Fife Schools Face £2.5m Cuts

A teaching union is calling for austerity cuts to be halted after claims they could affect children's education.

It comes as Fife schools are set to lose £2.5m because of a cut in management budgets. It's claimed head teachers are angry at being made aware of the loss just weeks before the start of the school holidays. The Educational Institute of Scotland is concerned it will impact on staff training, supply cover and textbook purchases. The union says:

"Whatever the historical provenance of this cut Fife EIS deplores the fact that headteachers in nursery, primary and secondary schools were reminded of this only weeks before the summer holidays.  Fife EIS fears that the cut will impact directly on supply/cover budgets in schools, the A-allocation budget through which schools purchase text books and other learning resources, other supplies and services and the CPD budget which funds staff training and professional development.

"These are vital areas in the delivery of education.  In large secondary schools where there might be a DSM carry over there will be some ability to off-set part of this cut. So a large secondary might be seeing a cut of around twenty thousand pounds in 2015-2016. In the primary and nursery sector, where schools might not have a carry over the effects of this cut might be catastrophic."

It recently emerged that schools across the region have taken advantage of free paper from Tullis Russell in Markinch.

David Farmer from Fife EIS explains the impact the cuts could have:

Craig Munro, Executive Director of Education and Children Services, said:“Teachers have of course taken free supplies of paper from Tullis Russell, but this is not due to lack of paper or learning resources in schools. In the budget this year the Council fully protected schools. 
 
"There were no cuts to school staffing budgets. The issue that has been raised relates to last year - a budget decision taken in February 2014.  The 1.5% cut from devolved budgets taken last year was initially taken off the school underspends. It has been a discussion point throughout the whole of last year with head teachers about how best to do this and we have been working through how best to apply the changes while still giving schools the ability to prioritise spend locally.”