More history and less economics?

“We need more historians and fewer economists”. 

This was the somewhat tongue in cheek claim made by the historian Rutger Bregman in an interview with Dan Snow on his ‘History Hit’ podcast. Bregman is the historian who hit the headlines when he took the Davros elite to task over tax. He is also the author of ‘Utopia for Realists’, which argues that throughout history it is utopian visions that have driven humanity forward. His case for historians is summed up regarding the financial crash:

“I thought that we needed historians to take the stage and explain what’s going on. When I watched the crisis on TV, the only people being interviewed were economists, and these were the guys that didn’t see it coming. I thought that we needed some historians there, so I left academia,”

He has a point, although I declare an interest as a history fan, albeit one who has written a fair bit about economics. I am also the Secretary of the Keir Hardie Society that seeks not only to remember the historical figure but also to promote his ideas in a modern context.

That is precisely what a new generation of historians seek to do. Dan Snow often asks historians to give some historical context to current affairs on his podcast. It is also not an either-or choice, as some economists use historical context effectively. I have in mind Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century) and Mariana Mazzucato (The Entrepreneurial State). 

This matters because as the Spanish/American philosopher George Santayana said; “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. You might also argue that those who study history can successfully repeat it. For example, I can think of more than a few generals who have successfully copied Hannibal’s double envelopment tactic at the Battle of Cannae.  

I accept this trend is not always progressive. I watched David Starkey on Politics Live last week, at his pompous, arrogant worst, as he patronised a young woman panellist.

The teaching of history in our schools has come in for some criticism. Professor Tom Devine argued some years ago that pupils are leaving school with little knowledge of their nation’s past because history is being squeezed out of the curriculum. When Scottish Ministers raised this issue, some argued this was a nationalist plot to indoctrinate young people. I didn’t agree then or now. 

Many people in Scotland would benefit from a better grasp of our history. Last year I was on the Culloden battlefield when a visitor was telling his son and me that this was where the English murdered the Scots. He wasn’t too happy when I politely pointed out that we were standing on the spot in the ‘English’ line held by the Royal Scots Fusiliers, supported in the second line by the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. And don’t even start me on Braveheart, Scottish knights fighting with Edward at Bannockburn or the recent Netflix film on a well-known descendant of the Norman French de Bruis family!    

This also plays into concerns that there has been a narrowing of subject choice in Scotland’s schools. The Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee is conducting an inquiry into that very issue. Lindsay Paterson also makes a case for a broad curriculum in yesterday's Sunday Times.

This is one of the issues raised in Scottish Labour’s current education policy consultation. That paper also asks how we can develop Scotland’s working class and labour movement archives and increase access to our industrial museums?

We have a strong heritage sector in Scotland, with good museums that strengthen our understanding of the past. My encounter at Culloden might not have been necessary if the excellent revamped visitor centre had been open. But many of our battlefields are not so well preserved. Even Culloden is threatened by development, as is Prestonpans and Transport Scotland are planning to do further damage to the Killiecrankie battle site. 

Our industrial museums operate on very modest funding levels. Local government cuts have added to the pressure on local historical facilities. The People’s Palace in Glasgow was only saved after a local campaign. It has just reopened after a £350k refurbishment, but the Winter Gardens remain closed.

The Scottish Government held a consultation last year on a draft culture strategy. The responses generally support the ambition and approach while emphasising the need to support the capacity financially. Extra funding can be levered in, but stable government funding is crucial.

Neither should we be parochial. The responses emphasised the importance of an international focus. Not just in promoting Scotland's diverse cultural assets, but in enriching and renewing our culture at home through meaningful contact and exchange with cultural policy and best practice from around the world.

That is reflected in the growing popular interest in world history. The National Trust is a large membership organisation, and historical societies of all kinds are well supported. Well written popular history helps, but it also drives broader study. I am always pleasantly surprised when picking up a book in my local library on what

even I think is an obscure historical subject, to find how many times it has been borrowed.

So, while we need both economics and history, let’s think about how we can better support our history through education, museums, sites and events. Not just to remember the past, but also for what it can tell us about the issues of today.

Education reform - getting the balance right

The Scottish Government’s education reforms are an attempt to balance their centralising tendencies with local democracy and give headteachers’ greater responsibility for their schools, without excessive bureaucracy. 

The document published yesterday is the Scottish Government’s response to the consultation on education governance. It sets out the next steps in their reform of education and schools in particular. While there will be some immediate actions over the summer, the details will be the subject of a further consultation before decisions are taken in the autumn. Legislation will follow early in 2018. 

This is significantly later than planned and has already been criticised as a further delay. In fairness, there have been a few other things going on and complex reforms need to be properly considered and planned. The shambles of Police Scotland reminds us of the risks in making changes without proper planning.

The main criticism of the original consultation was that it signaled further centralisation and the undermining of local democratic accountability. The seven new regional bodies are to be called Regional Improvement Collaboratives, using the Welsh model, and helpfully these don't involve taking over all local authority support services. While the paper is light on detail, it appears to focus on teaching collaboration, sharing best practice etc. Support services will remain with councils, although they will have a statutory duty to collaborate and pool resources.

The new Regional Directors will be appointed by the Scottish Government, enabling them to direct policy through a national framework. This gives a further indication that the Scottish Government has moved away from outright centralisation, towards what I have described in my recent Reid Foundation paper as a hybrid model. This uses quangos or other mechanisms to direct policy while leaving the administrative delivery to local government. COSLA has  expressed its concern over this dilution in the local authority role. A COSLA Spokesman said: 

 “There can be no getting away from the fact that the Scottish Government is trying to give the impression that Scotland’s councils still have a role to play in the delivery of education when the reality is that they do not; the simple truth is that there will be no meaningful local democratic accountability for education in Scotland.”

While most funding will remain within local authorities, there will be a national funding formula supporting a new statutory ‘Headteachers’ Charter’. It remains to be seen how much local flexibility will remain to address local circumstances.

There is a welcome recognition that there is a wider education team other than teachers. The paper states:

“We will recognise the contribution of the whole school workforce by working with them to introduce professional standards for these staff, including classroom assistants, to recognise the importance of the whole education team.”

Given the scale of job cuts to this group of staff any recognition is welcome, and the paper makes special mention of the need to support young people with additional support needs, something UNISON has highlighted. Other education staff that have learning roles or support teaching will be professionally registered with the new Education Workforce Council that will also take over the functions of the GTCS. UNISON will have a number of issues with this regarding fees, training, professional standards and how we can ensure that the roles of our members in education are not ignored in this wide ranging body. 

The paper indicates that headteachers’ will select and manage staff in their school. The HR function will remain in local authorities, which wisely avoids a lot of bureaucracy, but we will need more detail on how this will work in practice. For example, what does this mean for grievance, disciplinary and other procedural agreements? Retaining national bargaining over terms and conditions is a helpful reassurance, although there is also local bargaining over the terms and conditions of the wider workforce.

The paper may also have implications for UNISON members in the Care Inspectorate, through the shared inspection model and the requirement on the SQA to strengthen its consultation and engagement processes.

The paper promotes greater parent, pupil and community engagement in schools, which is an important element of any education system. However, there is a risk that schools could be isolated in the new structures losing the whole system approach. As COSLA puts it:

“The Scottish system has worked tirelessly towards a co-ordinated approach – health, social work, the third sector and others rally around a child and provide them with the help both they and their family need.  Schools are only one facet of this.  If the Scottish Government continue down this path of isolating education, the whole system approach is lost and it is the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our society who will suffer as a result.”

The primary aim of these reforms is to close the attainment gap. Schools and early years provision clearly have an important role in this, but the solution involves action to tackle inequality in Scotland. Headteachers are not well placed to address this and it is unclear from the paper how this partnership approach will work in practice to avoid isolating schools.

Overall, the government has certainly listened to the consultation responses and attempted to create a something of a balance between their centralising instinct and local democracy. The paper sets out a high level response and a realistic timetable. The debate will be over how these proposals achieve the stated objective and how they will operate in practice.

Apprenticeship levy - keeping it local

With an ageing public sector workforce, we should be encouraging apprenticeships by passing the funding from the Apprenticeship Levy onto those public service employers who deliver quality apprenticeships.

 

This is Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2017, which focuses on the benefits apprenticeships bring to businesses, individuals and the Scottish economy - an opportunity to encourage more employers to offer quality apprenticeships. Events and activities involving employers, apprentices, colleges, local authorities and training providers are taking place across the country to celebrate the success of apprenticeships.

 

The UK wide Apprenticeship Levy is to be implemented from April 2017 and collected by the HMRC from large employers. Employers in England, including public sector bodies, will be able to directly access funding. However, in Scotland the money goes into the Scottish Government's budget - around £230m per annum.

 

Public sector employers in Scotland are important providers of quality apprenticeships. In a recent UNISON Scotland survey 81 per cent of apprentices described their training as excellent or good, even though almost half (46%) felt there should be a greater degree of off-the-job training. That is not to say there are not issues that need to be addressed. More than one in three (35%) rated their chances of achieving a job upon completion of their course as ‘don’t know’ or ‘unlikely’. Gender segregation also remains a huge issue. While the percentage of women employed in apprenticeships varied across councils, a strong pattern exists of women taking up apprenticeships in administration or care, while being almost completely absent from ‘craft’ apprenticeships.

 

Councils spend at least £25m on providing hundreds of valuable opportunities for young people such as modern apprenticeships, craft apprenticeships, graduate trainees, probationer teachers, formal work experience as employers that all contribute to the Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce (DYW) Programme, jointly led by the Scottish Government and local government as partners.  This major programme aims to reduce youth unemployment by 40 per cent by 2021.

 

However, in Scotland the apprenticeship levy resource is not being passed on to these providers. COSLA has estimated that, based on last year’s pay bill for councils, the Apprenticeship Levy could potentially cost local authorities £24m as employers. That could rise to almost £50m across the public sector in Scotland.

 

Originally, local government understood that it would have its Levy funding returned in full in the next financial year by the Scottish Government.  Then councils were told that they were not to receive any of their own funding back from the Scottish Government. This decision undermines the DYW Programme and efforts to reduce youth unemployment in Scotland by putting in danger the future of valuable local initiatives provided by councils and other public service employers for young people. 

 

The bottom line is that apprentice recruitment is not happening at a sufficient rate to either: alter the ageing demographic of the workforce in public services; or replace the numbers leaving the workforce through voluntary redundancy or early retirement.

 

By centralising funding, the Scottish Government is discouraging public service employers from taking on apprentices. It is time to think again and return this funding to those local employers who want to develop quality apprenticeship programmes.

Getting it right in schools

Reorganising education governance is simply a distraction from the real issues facing our schools as highlighted in UNISON Scotland’s survey of school staffs. That’s also the conclusion of a wide range of published responses to the Scottish Government’s governance consultation.

 

UNISON Scotland’s response to the consultation highlights the OECD report on Scottish education, which identifies successes and challenges in the Scottish education system and offers recommendations to drive continued improvement. The report points out that it’s time “for a bold approach that moves beyond system management in a new dynamic nearer to teacher and learning”. Instead we are seeing a continued focus on systems and governance.

 

Current education structures provide democratic accountability through local government. Parent councils and parent forums also exist to give parents a voice in their children’s schools. Local authorities also provide a balance allowing economies of scale for HR services, purchasing and specialist support. Where there are difficulties for head teachers accessing the support they need the issues are about staff shortages and budget cuts not the structures involved. Managing more bureaucracy under central direction is the last thing schools need.

 

If the government needs an example of this, then we give them one today in our publication ‘Hard Lessons’. In probably one of the biggest surveys of school support staff ever in Scotland, staff report heavier workloads, jobs cuts, lack of educational supplies, and dirtier schools. This is while pupil numbers and education support needs are increasing.

 

There are 6707 more pupils since 2010 in Scottish schools, but there 1841 less support staff and 1389 less teachers. This report confirms the enormous stress this puts on support staff.

 

54% of support staff say budgets have been cut, 40% carry out unpaid work to meet workloads, 60% say morale is low, and 80% say workloads are heavier. And services like school libraries are closing. Many report stress from the lack of training and support they receive for the tasks they are asked to carry out – like administering medicines or caring for pupils with challenging behaviour.

 

The report reveals a dedicated workforce committed to supporting children to reach their potential. Staff skip breaks and work late to meet their pupil’s needs. But they are exhausted, undervalued and under enormous pressure.

 

Any serious attempt to improve educational attainment has to start well before children get to school - that’s why early learning is so important. In UNISON Scotland’s submission to the Scottish Government’s ‘Blueprint 2020’ for early leaning and childcare, we place an emphasis on quality provision.

 

We need to make sure that we learn the lessons of the adult care sector where we now have a fragmented service, which is costly and hard for users to navigate, with varying quality of service and a race to the bottom for staff terms and conditions. The voucher schemes proposed in the consultation have a high risk of creating a service based on low paid and unqualified staff.  It risks creating a two tier system where those who can afford to pay more on top of the vouchers will have access to better nurseries than those on low incomes. Vouchers also add extra complexity and administrative costs to the system. Vouchers will do the opposite of closing the attainment gap.

 

The Scottish Government’s ambition to close the attainment gap is entirely right. However, simply moving the deck chairs didn’t work for the Titanic and it won’t work for schools. The focus should instead be on tackling the issues identified in today’s UNISON report and invest in preventative spending like early learning.

Challenge Poverty Week - Early Years

Important though actions to ameliorate poverty are in the short-term, it is through preventative spending and early interventions that we will begin to eradicate poverty in Scotland. One of the most important of these interventions is through early year’s provision.


This is Challenge Poverty Week in Scotland in which the Poverty Alliance and its member organisations seek to highlight the reality of life for over 900,000 people living in poverty. It is therefore a good time to look at the measures being taken to address poverty.


The Scottish government has chosen this week to publish its blueprint for the expansion of early years learning and childcare (ELC) in Scotland.  The centrepiece of this plan is to almost double entitlement to free ELC to 1140 hours per year by 2020 for all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds.


Five years ago, the Christie Commission used early year’s provision to illustrate the importance of early intervention. The blueprint confirms the Scottish government’s support for this concept when they say:


“It is widely acknowledged that the provision of universally accessible and high quality early learning and childcare enriches children with the skills and confidence to carry into and multiply throughout school, and is a cornerstone for closing attainment and inequality gaps”


With this statement you would assume that the plan would be to expand high quality early year’s provision that makes a real intervention in the lives of children at this crucial period in their lives.


The blueprint covers a number of key areas that might help achieve this. As ELC is delivered by people, the workforce is a key element. The blueprint states:


“It will be vital to ensure that, as part of the expansion, the skills and qualifications profile of the ELC workforce is raised, diversity is increased, and there is greater gender balance in the workforce.”


The blueprint also reminds us that we are a considerable way from achieving this in the private sector, with 80% of practitioners and 50% of supervisors in partner provider settings paid less than the Scottish Living Wage. Levels of qualifications are also poor in this sector.


To deliver the laudable aims in the blueprint we need a delivery mechanism to match. This is sadly where the plan starts to unravel. Three of the four options in the blueprint are demand led approaches, very similar to the Tory voucher scheme approach to public service delivery. The obvious risk in this approach is that it leads to a race to the bottom in quality provision and the wholesale privatisation of the sector.


This is not entirely unexpected. The SNP manifesto commitment to employ an additional 20,000 childcare workers and build 200 early years centres, always looked optimistic on a suspiciously round budget of £500m. Sadly, government budgets don’t stretch on the loaves and fishes principle!


We have some experience of a race to the bottom in the social care sector. Because of budgetary pressures, social care has suffered from a race to the bottom in poor quality care. The consequences are half a million patient days in hospitals lost to delayed discharges. Only now are we beginning the climb up from the bottom with the requirement to pay the Scottish Living Wage. Even so, most councils in Scotland are still a long way from a quality care standard as set out in UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter.


The workforce lesson is that this approach results in workers that feel so undervalued that they don’t want to work in the sector and turnover rates soar. When you add Brexit to the mix, recruiting 20,000 additional workers to the sector is going to be beyond challenging.


So, my plea would be to learn the lessons of social care and don’t replicate them in ELC. We need a fairly paid, well trained workforce that can make the early year’s interventions that can close attainment and inequality gaps. We know all too well that privatisation and inequality go hand in hand.

Education reform - empowerment or centralisation?

The Scottish Government has signalled education as its first priority, most notably by giving the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney the lead role. Possibly shades of Tony Blair's, education, education, education mantra here. The first indication of John Swinney's approach comes with the publication of his Education Delivery Plan and it looks  eerily  reminiscent of the New Labour approach to public service reform.

The  Education Delivery Plan aims to achieve excellence and equity in Scottish education by focussing action around three key priorities: closing the attainment gap, delivering the curriculum and empowering teachers, schools and communities. The plan gives an explicit commitment to “a publicly owned and run, comprehensive education system in Scotland – a mutual system, not a market system – which supports every child to achieve". This is clearly meant to differentiate from the Tory, free school, privatised model, which is supposed to be driven by the market.

While the Tory approach pays lip service to inequality, the driver for this plan is bridging the attainment gap. A pupil from the 20% least deprived areas of Scotland is almost twice as likely as one from the 20% most deprived areas to leave school with a qualification at SCQF 6 or better (Higher equivalent or above). There will be few who disagree that this the correct driver, five years on from the Christie Commission identifying the 40% of public spending on failure demand and the importance of preventative spending. However, schools cannot bridge this gap alone. This can only be addressed by cross-cutting government action on income, taxation and strong public services.

The most important intervention has to be before a child gets to school, arguably before birth, but certainly in the early years. This plan therefore includes the government's welcome commitment to the doubling of early years and childcare hours. The concerns relate to funding and quality. It looks as if we will have to await the financial review of early learning and childcare in September 2016, for clarity on how the promised £500m is going to stretch to 20,000 staff and 600 centres. The frequent references to childminding is worrying, as this is not the quality early years provision required to make a difference in supporting children in the vital early years.

In schools, there will be a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy at P1-3; indisputably the correct focus. This will be backed up by targets, inspection, advisors and a range of national programmes. As well as an increase to £750m in the School Attainment Challenge fund that ministers dole out directly. It is here that we see shades of the Blairite approach developing - very reminiscent of the central delivery unit approach to reform. Top down targets and inspection, backed up by league tables in a reformed Parent Zone website, with ministerial handouts to pet projects.

More positively, there are elements of the plan that recognise that resources will have to be targeted on the schools in the most deprived areas. Proportionate universalism is the right approach, but it will require some bold political decisions if the targeting is to be significant enough.

There will be a range of measures to reduce bureaucracy for teaching staff by clarifying the requirements of Curriculum for Excellence. This will be welcomed by teaching staff, although the other centralised initiatives may place new burdens on schools. Sadly, there is no recognition of the role the wider education team play in schools – staff other than teachers are totally ignored. Teachers may be less keen on the introduction of national standardised testing in all schools by August 2017.

A Governance Review will be announced alongside the Programme for Government in September 2016. This review, starting in early 2017, will examine the system changes required to "empower schools, decentralise management and support through the encouragement of school clusters and creation of new educational regions". The plan is to extend to individual schools responsibilities that currently sit with local authorities. This will be done in a new Education Bill in the second year of this Parliament.

The structural changes will be the subject of further consultation, but the direction of travel is clear. It proposes centralising the education role of local authorities to new regions with more central government direction. How these new regions will be constituted will be important for issues like VAT exemptions and the employer role. Equally important, will be clarity on the freedoms schools will have over devolved budgets, including the deployment of staff. 

The new governance model is one of some devolution to the very local (individual schools), with an enhanced role for central government. Government will have a wide range of powers to direct how education is delivered, backed up with advisors, testing, direct funding and data transparency. In a country the size of Scotland it is perfectly reasonable to set national standards and frameworks. The risk with this plan is that almost all the real levers of power over schools will be in St Andrew's House. I count more than twenty new national initiatives, on top of those already in the National Improvement Framework.

New Labour may be dead, but it's approach to public service reform is very much alive in Scotland. The temptation on ministers to try and run services from the centre is always strong. However, the lessons from the 1980's are that central delivery doesn't work - so that temptation should be resisted.

Prospects for education services in Scotland

Giving the Deputy First Minister responsibility for education is meant to send a message that this service is a priority for the new government. So what might we expect in the coming years?

Let's start at the beginning, with early years. The SNP manifesto commitment is:

"By 2021, we will almost double the availability of free early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week for all 3 and 4 year olds and vulnerable 2 year olds – a policy that will save families over £3,000 per child per year. To deliver this expansion, we will invest an additional £500 million a year by 2021 and create 600 new early learning and childcare centres, with 20,000 more qualified staff."

By any standards this is a big and welcome commitment, even over a five year period. The first delivery challenge is budgetary. Is £500m really enough to pay for 600 new centres and 20,000 staff? By my calculations this will barely cover the cost of employing qualified staff at todays pay rates. Then you have the capital and revenue costs of the new buildings, which is difficult to calculate, but will be huge. Perhaps it's a good thing the former finance cabinet secretary is now running education - he will need to do the 'loaves and fishes' miracle with this one!

What the manifesto doesn't say is how and who will be delivering this massive expansion. As the UNISON Scotland early years manifesto sets out, this is best delivered as a public service with fairly paid staff. Working with children is not just about the time spent with each child. Workers also have to plan, evaluate, and assess learning and keep detailed records of each child’s progress. There needs to be wider recognition of what these posts involve and adequate funding for the staffing levels and hours of work required to do the job.

Schools and closing the attainment gap is the next challenge. There has been some ridicule from opposition parties over John Swinney’s call for some time, given they have been in power for nine years. However, he does at least bring a fresh pair of eyes to the challenge and as UNISON has pointed out in our submission on the Education Bill, the attainment gap is rooted in our unequal society, not simply what happens in schools.

The specific proposals in the SNP manifesto have a very Tory/New Labour feel about them - testing, targets, and funding directly to schools bypassing local authorities. Sadly, there is little evidence that these approaches have worked elsewhere and it is noticeable that the advocates of academies and free schools in England are now calling for larger groupings of schools, as large as 25 schools. That looks remarkably like a local educational authority to me!

What is sensible is the plan to renew the focus on literacy, numeracy, health and well-being – targeting support on areas with significant areas of deprivation. Investing £750m ‘in the next parliament’ in the Attainment Fund and £100m from the Council Tax changes will be welcome - even if the extra bureaucracy of head teachers having to administer it isn’t.  There is also a welcome recognition that teacher numbers are not the only solution – classroom assistants get a mention after years of cuts. School libraries also deserve greater recognition.

The biggest structural change is the proposal to create ‘new educational regions to decentralise management and support’. That sounds like tautology to me, but we can only assume it means regionalising education authorities, while allocating more resources directly to schools. This will be backed up by ‘more focused and frequent’ school inspections.

The next stage in the education journey is colleges. After years of cuts, regionalisation and 2000 job losses; the commitment is to, ‘maintain the number of full-time equivalent college places that lead to employment’. There is an understandable view in the sector that they have paid the price for extra university funding. However, there should at least be a bit of stability going forward.

For universities the focus is on improving access for students from the most deprived backgrounds. Free tuition is the right policy and enjoys cross party support, but it has done little to improve access. They will adopt the recommendations of the Widening Access Commission and set a new target of 20 per cent of students entering university to be from Scotland’s 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds by 2030. Reviewing bursary support for students in colleges and universities will be an important part of achieving that target.

It is pretty clear that the new government’s education focus is on early years and schools. Educational inequality starts young, certainly before school age, so that is the right priority. The row over the Named Person scheme is frankly a distraction from more important issues. The big challenges will be financial, particularly in early years where the ambition doesn’t match the budget. In schools there will be significant scepticism that the outlined structural reform will contribute to the solutions, but targeting additional funds where it is most needed, is the right approach. 

Poverty is the real difference between school attainment levels

The Scottish Government's parentzone website has published data on the performance of school leavers. The Daily Record highlighted how these figures show a shocking class divide between the wealthiest and least well off areas of Scotland.

This is my opinion piece in the Daily Record that ran alongside the article. In it I argue that the difference tells us more about poverty than schools.

 

 

"These figures don’t tell us much about schools. What they tell us is that poverty ruins lives.

The enormous gap in qualifications between children in poor and wealthy areas is simply a reflection of the inequality that scars Scottish society. An appalling number of families are relying on foodbanks. You don’t need to be an educational psychologist to work out that a well fed child is going to be a better pupil than one who is hungry. Saying that looking at these figures tell you more about house prices than it does about standards in schools is no joke, it’s the truth.

They certainly don’t tell us much about the teams who deliver education in the schools. Arguably it’s the schools where fewer children are getting qualifications that are working the hardest, as the team in the school attempt to help the children overcome a host of social disadvantages in order to learn. Think about it – if it were simply a matter of the attitudes of the staff would the pattern of poor areas and supposedly poor schools be quite so consistent?

One of the things that drives attainment is the chance to undertake educational enhancing activities. It is clear that better off parents have resources to allow their children to take part in a wider range of activities than their less well-off peers. For example, going to see a play live makes it easier to get good marks in English than just reading it in a book or out loud in the class.

Those who have the least opportunity to do these activities out of school because of lack of money, need to have these opportunities through school. Cuts in local authority funding, made worse by the council tax freeze, mean that the cost of school trips, whether for a day or a week, and sports clubs are increasingly falling on parents. These are burdens that many families cannot meet. Here in UNISON we have been told by members on low wages or zero hour contracts of instances of their children, knowing the sacrifices their parents would make to find the money, of not even telling parents about school trips. These charges mean that far from narrowing the gap will see it grow.

There are some initiatives that could be taken in schools that might make some difference. Ensuring poorer children are not denied support that can't otherwise be offered would be a good place to start - for example by ending the trend of getting rid of Classroom Assistants.

And let’s hope that the political response to these figures avoids nonsense about ‘improving aspiration’. As if the poor, who lets remember are mostly working for a living, don’t or can’t care for their children.

No one should be in any doubt that the real key to reducing the gap between how children in poor areas do compared to children in rich areas is to reduce the gap between rich and poor."

 

Transforming childcare is the right policy

In today's Scotsman I set out the case for making childcare a priority for Scotland.

Research shows low-cost quality childcare benefits women, children, family budgets, in-work rates and economic growth. It’s one of the few policies that contributes to both growing the economy and redistributing that growth more fairly. It is undeniably a good thing.

Good progress was made in the early years of devolution, but that pace was not maintained. However, childcare is rightly back on the political agenda and we should welcome that. Childcare is too expensive for many families and that is driving a race to the bottom with poor quality provision. It is local authorities who employ the best-qualified and most experienced childcare workers and are best placed to expand their workforce while maintaining a high standard.

Transforming childcare will cost money, we can’t pretend otherwise, and without doing the preparatory work at this stage it is anyone’s guess as to how much. But we do know it will generate more tax by creating jobs and by supporting women to return to work after maternity leave. And we know there will be a return on our investment. We will also make savings if we invest in getting it right in the first place, as opposed to the high costs we currently pay to overcome the effects of poverty and inequality.

Also in today's Scotsman, there is a helpful piece on child protection social work from the ADSW President, Sandy Riddell. He makes the point that social workers seem to be the default group to blame when a child is harmed. He says: "We shouldn’t risk paralysing a profession in order to give the public the comfort of having someone to blame quickly. No social worker killed any of these children and if we didn’t have good committed social workers, how many more children would be at risk of harm?"

Higher education and independence

Higher education is already largely devolved. However, there are many uncertainties for higher education in the independence debate, not least what impact it will have on funding. Universities are a very important part of the Scottish economy and they operate in a global marketplace.

I was speaking today at the ESRC seminar on Higher Education and Independence. I outlined UNISON's approach to the constitutional debate as set out in our publications, Fairer Scotland and Fairer Scotland - Devolution.

I focused on a number of issues that concern staff working the the sector. In the main they revolve around funding for universities. Important sources of income for Scottish universities come from students from the rest of the UK who at present pay tuition fees at similar levels to those in the other parts of the UK. The Scottish Government claims they will be able to continue to levy these fees, despite EU rules that forbid direct discrimination against other EU countries. This of course assumes that Scotland will be a member of the EU. I don't doubt that Scotland will be an accession country, the issue is on what terms. The rebate would certainly be lost and that would have an impact on public spending that funds free education.

Not surprisingly this was one of the hot topics at today's seminar. Mike Russell was not convincing on this point, but he fairly pointed out that Scotland is only in this difficulty because of the marketisation of education in England. On the other hand speakers did point out that marketisation is not absent from Scottish universities in terms of overseas students and loans.

UNISON is a strong supporter of free tuition. However, we have to recognise that it has not improved access to higher education for those from disadvantaged areas. When student support is taken into account, students from disadvantaged backgrounds face similar levels of debt to students in England when they graduate. Universities can do more here, but it is also a reflection of our unequal society.

The other income concern relates to research funding. At present Scotland does proportionately well from the UK research spending allocation. Scotland has 8% of UK GDP, but get 13% of research funding pot. There is also a question mark over UK charities research funding that is equally important to Scottish universities. We should also remember that pressure on research funding globally is not limited to constitutional change. Alastair Carmichael also made some strong points on the benefits of the integrated UK research framework. It is national government's that fund research, international funding collaborations are not funded on the scale of the UK system.

A plus for Scottish universities from independence may be an immigration policy that reflects Scotland's needs, rather than the south-east of England. That may enable Scotland to attract even more overseas students on top of the 40,000 who already come here. Alastair Carmichael attempted to rain on that claim at today's seminar, but in my view not very convincingly. Scottish universities have already suffered from UK policy changes. For example, there has been a halving of students from India.

There are over 21,000 non-academic staff in Scottish universities and large numbers of atypical workers. At present the core pay and conditions are negotiated at UK level, so independence may require a new bargaining structure in Scotland. Nothing new in that for us, but we would be opposed to local bargaining as a replacement. Any view of pay is of course coloured by the current dispute. The 1% offer contrasts unfavourably with the big pay increases senior staff in universities are awarding themselves. If Scottish universities want to be taken seriously about inequality, they should start by addressing pay inequality in their own institutions.

Other workforce issues of concern to our members include the use of zero hours contracts and casualisation; the 14% gender pay gap; and low pay including the Scottish Living Wage. The funding issues above clearly have an impact on how these issues will be addressed if Scotland votes for independence, although there are currently significant reserves and the workforce costs are falling as a percentage of income. Funding hasn't been a barrier to top staff pay!

University governance has rightly been a focus of recent reports and legislation in Scotland. University leaders try to posit a conflict between good governance and accountability with institutional autonomy. Scottish universities should not be captured by a managerial elite and stronger governance is needed to stop the drift in that direction.

That leaves the issue of pensions. Our members are covered by several pension schemes at present. For those in the LGPS, independence will have little impact as it is already a separate Scottish scheme. For those in the USS there is a concern about having to split the scheme or tackle the deficit immediately due to EU rules. Bigger pension schemes are generally more effective so this would be an issue for a separate scheme even if transitional arrangements could be agreed with the EU over the deficit. Obviously, this is only an issue if Scotland and the UK is in the EU!

This series of seminars funded by ESRC are hugely important to the constitutional debate. They offer one of the few opportunities for objective analysis in the current debate. I would particularly recommend the film the project has made that captures the views of young people. It is very powerful.

HE may be devolved, but that doesn't mean constitutional change won't impact on the sector. However, learning is delivered by people not robots. So don't forget the workers!

Welcome free school meals but don't forget the current service

There was a welcome announcement by the Scottish Government yesterday on the extension of universal free school meals to all children in Primary 1, 2 and 3. I was a signatory, on behalf of UNISON Scotland, to the call by a range of education organisations for the Government to use the Barnett consequentials of the similar decision in England in this way. UNISON Scotland has a long-standing commitment to universal free school meals for all children.

The pilot trials show that universal provision significantly improves the take up of school meals, even amongst those already entitled to them, due to a positive peer effect. It also boosts learning and attainment and helps tackle health inequality. A study undertaken at Dundee University concluded that the current system of means testing, “fails to deliver welfare to the poorest in society”. While it clearly does have a positive impact on family budgets, I regard this as a secondary consideration because there may be other, possibly better, ways of using the budget in this regard.

School meals are therefore a service that benefits from universality. I accept that is not the case for all services as we have always had a mixed economy. Of course, despite the spin, neither does the Scottish Government, as they don’t apply the principle consistently. Access to justice being a good example of universality being abandoned when it suits them.

A point lost in yesterday’s debate is the state of the current school meals service. UNISON Scotland surveyed members working in catering only recently and found that 54% say there have been major or severe cuts in the last 3-4 years. A total of 49% expect further major or even severe cuts to their service. Top concerns are increased workload, reduced staffing and the impact of cuts on the service. Many believe service levels are only being maintained because staff are working beyond the call of duty, under high pressure, with heavy workloads. This is also reflected in the 23 improvement notices served on school kitchens across Scotland last year. 

UNISON would also support a much larger expansion of quality childcare provision than that announced yesterday, welcome though it is. The strange decision to use a devolved power to illustrate the possibilities of independence inevitably creates a political rammie over spending priorities. However, I am not convinced that the case is made that one is necessarily more effective in tackling poverty than the other - so spreading the jam is not an unreasonable policy. Equally, the argument that further childcare provision is dependent on tax powers is very weak. If we followed that principle, Holyrood would do nothing to promote employment because the tax revenue doesn’t directly come to Scotland. 

So while we should welcome yesterday’s announcement for school meals and childcare, let’s remember current services are under considerable pressure and struggling to deliver a quality service. While politicians love to announce new services – the existing provision has to be maintained as well.

College cuts are real

Scotland's Further Education colleges have born the brunt of education cuts as a new Audit Scotland report confirms.

Audit Scotland have published a report today on Scotland's colleges that confirms the scale of budget cuts and the consequential impact on jobs and courses. Debunking Scottish Government spin on this issue. 

The first key finding is that there was a cut in SFC grant funding (government cash) of £56 million in real terms compared to 2010-1. This contributed to colleges’ overall income falling by nine per cent. The college sector faces an overall 11 per cent real-terms reduction in revenue grant funding from the Scottish Government between 2011/12 and 2014/15. The chart below illustrates this cut very clearly.

The reclassification of colleges as public bodies will also make it more difficult to build up financial reserves as a cushion against budget cuts. The report also highlights that college reserves have been raided to pay for the Government's college centralisation plans, contrary to the Griggs report recommendations.

The second key finding is that student numbers have been slashed through a cull of part-time places. Again this chart illustrates the cut clearly.

The report looks ahead to the impact of mergers and highlights very real challenges for the sector. Every bit as challenging for the students who have to travel from what was a local college to a regional one. It highlights the needs of older people and others who rely on part-time college places.

Most of the cuts have come from staff costs, to be expected in a staff intensive sector, but the report rightly highlights the challenges going forward in maintaining quality. The SFC has already lowered its expectation of the amount of college learning that can be delivered by around 4%, with a further 5% this year.

The Auditor General, Caroline Gardner, sums it up well, "Income has fallen significantly and this will continue for the foreseeable future. Colleges will have to manage these funding reductions and changes in structure and status while meeting local communities' demands for further education."

Given the effort to spin college cuts away, this report is a useful reminder that further education has taken the brunt of education cuts in Scotland and college learning will suffer as a consequence.

Scottish Studies

The announcement by Alasdair Allan, Minister for Learning and Skills that a new topic, Scottish Studies, is to be taught in schools has caused a lot of debate. Maybe because it is the media silly season, after all Mike Russell made a similar statement in June without quite the same level of interest.

Alasdair said research showed there was widespread support for the plan, which he said would correct an “abnormal” situation where Scottish history and literature was not routinely taught. “You would anticipate that there would be a wide variety of material about Scotland made available in Scottish schools, but it has to be said that, although things have been getting much better, many people’s experience is of learning not much about Scotland.”

I have to say that I fully agree with that. Interestingly, similar points have been raised in England about how little of their history is taught in schools. Whilst we should of course learn about international history, that doesn't mean our own should be marginalised. I was fortunate to have an wonderful history teacher who gave me a lifelong passion for the subject. Others have not been so fortunate.

For those who view this as a nationalist plot, if it is, it could backfire. In my experience many Scots have a very romantic view of Scottish history, full of heroic myths that sadly are rarely true. The Wars of Independence, Jacobite risings and others are widely seen as Scotland v England matches, when the reality was much more complex. Teaching history properly can only improve our understanding of the past and move away from simply viewing Scotland as, that country that isn't England.

There is also a lesson for some politicians. Knee jerk reactions that it is all a nationalist plot is just not clever politics. It just plays negatively and turns the voter off politics. The research showed widespread support for the idea and a simple vox pox with friends would confirm this. Of course there is a political motivation, but that doesn't automatically make it a bad idea. My advice - take a deep breath next time you are invited to do a media reaction interview.