Burning Issue: Is the concordat threatening to damage Scottish education?

Published on Sunday 30 November 2008 21:05

Yes RHONA BRANKIN, Labour education spokeswoman

IN THE emerging battle between SNP spin-doctors and Scotland's teachers, I know who to believe. While the SNP boast all is perfect in the world of Scottish education, a survey of teachers shows that a crisis is emerging in our schools. Quite simply, they're being starved of cash.

Teachers across Scotland say swingeing budget cuts mean education is being damaged in almost two-thirds of schools.

The crisis is stark: teachers being forced to buy pencils and paper with their own money, learning support departments shut down, and even whole schools closing.

I know from being a teacher that problems in education are always interconnected. Cutting budgets leads to hundreds fewer teachers. Fewer teachers mean bigger secondary classes. That leads to less curriculum flexibility, so our brightest pupils cannot study the subjects at which they excel. The so-called historic concordat has caused this crisis. The concordat is simultaneously the SNP's excuse for everything bad and its reason to smirk at achievement in schools performing well.

Schools are the biggest loser under the concordat. For pupils, the concordat is not fit for purpose. Councils do not have the money to run world-class schools. The SNP response is to say nothing. They blame Scotland's councils, headteachers, education departments, the Union between Scotland and England – in short, everyone but themselves.

The SNP have to start taking responsibility. For the sake of our pupils, Fiona Hyslop must either stand up to John Swinney and solve the crisis he caused, or stand down.

No

MAUREEN WATT,

Scottish Government minister for schools and skills

AS PART of the historic concordat with local government, the Scottish Government and Cosla are working in partnership to improve Scottish education – including delivering year-on-year progress to reduce class sizes to 18 in Primary 1-3.

The local government settlement included a special provision to maintain teacher numbers nationally at around 53,000 in the face of falling school rolls – and that by doing this local authorities can reduce class sizes, which is happening on the ground.

We have increased funding to local government by more than 13 per cent over the next three years – and for each of those three years, we are also spending a higher share of our overall budget on local government services than the position we inherited.

Alongside this increase in resources, we've enabled local authorities – for the first time – to retain all the efficiency savings they make to invest in frontline services, including education. And we've also devolved to councils flexibility in terms of how they spend their resources.

All in all, it is an enormous contrast with the situation south of the Border under Labour, where the Local Government Association is protesting at 4 billion of cuts being imposed from Whitehall, and the damaging impact on council services across England.

In Scotland, the Concordat partnership between local and national government is delivering significant benefits for the people of Scotland.

It is clear that together local and national government can achieve more than we ever could separately.