Teachers have reiterated their opposition to changes in schools budgeting following an agreement to impose new rules on West Lothian schools.
Tighter rules around the devolved school budgets have been agreed by the council’s Education Executive as part of this year’s cost cutting measures.
They will mean headteachers at local schools will face difficult decision with a reduced budget and concerns over a lack of central funding to cover teacher absences.
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The council agreed to a redesign of its existing Devolved School Management (DSM) plans as part of budget measures in February. The latest revision cuts the amount of money available to each school and introduces new rules on funding for staff cover costs.
The school budget has to save £8.223m over the next five years from Educational Services.
Appointed member of the Executive, teacher Mark Bonallo told the June meeting of the Executive - the council’s decision making body on school matters- : “As the teachers’ representative I must take the opportunity again to reiterate the position of the teachers of West Lothian and note we cannot agree to any of these proposals on principal and would again wish our dissent to be recorded.”
DSM funding was first introduced in the 1990s.
In a report to the Education Executive Greg Welsh, Head of Primary and Early Years Learning said: “West Lothian Council agreed to achieve an education and schools-based saving of £8.223 million over five years commencing in August, through a review of resources in Education, including budget allocations to schools through the scheme of Devolved School Management (DSM).”
In practice the new DSM means a reduction in the funding per pupil. In primaries, schools will pay for the first 10 working days of supply costs to cover a teacher’s absence in all cases. Previously, if the absence lasted more than 10 days, the first 10 days were funded centrally.
At Secondary level, schools will pay for the first 20 working days of supply costs to cover a teacher’s absence. This was previously 17 days.
The report added: “The scheme of Devolved School Management provides the method of calculating how resources are allocated to schools on the basis of clearly defined allocation criteria.
"Responsibility for determining how this budget will be allocated within each school rests with each Headteacher, however, and the scheme does not provide a prescriptive guide to how resources will be used within each school.
“This approach ensures that schools are resourced in a fair and consistent manner, whilst ensuring that Head Teachers are empowered to deploy resources in the manner best suited to meet the needs of the learners in their school, and the school community.
“This approach is in line with the national drive to empower Headteachers which has been embraced within West Lothian Education Services.”
Unions refused to take part in initial working group discussions on the new proposals.
Heather Hughes, local secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland - the country's largest teaching union- and chair of the Local Negotiating Committee for Teachers (LNCT) , spoke to the Education Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP) in May.
She outlined specific areas of concern about the revised plans including changes to funding for additional staffing which will , unions believe, result in senior teaching staff being used to cover for sickness absences in addition to admin duties.
At this month's meeting of the Education Executive SNP councillors Moira McKee-Shemilt, Maria MacAulay and Andrew Miller asked Mr Welsh a series of detailed questions regarding budget decisions and staffing policies in schools from August, when the new rules will come into force.
Councillor McKee-Shemilt was concerned that the new sickness absences policy would lead to a culture of “presenteeism”. She added: “ People will feel forced to work and not take time off when they need to?”
Mr Welsh replied: “Our approach to all staff health and well- being has been central and, if anything, has been at the forefront of our minds particularly in light of the impact of the pandemic and the return to work.
“In terms of supporting staff, you have to be fit and well to attend. We would hope there is no negative connotation taken from the revised scheme in terms of that presenteeism of staff.
“The other thing is that when staff do feel fit and well, they do return that there isn’t then a financial consequence for the school.”
Councillor Miller said: “I do note that LNCT do note their dissent. I would hope to see an update on the impact of the changes. I would like to see information on staffing absences and temporary appointments.”
And Councillor MacAulay raised questions about the after effects of the pandemic and long term problems with staffing.
Mr Welsh assured councillors that there is monthly monitoring of staffing by the senior education team and reports on the new DSM would be brought back to the regular meetings of the Education of the PDSP as the new school year progresses.
