ONE of Scotland’s largest councils has backed down in a row with ministers over the use of a multi-million pound fund to help pupils from poorer backgrounds. North Lanarkshire Council had been threatened with losing more than £8m from the Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) after demanding headteachers use £1m to pay for existing classroom assistants.

Guidelines state the fund is under the control of headteachers and should not be used to support existing projects.

After discussions between the Scottish Government and council officials North Lanarkshire has now agreed to abide by the fund’s rules.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We have maintained dialogue with North Lanarkshire in relation to the distribution of pupil equity funding.

“We have now received notification that the council has withdrawn a proposal that would have seen this funding effectively top-sliced to pay for existing classroom assistants. Ministers have now approved the release of funding to North Lanarkshire Council.

“Pupil equity funding is a hugely valuable resource that should be additional to existing provision and used at the discretion of headteachers to raise attainment.”

Paul Jukes, chief executive of North Lanarkshire Council said the council disputed the interpretation of its actions, but wanted to ensure pupils did not miss out.

He said: “We have been in discussion with Scottish Government about the use of the Pupil Equity Fund.

“To be clear, our proposals did not in our view represent top-slicing of any kind, but given that headteachers require certainty about the money available to them now, we have taken a pragmatic approach to ensure pupils are not disadvantaged.

“We will continue to work with headteachers and school communities to assist in maximising the resources available to them.”

The row blew up last month after North Lanarkshire Council’s assistant chief executive Isabelle Boyd told primary headteachers it wanted them to agree to hand over £1.3m from an allocation of £8.8m from the PEF.

The heads were told the money – which amounts to 15 per cent of the total – would be used to pay for existing classroom assistants and an administrative team at local authority headquarters, which have been threatened by wider cuts.

In a meeting with school staff it was even suggested that if heads did not agree with the plan, then it was likely some classrooms assistants could lose their jobs, prompting suggestions of “emotional blackmail”.

Although some headteachers were happy to along with the proposal a majority were concerned about the implications when asked by their professional body, the the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland.

The plan is in contravention to government guidelines which explicitly state all the money should go direct to schools with headteachers deciding where best to spend it in partnership with councils.

It added that allocations from the PEF are in addition to baseline funding and should not be used to subsidise existing services.

The PEF is targeted on supporting pupils in the local authorities which have the highest concentrations of deprivation including Glasgow, Dundee, Inverclyde, West Dunbartonshire, North Ayrshire, Clackmannanshire, North Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire and Renfrewshire.

North Lanarkshire received £8.8m under the scheme with 120 primaries and 7,000 pupils to benefit.

The key principles of the fund set out by the Scottish Government are that headteachers “must have access to the full amount” and that it must enable schools to deliver activities which are “clearly additional to those which were already planned”.

The council is also in breach of further guidance which states that headteachers and local authorities should work in partnership to agree the use of the funding.