Cash meant to help poorest Scots pupils is spent on campus police
CASH intended to help close the attainment gap in Scottish schools has been spent on campus police, MSPs have been told.
North Ayrshire Council used part of its pupil equity funding (PEF) allocation on having officers in some schools, Holyrood’s education committee heard.
The Scottish Government’s PEF scheme hands funding directly to schools and headteachers to spend on initiatives aimed at closing the poverty-related attainment gap, with £120million distributed in 2017-18.
Martin Canavan, of Aberlour Child Care Trust, said the spending on officers highlights ‘inconsistency around how the understanding of PEF is interpreted, applied and used by different schools’.
He told the committee: ‘It could result in money being spent on things that maybe don’t work, and what is essentially a very valuable resource could be otherwise not used as best it could be.’
He added: ‘We’re not entirely convinced as an organisation, in terms of the work we do, the young people we work with and
‘Not a good use of this funding’
the needs of the young people we work with, that campus police officers are a particularly good use of PEF funding.
‘That’s not to say there isn’t a role for police in schools – for excellent, focused programmes of work provided by police in schools around things like anti-social behaviour – but when it’s uniformed campus police patrolling, we’re not sure that’s an appropriate use of PEF.’
Labour MSP Mary Fee agreed, saying: ‘I do genuinely struggle to see how having officers in a school can raise attainment.’
But John Butcher, North Ayrshire Council’s executive director of education and youth employment, claimed the initiative was ‘breaking down barriers’ between Police Scotland and young people.
He added: ‘Campus officers don’t patrol schools. They don’t wander about in uniforms. They are involved in Duke of Edinburgh Awards, involved in wider achievements... they’re not there to police schools [but] to be a key partner in the schools.’