidance on mainstreaming to ensure that considerations about the needs and interests of young people drive appropriate decisions about the educational placement of young people. That is as it should be, and it is how the process is envisaged in legislation. Obviously, local authorities are required to make the necessary planning arrangements in terms of staffing to support such decisions.

I have long experience of looking at the financial proposals that are made—invariably by council officials—to elected members of local authorities. I also have just as much experience of seeing elected members reject those proposals when it comes to setting budgets.

There is a reason for that. The latest data shows that education budgets in Scottish local authorities increased by £144 million in 2017-18, which was a 3 per cent increase on the previous year in cash terms. On top of that, we have allocated the £120 million of pupil equity funding. Clearly, there are a lot of discussions still to be had about the budget. There will be a debate on some of those issues this afternoon and the full budget process has yet to take its course. As the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution has made clear, the Government will remain actively engaged in dialogue with other parties about how to take forward the budget provisions that were set out to Parliament in December.