Council backs down in funding row

North Lanarkshire Council has withdrawn plans to use money from the new pupil equity fund ( PEF) to fund classroom assistants, following opposition from the Scottish Government.

The authority had proposed to use £ 1.3 million of its £ 8.8m allocation, intended for attainment- raising initiatives decided by headteachers, to fund the provision of support staff.

However, council officials have now backed down and agreed to find alternative funding for the posts after their approach threatened the release of the entire funding allocation.

Council leader Jim Logue said the authority’s PEF allocation is now being released following discussions with the Scottish Government.

He told the Advertiser: “The Scottish Government questioned the use of £1.3m that was going to allow the council to continue with support workers and all classroom assistants in schools.

“It would have been 15 per cent of the £8.8m but they said they wouldn’t release any of it.

“In my view it’s absolutely outrageous that 100 per cent would be withdrawn over that 15 per cent.

“Our teaching colleagues recognise the value of support staff in schools and we wanted to continue with that using the PEF.”

He continued: “There’s no question of any support staff being made redundant. We’ll find that funding to continue with the level of support staff in schools. I give that guarantee.

“This administration values support staff and their contribution and we’ll go away and look at alternative sources of funding to accommodate this.

“It has to come from something else when the council has already had to save £26m. It’s something officers have to look at.”

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

“We have now received notification that the council has withdrawn its proposal and ministers have now approved the release of funding.

“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.”

Council chief executive Paul Jukes said this week: “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.”

Alex Neil, the Airdrie & Shotts MSP, welcomed the news and called it an embarrassing climbdown.

He said: “The government’s guidelines explicitly state all this extra money for poorer pupils should go direct to schools, with headteachers deciding where best to spend it.”