A report was presented to members at this morning’s Policy and Resources committee (Tuesday 17 February) following recent developments in respect of the Scottish Government funding settlement.
At the committee, Councillors were informed that as no agreement has been reached at a national level, the Scottish Government had written to individual Councils seeking a Council by Council agreement. Each Council has been required to confirm in writing to the Deputy First Minister by 20 February 2015 that we accept the settlement package including the late change to the conditions on teacher numbers to avoid financial sanctions.
The impact of the new conditions set out by the Deputy First Minister mean that the Council has been allocated £303k from a £10 m national allocation- a £606k short fall in funding to meet the requirement to freeze teacher numbers at current levels. This is 0.5% of the Education budget.
At this morning’s committee, Councillors agreed that the Council Leader would write to the Scottish Government agreeing to meet the terms of the Funding Package settlement. However, concerns were expressed that the settlement penalised Dumfries and Galloway Council because of our better than average pupil teacher ration. The current national average Pupil: Teacher ratio is 13.7 pupils per teacher and the Scottish Government target is 13.5. The ratio in Dumfries and Galloway is well below that level at 12.7.
Council Leader, Ronnie Nicholson, said “Our Council has one of the best teacher pupil ratios in Scotland, far better than both the national average and the Scottish Government’s previous target. It’s frustrating that the failure at a national level to reach agreement on teacher numbers means the Scottish Government’s position is now no longer a national target of 13.5 but simply that teacher numbers should be frozen at current levels. That means as a council we are being penalised for working hard over the years to maintain teacher numbers. For the forthcoming year we need to maintain a ratio of 12.7 but other councils with a ratio well above the target national target of 13.5 will be allowed to continue to be above that target. The additional funding being provided to our council is just £303,000 – a £606,000 shortfall in the funding required to meet the freeze. As a result additional savings will need to be made within the Education budget to meet the Scottish Government’s new criteria. Fortunately, the recent council budget agreed did mean a £1.6 m increase in the Education budget to £132m so this equates to extra savings of 0.5%“