Scottish edu reform : Local Authorities

In the past weeks there have been news reports on a procession of stakeholders against the SNP government’s educational reform proposals. One group that have been conspicuously absent have been the Local Authorities (LA) who are responsible for delivery of education.

There is financial pressure. The APPROVED BUDGET for Aberdeen 2016/17 is a sea of red ink, but the national budget obscures funding cuts to LAs. This duplicates the approach in England where LA control is being reduced by routing funding direct to schools — the overall education spend is actually said to be increasing. Such an approach has led to a backlash and recent UK parliamentary committee meetings have given the local view.

In Scotland the minority SNP government has to get its budget through. Neither the Tories, now the official opposition, nor the Labour Party (formerly such) will support the upcoming bill which leaves the Lib Dems & Greens. The Lib Dems have requested a basket of changes with Mental Health input of £200m and education funding requests of £90 million for colleges & £70m for the school attainment fund (an SNP idea where funding bypasses LAs but not necessarily in a fair way). The Greens focus on Income tax reform. Note neither talk of LAs getting more to help balance their books.