Council defends education cuts amid ‘difficult choices’
A storm has broken out after news that council cutbacks could lead to significant teacher losses across Bridgend in coming years. Abby Bolter reports...
COMPREHENSIVE schools in Bridgend county could lose up to five teachers each over the next four years due to council funding cuts of £3.4m.
It has led to an outcry from councillors outside the authority’s ruling Labour group, with one branding the proposed move “unforgivable”.
They fear it will lead to larger class sizes, pose a threat to the improvements schools have made over the last few years and demoralise teachers.
They are also strongly opposed to the cuts as Bridgend already has one of the lowest levels of school funding in Wales. It is in 21st place out of the 22 local authorities.
The job loss warning is contained in the council’s own budget, which was passed by a majority of councillors on Wednesday. As Bridgend County Borough Council (BCBC) said it must find savings of £5.8m to balance the books, it is removing the protection previously afforded to school budgets.
This means every school will have to find a 1% saving every year for the next four years – a total cut to the education budget of £3.4m.
A council scrutiny committee had already recommended against the cut, warning that it could also mean the loss of 40 primary school teachers by 2020.
And although the council sought to play down this impact – stating it was providing schools with additional central funding to cover pay awards and price inflation – its own budget reductions report states the consequences could be serious.
The report put before councillors this week states: “If efficiency is made solely from staffing budgets, this could range from a minimum of one teacher in our larger primary schools to five teachers in our larger comprehensive schools over the four-year MTFS (Medium Term Financial Strategy) period.”
Independent councillor Peter Foley is the chairman of the crossparty children and young people overview and scrutiny committee which condemned the cut.
He said teachers and schools deserve better.
“It is wrong to proceed with this cut, as it promotes uncertainty and instability among our teachers at a time when we have never been more reliant on their goodwill to maintain currently high educational standards. They deserve better than the threat of redundancies and classroom cutbacks,” he said.
The committee had recommended that instead of asking schools to find 1% savings, the council should axe the planned £400,000 community action fund designed for councillors to address issues such as potholes and target a budget entitled Other Corporate Budgets which has £6.1m set against it.
Independent councillor Keith Edwards, the chairman of governors at Maesteg Comprehensive and Garth Primary school, said the cut was “unforgivable”.
He added: “Many schools currently rely on various grant funding sources to balance their books – LEA funding in many schools barely covers staff wages. A 1% cut year on year would severely impact on a schools’ ability to maintain staffing levels.
“The threat of being made redundant creates insecurity and is totally demoralising, given that our schools rely heavily on the goodwill of teaching staff who often contribute to the welfare and education of our children by giving of their free time would have a totally demoralising effect.
“BCBC has committed millions of pounds to the Cardiff region, the benefits of which are the assumption that it will create thousands of highskilled jobs in the technology sector.
“If our children are to be able to tap into this jobs market they will need to be educated to a level at which they can compete for these positions. Investing millions in the Cardiff city region at a time of severe budget cut backs is at best questionable, leaving our children at a distinct educational disadvantage is unforgivable. We currently have one of the worst levels of funding per pupil in Wales. We should be investing in our children’s education not making further cuts.”
And fellow independent Maesteg councillor Ross Thomas said: “Two of the three most recent inspections in comprehensive schools in Bridgend highlighted the management of their budget deficits as a recommendation point going forward. There will be many other schools across Bridgend in deficit – imagine the decisions they’ll have to face if the 1% cut goes through? “The reality is that there are few areas in a school’s budget that can be cut – it’s the staffing budget that is fertile territory and therefore the risk of redundancies in any one of our schools cannot be ignored. I think the budget proposal risks undermining schools’ individual efforts to continue improving.”
But Bridgend council has defended its proposal, saying it is spending millions more on education than the cross-party Rainbow Alliance – which ran Bridgend council between 2004 and 2008 and was led by Coun Cheryl Green, another fierce opponent of the plans, and Coun Foley.
Deputy Leader Hywel Williams said: “The comments from councillors Peter Foley and Cheryl Green last week about how any budget reduction would have a ‘devastating effect’ were interesting in light of the fact that we are currently spending £6m more on education than the Rainbow Alliance ever did, and that more than half of all respondents in our budget consultation believed that the long-standing protection on school budgets should be removed.
“While the risks are clearly set out in the MTFS, in cash terms schools will receive the same funding as last year thanks to the uplift for meeting the nationally agreed pay award and apprenticeship levy, plus a business rate reduction.
“In the context of the overall budget, schools remain the council’s single largest area of expenditure, but also face the smallest cut of any of our service areas. People need to be realistic and accept that this is simply too large a budget for us to not ask head teachers to try and find where efficiency savings can be made.
“Education still remains a top priority for this council, and almost £50m will have been invested on providing new, improved schools and educational facilities in the period between 2016 – 2019 alone.
“But these difficult choices are being made all across the UK. We are not immune, and the fact has to be faced that while councils continue to receive less money and resources, budget and service reductions will be inevitable right across the board.”