In an embarrassing gaffe by members of Glasgow City Council, revealed over the weekend, it was shown that the principal reason put forward for the closure of nearly two dozen schools in the city earlier this year could not now be supported by official statistics. In April this year leading Labour politicians within the country's largest local authority revealed that they intended to close a significant number of city schools because of "falling school rolls".

However, it has since been found that school rolls in Glasgow are actually on the increase, although city council planners and politicians claim that the rising number of children attending schools in the city has taken them by surprise.

Councillor Stephen Curran, the politician responsible for overseeing service reform within the council, confirmed the rise in pupil numbers when he said that there were "more children in Glasgow than we had been expecting". In an added development the councillor intimated that the rise in school rolls would now mean that politicians would have to make an extra £2million in cuts to the city's education budget to accommodate for the increased number of pupils in city classrooms.

Although pupil numbers are on the rise, the council has appeared to rule out any possibility of a reversal of the controversial, and deeply unpopular, closure of 20 city schools earlier this year. In a number of cases - as with Barmulloch Primary School in Glasgow North East (shown below) - the school has already been demolished, despite the fact that the term has only recently started.


News of the gaffe comes as national statistics show that Glasgow has the worst record of attainment of any local authority in the country, suffering a 13% year-on-year drop (from 15% to 13%) in attainment levels in the key metric of the percentage of S4 students passing three of more highers in S5.

Schools' League Performance Table (by Local Authority)

• East Renfrewshire Council, 49%
• East Dunbartonshire Council, 39%
• Stirling Council, 38%
• Shetland Islands Council, 32%
• Edinburgh City Council, 27%
• Perth and Kinross Council, 27%
• South Ayrshire Council, 27%
• Aberdeenshire Council, 26%
• East Lothian District Council, 26
• Orkney Islands Council, 26%
• Western Isles Council, 26%
• Highland Council, 25%
• Scottish Borders Council, 25%
• Aberdeen City Council, 23%
• Angus Council, 23%
• Argyll and Bute Council, 23%
• South Lanarkshire Council, 23%
• Scotland Average, 23%
• Dumfries and Galloway Council, 22%
• Midlothian Council, 22%
• Moray Council, 22%
• Inverclyde Council, 21%
• Renfrewshire Council, 21%
• West Lothian Council, 21%
• Falkirk Council, 20%
• Fife Council, 20%
• East Ayrshire Council, 19%
• North Lanarkshire Council, 19%
• North Ayrshire Council, 18%
• West Dunbartonshire Council, 18%
• Clackmannanshire Council, 16%
• Dundee City Council, 16%
• Glasgow City Council, 13%

The above figures show attainment calculated as a percentage of fourth year pupils who go on to pass three or more highers in fifth year.

GG.

I'm somwhat confused with regard to what this Schools Closure gaffe means when it states:

"...politicians would have to make an extra £2million in cuts to the city's education budget to accommodate for the increased number of pupils in city classrooms.".

Wouldn't the politicians have to add to the education budget in order to accommodate for the increased number of pupils in city classrooms?

The information contained in the Schools' League Performance Table (by Local Authority), is very sad. Unlike many people on this Forum, I believe there is usually a fair element of truth contained in statistical information... I believe in statistics ...not that I have any wish to here, since Glasgow seems to be at the poor end of all the statistics I've seen lately on GG.

I find this very amusing (although the consequences are far from amusing!). I'm talking about the fact that Glasgow will have to increase class-size in order to accommodate the additional pupils stemming from the gaffe. This comes at a time when the Scottish government is supposed to bring in legislation to limit class size in the first year of school to 25 pupils and eventually to reduce class size to 18 pupils. Mind you, this is a very ambitious class-size programme, and I wonder what the people in the rest of the U.K. will think when Scotland enjoys these desirable class sizes while the rest of the country has to accept a greater pupil/teacher ratio! I think Scotland's Education Minister should take another look at their education manifesto and try and make it more realistic. It will be very interesting indeed to see what happens here.

Good point dugald. I think it has to do with the fact that the Labour administration is intent on extracting a predefined sum from the city's education budget (as 'savings') regardless of whether school rolls go up or down. Because the rolls went up this year – instead of down as expected – the city will have to spend more money than intended this year and will therefore have to increase the cuts further down the line to arrive at the predifined amount of money 'saved' (I think it is in the region of £4million).

Here's how Councillor Stephen Curran put it:

GG.

Thank you GG, I think I see now what was confusing me...it's the up instead of down enrolement numbers that are going to cause apparent decrease in what was budgeted. This further down the line intended to carry the additonal educatioanl burden, can mean a variety of things... teaching staff, caretaking staff, for example; wow. lot of work to be done there!

Unfortunately, it was also clear to me some time ago, that schools sit on land, land equals money, so it became a bit obvious that 'Council statistics' can say whet they like.....
If the private sector developers were not 'sniffing-around' with large cheques, and this Council not so open to blatent bribery, then the schools would remain as potential community assets.
"Our Dear Green Place" has long gone the way of the rainforest, so there is now nothing that cannot be sold by this Council, to keep their 'pet projects' in funding...
Shame on them all........!

Encore.

Whether it is health, poverty, deprivation, unemployment, benefit claimants, drug abuse, violence, alcoholism, crime, teenage pregnancy, preventable disease, or any other indicator, just like the table above, in this case for educational attainment, Glasgow will always come bottom. Fifty years of self-indulgent nepotism that has masqueraded as Labour party policy in the city cannot be undone overnight.

Glasgow under Labour is heading for outright economic and social collapse. The only people who don't know that yet are the sad and blinkered voters who keep voting Labour because their grand-daddy done it!

During the 'consultation period' a few people made the point that school rolls were due to increase in the near future. As everyone with the misfortune of dealing with the council knows, it was no gaffe on their part - just a deliberate deception.

Where did you get the info btw?

I'd love for it to have been in the Evening Times, seeing a a few of the people commenting there were rambling on about, "the council know what they are doing" etc etc, and generally spouting the the same spin the council had been putting out. Not that I blame them... half the media here are as thick as thieves with the Labour council.

PS
I've stuck this on sosglasgow.org

I find it rather difficult to believe that this Glasgow Council has as much power over education as is suggested by the number of post here who blame them for school closures. Is there not a Board of Education who have some say in education matters beyond the grip of any Labour tyrants? This fellow, Councillor Stephen Curran, the politician responsible for overseeing service reform within the [Glasgow] council cannot surely wield all this education power?

I see your point, but he's the leader of the GCC and Glasgow Labour, so he has more than enough sway in the city to have been able to have put an end to it.
He was also the most visible person at the start making arguments for the closures.

Council plan to shut schools
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7840509.stm

The Scottish Gov made arguments that they could not legally intervene in this decision.
Which in reality is nonsense. The Gov can do anything legally if it puts it's mind to it (Trump's Golf Resort? etc) - even if it is an educational matter.

I wonder where the 2 million cuts will come from to build new schools.

The Council certainly won't get any help from the Government as Labour MP Ed Balls has announced a 2billion cut from the Education Budget.

The same Ed Balls and his MP wife are under investigation for claiming £56 thousand between them in the last two years to renovate their house. He has also ordered a 3 million makeover of his Westminster office.

Once again the tax payers are being fleeced by the people elected to run our Country.

Thanks Fronswa. I had a look at the site you recommended and this guy Purcell hardly said boo. According to him, the school buildings are crumbling. If they are they should come down, but i'm not able to check this out.

I've always been amazed at him making that comment about the schools crumbling.
It's the councils' responsibility to make sure they don't crumble.
Why highlight the fact that they've neglected the buildings in the first place?
And then they go on to use that as a reason to tear them down all together, and not replace them?

At the start he was all over the place defending the proposals, but when the public started getting angry, and the protest and media coverage grew he was suddenly nowhere to be found. The Times barely covered this until the big march in town AND GMTV/ITN picked it up.

Victory Primary went to hand in their consultation forms (about 15 of them).
The staff closed the doors on them, trapping some children. Two of them were injured.
They also called the police - Three vans of confused police turned up.

Schools Protest Ends in Tears
http://www.localnewsglasgow.co.uk/2009/03/...-ends-in-tears/

There was not one jot of this in the Times.
Cripes - what isn't newsworthy about that???

Purcell is due to make a move to Holyrood soon, and he's even been tipped as a future First Minister. All he seems to do is chase around after good coverage, and when things turn bad he goes into hiding. In reality I suppose that's all it takes to be a successful politician these days.

I'm no fan of Salmond, but it was absolutely priceless when he turned round to wee Purcell last week and slapped him down by telling him to "geez peace.... go away and grow up"! The SNP know that Purcell is not a threat to them in any way, as outside the comfy surroundings of the City Chambers he is like a fish (excuse the pun) out of water.

As for the information revealed in this story I would have to question the use of the word "gaffe" in the headline. If what GG is saying is in fact true, then what we are looking at here is a sustained and systematic deception of the Glasgow public in order to push through very unpopular - not to mention damaging - cuts to essential, frontline services. Is this how Labour is going to manage future public service cuts? If so, can someone please explain to me how this approach differs from the Tories...?

mp's, toon councillors bumbling buffoon's the lot o them ,cood anywan tell this auld guy how these wan brain cell, nutjobs ever attain these lofty positions when its quite obvious tae me that they probably need help dressin them sels lord hiv mercy.