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Scottish regional reforms under fire

A Scottish government plan to create regional structures to drive improvement in schools has been criticised as “utterly incoherent” and likely to erode local democratic accountability.

Earlier this month John Swinney, the education secretary, announced a scheme for up to seven “regional collaboratives”, which he said would be able to offer more consistent support to schools across Scotland.

As a result of the school governance review, councils will still act as employers and keep control of the number and location of schools, provide support services and hire headteachers, while the new regional structure will enable the sharing of skills and knowledge, he said.

Mr Swinney has cited the “brilliant example” of an alliance of seven councils in the north of Scotland as the model for the reforms, which are aimed at closing the attainment gap between richer and poorer areas.

However, educationalists, opposition MSPs and council group Cosla have said the new system would add another layer of bureaucracy rather than freeing up headteachers and teachers, since government-approved directors will oversee the regional hubs and report to the chief inspector of schools.

Keir Bloomer, an independent educational consultant, said the plans were “dysfunctional” because they would be coercive rather than developing naturally like the Northern Alliance.

Speaking at a Scotland Policy Conferences event in Edinburgh last week, he said: “The government collaboratives are compulsory, they are top-down, they are authoritarian, unwanted, bureaucratic and hierarchical. They reinforce all of the worst characteristics of the culture of Scottish education. We need to oppose an utterly incoherent concept of what collaboratives might be like.”

Walter Humes, an honorary professor of education at Stirling University, said: “It has been evident for some time that local authorities have been struggling to provide the level of support that is needed.

“The latest reforms aim to liberate and empower teachers and headteachers but there is a tension throughout the proposals between freedom and control. Teachers, it is said, are to be encouraged to make local decisions, but all this is to take place within an overarching bureaucratic structure.”

However, Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said he was not against the collaboratives per se. Previous networks of council quality improvement officers had been lost to cuts and most councils no longer had a dedicated director of education, he said.

“I’m not convinced we need regional directors or that they should be managed by the inspectorate, but there is a huge gap in our education system regarding support for teachers and the collaboratives give us an opportunity to address that,” Mr Flanagan said.

A Cosla spokesman said the proposals “eroded” local democratic accountability.

“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 continues 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.”