(*Edit – 18/02 – I’ve now uploaded the psa allocation report from ACC where this was decided.)
Our school has been placed in the firing line yet again with the announcement that PSA hours are to be cut. Another cut that will affect those who rely on it most. The information I received the other day verbally was something like 50% of our PSA hours will be lost. This will result in more work for teachers who will have to make up for the cut. That of course means that they will be teaching less!
There is massive condemnation of this by EVERY ACC school in Aberdeen, some of which I’ll publish here…
Comments or Questions are welcome below.
What other schools are saying…
Dear All,
At our Parent Council meeting last night the planned reduction in PSAs was discussed at length. We will lose 250 hours of PSA support a week. You may know that Cults Primary School has a special needs unit and at present we have 26 full-time equivalent PSAs and this will be reduced to 16 in August. This reduction probably contravenes the Education (additional support for learning) Act 2004. We are going to lobby the council and MSPs but before we do so, please could I test the water and see if other PCs are considering similar actions? There is probably greater strength in numbers.
I would be grateful if you could get back to me if you are interested in taking further action.
Many thanks and best wishes
Steve Turner – Cults Primary School PC
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the message. At Stoneywood the PSA reduction is from 157 hours to 67 hours (57%). It will have a devastating effect on school life. We fully support any action that you may take and we are also planning our own lobbying efforts.
Best regards
Bill Harrison – Stoneywood PC
Hi Steve,
At a meeting last week I raised this subject with Rhona Jarvis. Rhona assured us that if any school feels that, using the prescribed national formulae, (see below) they have been wrongly assessed, then an appeal can be lodged directly by the Head Teacher, to the Council.
Kind regards
Tony Rafferty – Airyhall PC
Here is the formula and the table showing Bucksburn and Newhills’ allocations.
Thanks Tony. Is it a coincidence that this national formula is being applied now or are budgetary pressures the sole driving force?
My sense is that a one-size-fits-all policy is being applied with more weighting on school roll and deprivation and relatively little weighting on individual needs. The fact that a child in group D is only eligible for 0.66 PSA is a surprise.
I appreciate that Rhona is obliged to implement these cuts and she has to do as she is told from above but this seems drastic and not in the best interest of children with and without special educational needs.
Best wishes
Steve
Hi Steve,
This was part of budget cutbacks, first put to the committee for Policy and Strategy (Education) on 2nd December 2008
I agree with your rational totally, but the first step I guess is to measure it against the (very sad) formulae first and if that’s correct then action does need to be taken for the formulae to be revisited on a national level.
The following is the situation at Airyhall (Just received)
“Yes! We are going from 208 hours to 120 hours and, depending on our new structure, we will probably lose at least 3 PSAs and keep 6 on reduced hours – this is still being discussed but the allocation of 120 hours is set.
The formula was done on catchment area and numbers of children so schools in areas such as ours are badly hit. Numbers of children with Additional Support Needs in the school did not figure in the calculation.”
It is worth noting that the Aberdeen Parent Council Liaison Group will be hosting a meeting for all PCS in Aberdeen, at the beginning of March. Details will be out in a day or so. An ideal opportunity for us all to meet.
Kind regards
Tony.
We held our Parent Council meeting last night at Kincorth Academy and
were advised that our PSA’s will be reduced from 14 to 9. Effectively
from 408 to 245 hours per weeks which is approx 40%. As yourselves, we
will also be lobbying against this proposal and essentially questioning
the criteria set around the calculation for the reduction.We’re happy to support a group effort.
Lois Duncan – Kincorth Academy
Many thanks Lois. We are going to contact MSPs on this issue since the local council is stuck between a rock and a hard place. We hope to set up an on-line petition.
I will be in touch
Best wishes
Steve
Many things can happen during the timescale.
However I believe both councils should turn attention to a more pressing matter That will directly effect the education of children.
The reduction of Psa Staff, both schools have been given the number of hours allocated for Psa per school.
Dependant on current number of staff and new hours allocated this will determine the staff reduction.
This action puts tremendous pressure on teaching staff to carry out their vocation in the professional way they trained for.
Some say this cut contravenes the contractual aspect of teaching.
I would say it infringes on the human rights of every child affected irrespective of ability to have the chance of an education.
Therefore as a Parent I ask Newhills Pc to look into this matter urgently and inform the Parent body of the risk and current status to newhills pupils and staff.
And I trust Bucksburn PC will follow suit.
Regards
Steve McCall – Newhills
This post was moved following a question here.
Thanks Angela
I merely advised you of the intention which lay behind my use of the icon, your interpretation of my intentions is something I have no control over, and regardless I think I apologised sincerely.
With regard to the PSA issue, the Council currently spends £427 per pupil on PSAs, around £8million.
Following the budget saving, we will continue to spend £362 per pupil, significantly more than comparator local authorities.
The formula for PSAs has been redesigned to ensure that where children are in areas of need (i.e. deprivation) then support is appropriately targeted. This will undoubtedly mean that some schools lose PSAs, but will also mean others will gain.
The budget has now been approved so this budget line has gone through. It is unpalatable that these savings have needed to be made, I do not for one second pretend otherwise, but from my personal perspective the genesis of these issues predates my election in 2007. If I am to be lambasted for taking difficult decisions as a consequence of the irresponsibility of others, then so be it.
If we were to remove the PSA line from the budget, we would require to find a £1.5 million saving from elsewhere within the budget, one of the alternative suggestions proposed by officials but rejected by members was to reduce the teaching formula, which I feel would have been far more detrimental to children’s education.
It is easy for some to say that we should make no changes to the budgets whatsoever, and this is not aimed at any one individual, but the simple fact, acknowledged by the Accounts Commission and Audit Scotland, is that the Council has been spending more money than it has for many years. Such a situation cannot continue, and therefore we have had to make these difficult decisions, it would have led the Council to bankruptcy if we had not taken urgent action.
There were unquestionably mistakes made due to the timescales of the 08/09 budget process, which is why budget planning begain much earlier this time around, and was much more open and transparent with proposed savings being available for public viewing and input from November. In the period up until the budget I had one item of correspondence regarding the PSA line in the budget, which related to the impact on a particular school.
If you have specific issues which you feel are affecting the children at Bucksburn, feel free to email me and I will pass your concerns on to officials.
Mark
Sorry, just to make clear, when I say the Council has been spending more money than it has, I meant to say “has been allocated in its budget settlement”.
In response to this and moreover as part of my general thoughts on how the council manages it’s budgets, would it not be better if all the money was in one pot, where X million needs to be saved. Then this saving can be made by reducing the quality of paint going into Marischal college for example, or removing the Provost’s BMW and replacing it with something more affordable or some other area that won’t affect education?
The system as it stands currently gives x amount of money for use in this and y amount for use in that. Oh and x and y must absorb saving z from ‘the city’. Put it all in one pot and say it’s for use by ‘the city’.
Then council officials and councillors can make cuts to such things as above without affecting other areas of actual necessity.
Would I care if the statue of Rabbie doesn’t get washed so much, no. Does the Provost’s pomp and ceremony to do with the ‘reputation of Aberdeen’ afect me – hell no.
Aberdeen’s reputation is already shot with the handling of these cuts. I just think that a budget as above with one pool of money would actually be a great help to councillors such as yourself Mark who would then have a wealth of other areas in which to make the savings.
I know the budgets are divided for operational reasons, but for the man on the street it appears wasteful to send someone to Norway for a chat on the public purse while on the other hand making decisions like this.
As for the opportunity for response to the budgets, I knew the proposals were on the site only after researching archived planning permission proposals & decisions in the area as part of my research for another reason a week or so ago accidentally turned them up.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I’m willing to bet that I could well be the only person in Aberdeen(at the very least the only person with a passing interest in Bucksburn School) who did that search between November and now! These things are NOT well publicised. Aberdeen City Council’s website is a monster and non-intuitive in it’s implementation and navigation. Telling us after the decisions are made is hardly what I’d call well-publicised.
This is all my personal view on these general issues. I’d love to come to the council for a month and fix your website though – I once wrote to the webmaster informing him/her of a validation error that was affecting my weather watcher on the front page causing THIS site to have validation issues, which they fixed, promptly replacing it with another! I now pass all information from Aberdeen City through a tool I wrote myself to fix it – the ACC webmaster is incompetent!!
It’s a pity actually because the information IS all there, you just can’t get at it!! Perhaps I’ll provide an area on this site where the council could post information that affects us themselves (although I’m unsure if they could be trusted to manage that without screwing up something here too!) (I almost did </sarcasm> there but I’m not sure I’m being sarcastic actually!)
Billy
It might be better if all the money were in one pot, but that is not in my gift and would require a change in the rules set by the Treasury, and a certain Mr A. Darling.
As it is, I do believe the city has been and continues to be underfunded.
I am pleased that local government funding is being reviewed, but I realise people want things to change right now.
In terms of the website, why don’t you send me details of the changes you think should be made in order to make it more easily accessible and I can pass these on?
We actually got quite a few responses to the budget from members of the public and external organisations. Some of which led to changes to decisions – Auchmill Golf Course, branch libraries to name but two.
Mark
Yeah I realise the rules as set out mean it can’t just be implemented in Aberdeen, it was more of a general musing than a request.
I too think Aberdeen is underfunded as I’ve quite vocally mentioned on the Evening Express/P&J site. It’s ludicrous how much money they send here. They think because the oil COMPANIES are here that the oil WEALTH is here and that, of course, is not the case. Anyone in oil doesn’t live in Aberdeen, they commute from the land of milk and honey that is Aberdeenshire. Cheaper housing, cheaper rates, better quality of life, better local authority funding and investment and no traffic! People with the oil money are spending it elsewhere so Aberdeen’s economy suffers as a result. This means that the people most in need of assistance from funding are incapable of finding the assistance required.
That said I think ACC has a long way to go to prove they are capable of properly managing any increase in provision from central government. They can’t properly manage the pittance they already get! They overspent by how many million at the last count? Now they cut spending on vital services to pay that back. I know it needs to be paid but can’t it happen over a longer time-scale or something? Something that leaves the council still able to provide the city with the services it needs at the same time as paying the overspend. I’m sure you are as frustrated as I Mark with the amount you have to divert.
I’m making the list of changes for the website in my head as we speak!
How many are ‘quite a few’ responses because Bucksburn and Newhills schools presented the council with over 1200 responses to another recent proposal and that had zero affect! Do you think they doth protest too much and secretly want it?
Hi,
Just to let you know the parents of children who are in Bucksburn base are having a meeting on Thursday with the Evening Express in attendance. I agree this affects every school in Aberdeen and it will need MP level to affect any change but it doesn’t hurt to keep this in the press as it has had very little publicity to date.
yvonne
my daughter attends base unit at bucksburn. to lose 75% of the psa staff in the unit is ridiculous. Callie has done very well since being in the unit, this is down to the excellent staff at bucksburn. My worry is that with less one to one help, callies progress will slow right down. I understand that the council needs to make cuts, but why should it be at the expense of our childrens education.