Heads tell city leaders to shut schools before cutting budgets

Published on Wednesday 9 December 2009 09:24

HEADTEACHERS have called on education chiefs to close even more schools in the Capital in order to balance the books and prevent further cuts to budgets.

The Edinburgh Primary Schools Headteachers' Association said that the "radical" action to close or merge half-empty schools would benefit pupils as well as save money.

The headteachers have pressed the council to review the whole school estate, from primaries and nurseries to secondaries and special schools.

They said closing a primary would save 300,000 every year, while shutting a secondary would save 1 million per year.

They also claimed that closing schools would prevent education bosses slashing individual budgets by 2.5 per cent as proposed, meaning it would have far less impact on pupils' education.

In an official response on the proposed budget cuts, Jim McColgan, chair of the association, said: "A schools rationalisation programme involving all sectors should be taken forward more radically and with minimum delay.

"The typical savings generated by school closures have been indicated as 300,000 on an ongoing annual basis for a primary school and 1m for a secondary school. Even without taking account of any capital receipts generated by closures, these figures would be significant in the attempt to deliver a balanced budget."

Speaking to the Evening News, Mr McColgan, who is also headteacher of Echline Primary, South Queensferry, said: "We are saying that we have to look at the whole range of schools and we have to look at whether some schools can be amalgamated.

"But we are not talking about rural communities here – in a city centre situation, if one school closes, you can't be further than two or three miles from another one.

"We feel that money is not being spent well sustaining some schools. Closing schools will improve the educational value to every pupil in Edinburgh.

"The views of the headteachers' association did not go down well with parents of children at the under-threat Fort, Burdiehouse, Royston and Drumbrae primaries.

Karen Keil, member of the Save Drumbrae campaign group, said the comments were "unhelpful", but added: "We think they need to have a proper diligent review of the whole estate, not just basing it on a whim, which they seem to have done."

A spokesman for the city council said: "We are working with headteachers across the city to protect core school budgets as best we can but there are big challenges ahead and everyone recognises that.

"This is why we have proposed four under-capacity schools for closure – we know that the city's headteachers' executive support this and that they recognise how vital it is to get best value for money from the school estate to protect the quality of education."

REPORT ON FOUR IN FIRING LINE

THE final report on the proposed closure of four city primary schools will be made public on Friday.

Education bosses will be putting forward their case for closing Burdiehouse, Fort, Drumbrae and Royston primaries.

The report will include answers to questions that arose during the public consultation earlier this year.

The report is being made public ahead of the council meeting on 17 December where councillors will make their decision on whether to close the schools next summer or keep them open.

So far, the Conservatives have said they will vote to save Drumbrae and Fort, while the Greens have pledged to vote to keep all the schools open. The Labour Party has hinted it will also be voting to save all four schools.

Parents fighting to save the schools will present deputations to councillors at the meeting to plead their case one final time.