Council slammed as three schools bear the brunt of ‘brutal’ cuts

Fife Council has been accused of hammering north-east Fife’s schools with “brutal” budget cuts.

Local MSP Willie Rennie said figures released by the local authority showed Waid Academy, Madras College and Bell Baxter High School together would be hit with almost half the £1.3 million of cuts in Fife.

The Liberal Democrat MSP revealed 46% of the cuts will fall on just 17% of Fife’s secondary schools.

He said the cuts were being imposed despite claims from the First Minister that education is her top priority.

“It is outrageous that the First Minister claims education is her top priority when she is imposing big cuts to school budgets,” he said.

“It is equally outrageous that the SNP/Labour Council is in turn hammering north-east Fife with the bulk of these brutal cuts.

“Parents, pupils and teachers in north-east Fife are rightly angry that the bulk of the cuts will fall on these three schools.

“It is profoundly unfair that only 17% of the schools should carry almost half the cuts.

Mr Rennie said the area refused to be the “whipping boy” for the administration.

“Earlier this year it was northeast Fife’s primary schools that were targeted with cuts to school secretaries and now it’s our secondary schools that are in their sights.

“A total of £592,000 is to be cut from Waid, Madras and Bell Baxter with the remaining 15 Fife schools carrying the remainder of the £1.28m cuts.”

The council’s head of education and children’s services, Shelagh McLean, said the quality of teaching and learning in Fife’s schools was fundamental to the council’s ambitions for young people.

“This session we will continue to consider, with teaching staff and unions, ways to ensure that each school has a fair allocation of budget according to its size and to give more discretion to head teachers to use their budget to best suit their local needs,” she said.