Revealed: Glasgow City Council facing £16.5m penalty for cutting teacher numbers

Glasgow City Council faces being left with a £16.5million hole in its budget if it presses ahead with teacher cuts.

Education Secretary Jenny Gilruth confirmed on Wednesday that the local authority’s share of a £145.5m fund offered by the Scottish Government to councils which agree to maintain teacher numbers is £16.5m.

The Scotsman reported last week how the SNP minister had said during an election hustings that she was “very clear that no local authority is going to receive that funding unless they agree to do so.”

SNP-led Glasgow City Council passed a budget in February which assumed it would receive the £16.5m funding, despite the same budget paving the way for the removal of 172 teaching posts this year, reducing by a total of 450 over the next three years. Council umbrella body Cosla is still to sign up to the terms of a Scottish Government agreement that would release the money.

They fear it could lead to even deeper cuts to other services, particularly as talks continue over a new pay deal for teachers.

Council chiefs are due to decide at a Cosla meeting on Friday whether to accept the Scottish Government’s terms for the £145.5m, reject them, or seek a compromise.

TES Scotland has reported that papers for the meeting confirm that the message “from Scottish Government officials [is] that there is not an appetite from the Cabinet Secretary to consider an alternative approach.”

At Holyrood on Wednesday, Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy said Glasgow City Council had not carried out an equality impact assessment before making the cuts.

Ms Gilruth said: “Glasgow have been offered funding of £16.5m in 2024/25 to maintain teacher numbers, which is of course their share of the £145.5m.”

If the Government does not back down, it could mean Glasgow has to either reverse teacher cuts or find huge new budget savings.

The local authority is also facing the growing threat of strike action by teachers, while hundreds of protestors joined a demonstration against education cuts in the city on Monday.

A spokesperson for the SNP administration on the council said last week: “We have already reached out to Scottish Government colleagues with practical suggestions for how they can help support Glasgow to address the unique challenges our city faces and we look forward to working constructively with them towards that goal.

“Withholding funding from Glasgow’s schools at this stage would be totally counterproductive and only exacerbate those challenges.”

The spokesperson also said: “No local authority wants to be in the position of having to reduce numbers of teachers or any other staff group.

“However we have made clear repeatedly to the Cabinet Secretary and other Scottish Government colleagues that the funding currently on offer from them is not enough to continue to maintain teacher numbers in Glasgow at exactly the same level without unacceptable impact on other parts of our local government workforce and the vital local services they deliver, which are just as important to the wellbeing of Glasgow’s children and young people.”