THERE is no link between the number of teachers employed in schools and wider educational standards, according to Scotland's councils.

Cosla made the claim as part of an escalation of the current political row over the protection of school staff.

Officials from the local government body said the Scottish Government was convinced of the correlation between the two, but that there was no actual evidence for it.

However, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union hit back arguing that they were advancing a "spurious defence" of their desire to slash teacher numbers.

A paper produced by the body shows that since 2007 pupil teacher ratios in secondary schools have gone up from 11.6 to 12.2, but over the same period average tariff scores in S4 and S5 have improved.

The report states: "It is noticeable across the last decade that attainment improved as pupil teacher rations came down and then improved even faster as pupil teacher ratios went back up again.

"That suggests that the consistent pattern of improvement across the whole period has nothing to do with teacher numbers."

Cosla has argued recording teacher numbers should no longer be regarded as a suitable mechanism to evaluate how well the education system is performing.

Instead, they want to see the adoption of measures which look at how many pupils go on to positive outcomes such as university, college, training or a job when they leave school as well as whether the education system is closing the attainment gap between rich and poor.

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS, accused the local government body of mis-using the figures.

He said: "Their selective literature review uses sleight of hand to attempt to refute as unproven the notion that the number of teachers working in our classes has a direct correlation to improving attainment.

"Why is it then that almost every successful project which we have implemented to address the impact of poverty have at their core additional teaching staff?

"To seek to dismiss the importance of teacher numbers to the raising attainment agenda in an attempt to create a pseudo rationale for what is a cash driven cuts agenda, frankly, is shameful."

Mr Flanagan said that almost every successful project put in place by the EIS to address poverty, including nurture or literacy programmes, have 'at their core additonal teaching staff.'

He continued, "Scotland's teachers are the education system's greatest asset - at a time when pupil rolls are rising the numbers should be getting expanded, let alone protected.

"The EIS continues to be prepared to discuss with the Scottish Government and Cosla appropriate ways of benchmarking Education services but we are not prepared to sacrifice teachers on the altar of austerity."

He added: "Cosla voluntarily entered into a commitment to maintain teacher numbers in line with pupil rolls, as part of a deal, in 2011, which saw £60 million worth of cuts imposed on Scottish education - an ongoing saving."

He said, despite the deal, Cosla had "failed in two years out of three to reach their target." Mr Flanagan said: "The Scottish Government should have imposed sanctions for this failure but chose not to."

He continued: "The last pay settlement included a further agreement in principle from Cosla to maintain numbers.

"Despite that, local authorities were planning to savage staffing levels in our schools at the same time as accepting the £41 million subsidy being paid to them by the Scottish Government.

"The Scottish Government then offered a further £10 million but Cosla couldn't get past its internal squabbling and accept this additional funding which has resulted in the Scottish Government making the funds available in a council by council basis - we urge all councils to accept the funding that is on offer."