Scottish School Board Association

SSBA

Response to Education Bill - Consultation Document

4 October 1999

Geoff Huggins
SEED
Area 2A
Victoria Quay
Edinburgh
EH6 6QQ

Dear Mr Huggins

IMPROVING OUR SCHOOLS

Government Consultation on the Improvement in Scottish Education Bill

I append the views of the Scottish School Board Association (SSBA) Executive Board following their meeting on Saturday 2nd October 1999.

  1. Raising Standards

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, we would further suggest that ‘following consultation with local School Boards’ should be included in future text.

  1. Local Improvement Objectives

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, we would further suggest that ‘following consultation with local School Boards’ should be included in future text.

  1. School Planning

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, we would add the following requisites:

  1. Budget consultation between January and March will be too late to allow dovetailing of School Development Plans and Devolved School Management plans. This should be put back to between October and December.
  2. SSBA are strongly supportive of the suggestion to give statutory backing to School Development Planning which will fit neatly in line with Devolved School Management. As part of the training packages offered by SSBA it is drawn to the attention of participants on the course that you need to recognise the need for planning before setting the budget.
  3. Although the plans are reviewed annually, most schools will work to a three year development plan. Recognition of the three year development plan should be included in the review.
  4. School Boards should be required to monitor the School Development Plan.
  5. Scottish Ministers and local authority ‘in consultation with the School Boards for the area’ will issue guidance to help schools in this process and to ensure consistency.
  1. Supporting Best Performance in Schools

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, we would further suggest that ‘following consultation with local School Boards’ should be included in future text.

  1. Devolved School Management

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. SSBA are particularly supportive of the suggestion that DSM could be extended to give schools greater control over their budgets including the options:

  1. Increasing the percentage of school level expenditure which is to be devolved.
  2. Extending the range of items of expenditure which are devolved.
  3. Removing or relaxing restrictions placed by education authorities on virement and carry forward.

SSBA are supportive of the suggestion that further guidance could be developed where that would be helpful. This should be done in partnership with School Boards. Further discussion needs to be had on who should monitor such schemes. SSBA are happy to be involved in such discussions.

  1. Inspection of the Education Functions of Local Authorities

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, in this new era of public accountability we would wish to raise a possible concern regarding the role of the schools inspectorate and a possible conflict of interest. This point needs clarification.

  1. Draft Code of Practice

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading. However, we would further suggest that ‘following consultation with local School Boards’ should be included in future text.

Concern is again raised in the parties required to monitor this function and the possibility that training would be required of all parties concerned.

  1. Corporal Punishment

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.

  1. Self-governing Schools

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.

  1. Registration of Independent Schools
  1. SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.
  2. SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.
  3. SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.
  1. School Board Elections

As stated in the consultation document, SSBA is supportive of this suggestion.

SSBA would further suggest that the time has come for a review of the legislation as set down in the School Boards (Scotland) Act 1988.

  1. Pre-school Education

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.

  1. Placing Requests

SSBA are supportive of the suggestions made under this heading.

SSBA would further suggest that following modifications to the draft bill:-

SSBA would support the recommendation made in the letter from R N Irvine dated 10 August 1999 with regard to section 5(2) which would prohibit a Councillor from being a parent member of any School Board within his or her Council’s area.

ALSO -

a) Section 2(1) in the second line, after the sixth word, insert:

"for the purpose of promoting the improvement mentioned in section 1(2) of the Act, an education authority shall, after consulting with School Boards and such bodies as appear to the authority to be representative of teachers and parents within their area and of such other persons within that area as have an interest in the matter".

b) Section 4(2) in the sixth line, after the first word, insert:

"An education authority shall, as respects each school managed by them, from time to time each year review the quality of education which the school provides; and if, having regard to the measures and standards of performance for the time being defined by them under subsection (a) above the relevant to the school, they conclude in any such review that the school is not performing satisfactorily they shall, after consultation with the School Board, take such steps as appear to them to be requisite to remedy the matter.

c) Section 5 - insert a subsection (3) as follows:

"The Headteacher of a school shall present to the School Board for their comments and approval all proposals for expenditure of the total devolved budget prior to such expenditure taking place".

d) Section 6 - insert a subsection (4) as follows:

The results of any such inspection shall be the subject of a published report.

Section 7 and 8 gives Ministers powers to issue practical guidance and codes of practice on matters relating to the inspection of education authorities and individual schools. These sections are to be welcomed.

However, SSBA would suggest that with the introduction of a new code of practice which requires Her Majesty’s Inspectors, when so requested by a School Board of a school which has been the subject of an inspection, HMI should be required to make available to the School Board all written reports produced by individual inspectors who took part in an inspection of the schools. The published report is merely a précis of what each inspector wrote. If a published report is very critical it is important for the School Board to be able to see all the information which is available.

SSBA would draw the following concerns to the attention of the Government:

Teacher contracts currently state the number of children which a teacher can take at any one time for teaching. The new class sizes when they are introduced are likely to be different. This needs tightening up.

SSBA would wish to thank Ministers for the opportunity of commenting on the consultation document and look forward to hearing the results.

If SSBA can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Yours sincerely

Ann Hill
Chief Executive
SSBA

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