Scotland’s first minister is threatening councils with financial penalties if they fail to present a “credible proposal” by next month to reduce the time Scottish teachers spend in front of classes by 90 minutes a week.
In a communication sent to local authorities in June, John Swinney says that - with industrial action looming over the failure to make progress on this high-profile government commitment - “we simply cannot afford to stall on this any longer”.
Mr Swinney calls on Shona Morrison, president of local authorities’ body Cosla, “to make urgent progress on determining a ‘realistic way forward’”.
He says “a coherent and clear plan, including a proposed timeline for phased implementation” should be ready for a special meeting on 20 August of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers, the tripartite body that negotiates teachers’ terms and conditions.
Cutting teachers’ class contact time
Mr Swinney also warns that failure to deliver on the policy - a manifesto commitment in the 2021 SNP manifesto - could result in the government adjusting, withholding or recovering “relevant monies allocated to individual councils for these purposes”.
However, while Mr Swinney says “significant” additional funding has already been provided to fund the policy, “scoping work” carried out by councils - seen by Tes Scotland - calculates that delivery will cost tens of millions of pounds more than has been invested in teacher numbers by the government to date.
Cosla papers shared with local authority leaders in June - including a scoping paper on reducing class contact time - reveal that councils estimate the policy will cost anywhere from £253 million to £307 million.
Funding from the Scottish government for teacher numbers this year is £186.5 million. The papers say this funding “will not come close to the funding required to support this policy”. They describe as “questionable” the government’s view that the cut in contact time can be delivered by maintaining teacher numbers at 2023 levels because of falling pupil rolls - especially given that pupil numbers are rising in some areas.
The papers indicate that analysis by the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland estimated that more than 3,800 extra teachers would be required to deliver the 90-minute reduction, based on information from 30 of Scotland’s 32 councils.
If teacher numbers in Scotland return to 2023 levels, they will rise by around 600 (in 2024 there were 53,412 teachers working in Scotland, down from 54,033 in 2023).
The Cosla papers stress that secondary schools are already struggling to recruit some subject specialists - including maths, physics and technology teachers - and that there is a risk that non-specialists will have to cover the increased non-class contact time in these subject areas.
‘Detrimental impact on learning’
They also say that if the policy is not properly resourced, changes will have to be made to education to “mitigate costs”, and these changes could have “a detrimental impact on learning outcomes”.
The papers suggest that options for cutting costs might include decisions on who delivers learning - more use could be made of coordinators or instrumental music service staff to cover the time teachers are out of class, but “trade unions nationally may oppose this”.
Other mitigations mooted in the paper include the increased use of digital technology, as well as changes to the pupil-teacher ratio and the “shape of the school week”.
In recent years some councils have floated the possibility of cutting the time pupils spend in school in order to save money - but to date the Scottish government has fiercely resisted this.
The Cosla analysis also highlights that the policy has implications for initial teacher education and probation.
The paper says: “There needs to be a clear picture of demand pressures created by the policy and how that will affect the supply of teachers into the system, especially in areas where there are pressures being created through increased demand (population growth) or lack of supply (rural and island areas).”
The Cosla papers are not wholly negative: there is an acknowledgement that more time out of class for teachers was recommended by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in its 2021 report, as a way of giving staff space “to support development of Curriculum for Excellence”.
However, Cosla maintains that the government lacks “a clear purpose for the policy in reducing teacher class contact”.
It identifies “a significant risk that very considerable investment will have no positive impact on other key [Scottish government] aims around, for example, tackling child poverty and closing the poverty-related attainment gap, and could negatively impact groups of children, for example those with additional support needs”.
Responding, a Scottish government spokesperson said “significant” additional funding had been made available to support the delivery of the teacher numbers and class contact time agreement.
The spokesperson added: “The First Minister has been clear that councils must be working towards delivering on their part of the agreement and allocating resources required to do this.
“Working with trade unions and Cosla on our agreed approach on reducing class contact time for teachers is one of our key priorities. This will support teachers’ wellbeing, helping them to be more productive, which will further benefit children and young people’s education.”
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