The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Schools fail to use £3m to help deprived pupils
More than £3 million earmarked to improve the academic performance of disadvantaged children in Dundee has not been spent, figures reveal.
Through a Freedom of Information request, The Courier found that a total of £3,155,935 of more than £20m in pupil equity funding (PEF) given to Dundee City Council (DCC) since 2017 has not been spent.
PEF is a targeted initiative which focuses on supporting pupils in authorities with the highest concentrations of deprivation.
Dundee City Council was among the nine areas designated as a “challenge authority” when the fund was first announced by the Scottish Government.
Schools are able to choose how they spend the funds, with the only condition that the initiatives are designed to reduce obstacles to children from deprived areas performing well.
For the upcoming financial year, DCC has been allocated £5.286m – the third highest amount of the “challenge authority” areas.
The PEF spending figures come after a report by Audit Scotland published this week revealed little progress had been made Scotlandwide in bridging the attainment gap and that Dundee had the joint lowest proportion of school leavers achieving one or more National 5 qualification.
For the period between April 2017 and March 2018, DCC was allocated £4.9m in PEF.
Of this, £3.1m was spent in total. The majority of the money was spent on supplies and services, with a further £1.4m spent on staff costs.
Out of the 42 schools in the city 13 spent less than half of their allocated amount.
Just two schools – Craigie High School and St Paul’s Academy – spent all or more of their allocation of PEF.
Any money not spent by schools can be carried forward into the next financial year.
For the 2018-19 financial year, £4.98m in PEF was allocated to the Dundee City region.
However in contrast to the previous year, there was an overspend of more than £200,000 during this period.
Twenty-five schools in the city spent more than their allocated amount, including eight of the 13 schools who spent less than half the previous year.
However, despite the overspend by these eight schools, when the total from both years were added up none of them spent their full allocation.
Dundee City Council was allocated just over £5m to distribute to schools in the 2019-20 financial year.
Of the 42 schools in the city, 18 spent more than their total allocation during this financial year.
The 2020-21 financial year saw the biggest PEF budget allocated to DCC since 2017, with £5,068,557 given to the local authority.
However up to March 3, just £3.6m had been spent.
The figures also show that six schools in the city have spent less than half of their total allocation, with one secondary spending less than a quarter.
Scottish Conservative Bill Bowman, who is standing down as North East Scotland MSP, called for more to be done.
He said: “There is already a massive attainment gap, which could take 35 years to close if the Scottish Government doesn’t treat education with the urgency it deserves.
“DCC should get the money out the door now – this is the rainy day.”
A DCC spokesman said: “DCC has been able to claim over £20m from the Scottish Government in recent years to assist with attainment challenge projects, and a similar sum has been awarded under the PEF.
“Meanwhile, during the pandemic, additional study and learning support funding has been provided to all secondary schools.”
Children and families services convener Councillor Stewart Hunter said: “We want to improve outcomes for these children and young people, but there are no quick fixes or easy solutions.”