PROPOSALS to slash budgets with a number of radical measures which include school closures have attracted fierce criticism.
Scottish Borders Council has asked staff internally on how to improve the way it delivers services to children and young people – cutting costs by five per cent at the same time.
The project team in charge of the savings plan has circulated a doc
ument putting forward some of the suggestions they think employees may want to consider.
They include selling off schools, merging or co-locating Roman Catholic schools with non-denominational primaries, and reducing the number of libraries and museums throughout the region.
Other “ideas” put forward are increasing the number of joint headships in the Borders, changing the school week from five days to 4.5 days and making the school year four terms rather than three.
But it is the project team’s views on “making better use of our premises and resources” that have sparked fears among staff and parents that they are on the verge of a round of school closures. The future of the Catholic primary schools in Galashiels, Hawick and Peebles will also come under intense scrutiny.
One head teacher said: “It seems complete madness asking for staff views on how to cut costs by putting forward ideas such as shutting down schools and selling them off.
“It is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.
“The general public will be entitled to ask if this is the price they are going to have to pay for the planned Council Tax freeze next April.”
South of Scotland MSP Christine Grahame added: “This is not the way to go about things.
“If you are looking for the views of staff then you send out a blank piece of paper and invite their ideas instead of putting forward suggestions which in some cases are extremely worrying.
“Politically this just seems plain daft and obviously someone has been thinking out loud without thinking through the consequences.
“We have just gone through a school-build programme with several contentious issues in places such as Peebles and now we are presented with this. You have to ask why?
“Selling off the family silver by shutting primary schools to raise funds is a narrow-minded way forward. And if closing schools are on the agenda I do not know how the council thinks it is going to meet the Government targets of class sizes down to 18 pupils.”
However, Scottish Borders Council have stressed that details in the document, dated Monday, December 3, 2007 and entitled Transforming Services to Children and Young People Project Briefing, and circulated to education and social work staff, are “just ideas – not decisions and may not be included in the final report”.
It added: “It is also possible that the project or programme boards may decided (sic) that some ideas should not be taken forward for consultation.”
The four-page document contains a cross-section of 27 “ideas” already put forward including:
z “Merging two or more schools in our towns – creating larger and more cost effective schools and releasing existing school sites for sale.
The full article contains 528 words and appears in Southern Reporter newspaper.
