JIM LOGUE Heads are not there to make up the numbers

How important is local democracy to you?

It’s a slightly strange question, because you perhaps won’t have thought too much about it.

So let’s try it another way: how important is local accountability — local politicians who know the area well and live in your communities being responsible for the decisions they take?

I believe that most people would say that’s an important principle. But it’s being ever more rapidly eroded by the approach of the Scottish Government to a whole range of services.

Already we have had the merger of Scotland’s police forces into one. While police officers on the frontline continue to do a fantastic job, it is clear that this has been a failure in terms of the savings it was supposed to deliver and in terms of a one-size-fits-all approach to policing.

This couldn’t have happened under the old system, where local councillors sat on a police board and held local and regional commanders to account.

There are other examples of centralisation. But perhaps the most terrifying is the centralisation that the Scottish Government appears determined to drive through in one of the most important things councils are responsible for; education.

And one of the government’s other obsessions — which is very much like academy schools promoted by the Tories — is giving head teachers unlimited control of budgets.

So we have media stories from “sources” about how “something must be done” about councils’ role in education, we have summits hosted by the Deputy First Minister to which council leaders aren’t invited and we have trade unions up in arms about the government’s approach. And all this when attainment is high and growing while education is a council responsibility.

Even SNP councillors are furious. Stephanie Primrose is an SNP councillor from East Ayrshire who is the education spokesperson for COSLA — the body representing councils across the country.

It’s unusual for any SNP representative to do anything other than toe the party line, but she said: “It is disappointing that such an important issue all seems to be hearsay and rumour. Children and families do not benefit from hearsay and rumour.”

She’s right — and she’s right, too, to warn of the dangers of “sleepwalking” into a centralised system that Scotland rejected more than 30 years ago.

Continuing to raise attainment matches our own priority of ensuring children realise their full potential.

Attainment is improved by a number of factors: excellent teaching and learning, quality school leadership, the setting of high standards and constant evaluation.

It’s also about supporting families so they can help their own children learn. Altering how schools are funded or run won’t change any of that — in fact it could make things worse.

Do you really want our head teachers focusing on accounts and recruitment instead of teaching and learning?

Nobody could argue that raising attainment is anything other than essential. Nobody could argue that more needs to be done. But the way to do that is to continue to allow councils to make the right decisions, working with teachers and parents in local communities and with councillors being directly accountable to local people for the decisions they make.

Local democracy is vital to our communities. It is being systematically dismantled so that career politicians – some, like Alex Neil, who don’t even live in the area they purport to represent – can sit in Edinburgh and feel like they are making a difference, when all they are doing is diluting the lifeblood of our towns and villages.

I won’t stand by and watch it happen, and nor should you.

Do we really want our head teachers focusing on accounts and recruitment instead of teaching and learning?

Concern Logue believes education must be a council responsibility