Budget cuts will deny school pupils their customary two hours of physical education a week, a head teacher has warned.
Alison Palmer, head of Arrochar Primary School, pleaded with Argyll and Bute Council leader Aileen Morton to retain the £73,000 physical education (PE) allowance at the authority’s budget meeting on February 27.
But the appeal failed to overturn the council administration’s proposal to accept the savings option, with Cllr Morton responding that head teachers must decide how to use their budget.
The Scottish Government states on its website that it is committed to delivering two hours of PE in primary schools and the SNP council opposition’s failed amendment to the budget wanted to save the PE allowance.
Ms Palmer said: “The whole point of the PE budget is to allow swimming pools to be used by schools and for them to get reduced rates.
“For us, it covers the cost of the swimming, transport to the pool and instructor costs. If you cut this by £73,000 it means that the cost of minibus drivers and instructors, and money that the swimming pool makes, will have to come from elsewhere.
“It will have a huge impact. You have allowed swimming pool subsidy [for Islay, Jura and Mid-Argyll] to go through, but what if schools don’t have the facilities? How do you think they are going to work?
“The other issue is that every school in Scotland must provide two hours of PE every week, to every child.
“That means that almost a quarter of the primary schools in Argyll and Bute do not have the facilities on site to provide this. That is a huge number of schools.
“So where will they go? The budget line covers the cost of the halls they hire, so how will that work?
How will you allow schools access to two hours of quality PE without this budget?”
Cllr Morton responded: “We are spending over £60m a year on education and 97% of that is devolved directly to head teachers.
“The reality is that while I accept £73,000 will have an impact, there was only one savings option, relating to fees and charges, which was easy to take. None of the others were taken lightly.
“Ultimately, in the context of roughly 10,000 pupils across over 70 schools, it is a matter for head teachers to decide how they use the budget.
“In relation to the swimming pool subsidy, the service level agreement is reviewed next year, so it is better to consider separately. We continue to invest a huge amount of money in education.”
Ms Palmer then said: “We have not got control of that 97% – only a very small percentage. I have £3,500 a year that I have control over to run a school.
“I understand the hard choices that need to be made, but we are talking about a decision being made impacting on our children’s ability to learn to swim.”
Councillor Morton replied: “As members are aware, we have received additional funding, and what we have highlighted in some of our smallest schools is that we are covering additional costs between £25,000 and £62,000 a year.
“I have raised that with the cabinet secretary, but fundamentally we are spending £811,000 on teacher costs that the Scottish Government does not fund.”
In a post on its website, the Scottish Government said: “We are committed to schools delivering at least two hours of PE for all pupils in primary school, and at least two periods of PE for all pupils between Secondary 1 and Secondary 4; 98% of all Scottish schools are currently meeting this target. We also support initiatives like Active Schools and the Daily Mile.”
This is just one of the many services that are being removed from the public across Argyll & Bute that could have been saved if the Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors in the Administration did not decide to give £750,000 to the Rothesay Pavilion Trust on top of the £150,000 that the Pavilion is receiving each year for five years. I believe that it is scandalous that the Lib Dem and Conservative councillors are happy to dish out £1.5 million to the Rothesay Pavilion without any thought for those across Argyll & Bute who are going to lose services as a result. Every Council Tax payer across Argyll & Bute is now having to subsidise Rothesay Pavilion by paying an extra 2.5% on their Council Tax bills.
It was also disappointing that in their amendment to the Lib Dem and Conservative budget proposals, the SNP councillors were also proposing to give £750,000 to Rothesay Pavilion on top of the £150,000 they are receiving each year over five years from the Council. The Council Tax increase could have been kept down to 3% if the £750,000 had not been given to Rothesay Pavilion instead of the 4.5% increase by the Lib Dem and Conservative councillors. The Council Tax increase being proposed by the SNP was even worse as they were proposing an increase of almost 5% so that the £750,000 could be given to Rothesay Pavilion.
Councillor George Freeman