Teachers’ leaders demand ‘stricter, stronger ringfencing’ of education funding

Teacher leaders have insisted that cash to councils for education needs to come with “much stricter, stronger ringfencing” so that local authorities cannot spend the funding in other areas.

Andrea Bradley, general secretary of the EIS union, said there not only needed to be increased investment in education, but that this needed to be protected.

The union leader made a plea to politicians to “do right by children, young people, families and communities by increasing and protecting investment in education by ringfencing it”.

Her comments, at a fringe meeting organised by the union at the SNP campaign conference in Edinburgh, came as Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth voiced frustration at some councils for not increasing teacher numbers – despite being given money by the Scottish Government for this.

Ms Gilruth said: “I do think it’s really important when I’m at the cabinet table, fighting the good fight to protect things like money for teacher numbers, that local government takes that funding and does likewise.

“I don’t think it’s credible when I as cabinet secretary do protect that money, and I have managed to get more money in the last few years, then for it to go to local government and places like Fife, where Labour are in charge, take the money and then cut teacher numbers.”

Ms Bradley referenced that and added: “If there was much, much stricter, stronger, more robust ring-fencing, then we don’t have that going forward.”

She made the plea for stricter controls to be placed on how councils spend their cash as the EIS outlined its demands ahead of May’s Holyrood election.

The union wants to see efforts to ensure that all classes in schools have no more than 20 pupils, and for the amount of time teachers spend in the classroom to be cut to 20 hours a week.

It further wants to see increases in early years teachers and for additional staffing to help students with additional support needs, along with free school meals for all school pupils right through from P1 to S6.

These measures could be “brought to fruition by 2030 for under £1 billion a year additional spend on education,” Ms Bradley told the meeting.

She added that this extra cash would “have a positive impact on young people’s learning, a positive lifelong impact in terms of health outcomes, leading to greater life expectancy”.

The EIS general secretary continued: “Think about the size of the Scottish Government budget from Westminster, that’s not an astronomical amount of money.

“Think about the revenue-raising powers the Scottish Parliament has, there are routes to be able to raise that additional investment.”

The conference meeting took place the day after a deal was announced between the EIS, the Scottish Government and the local government body Cosla that averted the threat of strikes in schools next week.

Ms Bradley said there had been “really strong collaborative working” to “avert what looked to be inevitable industrial action”.

Teachers in the EIS had voted for strike action as part of a long-running dispute over workload, but Ms Bradley said she was “delighted” with the deal, adding: “We did not want to have to bring our members out on strike.”