Schools run by Scotland�s largest local authority have been issued with an unprecedented freeze on budgets for essential materials, staff training and supply teachers as part of moves aimed at clawing back a £3m budget deficit.
ANDREW DENHOLM and GERRY BRAIDEN
Schools run by Scotland's largest local authority have been issued with an unprecedented freeze on budgets for essential materials, staff training and supply teachers as part of moves aimed at clawing back a £3m budget deficit.
Glasgow City Council has this week written to all its headteachers calling on them to "stop or delay" all non-essential spending.
The move - which applies until the end of the current financial year in March - is a response to the growing financial crisis and the council tax freeze, which has left the council facing a £15m overspend.
In practice, teaching unions said that it will mean schools cannot spend any more money on equipment such as pens, pencils, paint, ink, paper and notebooks until April. In addition, any planned training of staff to deliver Scotland's new school curriculum will be halted, while supply cover for absent staff will also be hit.
The announcement comes as the debate on radical change to Scotland's councils given the current financial crisis, launched by The Herald yesterday, gathered pace.
Glasgow City Council's leader Steven Purcell said: "This call for a debate couldn't have been more timely. The choice is simple when we're debating the budget settlement. Do we want to debate reform in the devolved Scotland or do we want fewer teachers, increased charges in home care services, cuts across social work and fewer opportunities in apprenticeships for school leavers?"
North Lanarkshire leader Jim McCabe said: "There are discussions going on about sharing services but there is no meat on the bones. I can deliver my budget without a major impact on services this year but can't guarantee that for next year.
"I'm conscious that, while we do not want reorganisation, this can't continue. We've got to have a recognition that we have a common denominator to deliver public services and there need to be more discussions between different councils and central government."
The budget cuts were revealed in a letter to schools in which Margaret Doran, the council's executive director of children and families, said: "The financial forecast based on the most recent information is projecting an overspend in the current financial year of £2.8m. If the position is not addressed, this will add further pressures for the next financial year.
"There are only three months remaining of the current financial year and we must all do everything possible to reduce our spending.
"For this reason I am taking the unprecedented measure of suspending the Scheme of Devolved School Management for the period January to March 2009 in order to stop all non-critical spending."
Officials from Glasgow yesterday insisted the actions, while unfortunate, were necessary to ensure the service was "in the best possible position to tackle the challenges it faces in the next financial year". Education services are currently running £2.8m over budget, as the letter to schools stated.
"Authorities across the country are having to consider and implement similar actions for similar reasons," a spokeswoman said.
However, Willie Hart, secretary of the Glasgow branch of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the country's largest teaching union, hit out at the cuts.
"We are already running our schools with reduced budgets as a result of previous budget cuts and there will be further reduction next year," he said. "It is impossible for staff to deliver the current quality of service with additional cuts such as those being proposed by the council.
"We are demanding the Westminster Government gets together with the government at Holyrood and the council to inject more money to stop these panic cuts."
