Angus Council has approved recommendations to hire up to 50 temporary teachers in a bid to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a virtual meeting of the council’s special arrangements committee members approved proposals to recruit up to 40 temporary teachers and 10 temporary support staff across schools from August to December.
A report by director of education and lifelong learning Kelly McIntosh said there were 48 teachers and 21 school and pupils support assistants (SPSAs) across the region unavailable to return to the workplace because they were shielding.
The hiring of additional teaching staff, it was argued, would offset the impact of staff absences and allow the council to “mitigate the risk of a further reduction in face-to-face teaching” offered to pupils in the new academic year.
It was also noted that if government guidance allows for full-time learning before December the additional staff would provide targeted support in an effort to close the attainment gap.
The approved proposals will see the number of teachers employed in schools across Angus increase by 3.5% for five months. The number of SPSAs would rise by 6% in the same period.
Committee members also heard that the financial cost to the council of recruiting the additional teaching staff would be around £926,000. The report said the costs could be covered by any additional government funding.
Failing this however, the costs would be covered by using the council’s general fund.
At the time of writing the report, no additional funding had been announced by the Scottish Government but on Tuesday John Swinney announced an extra £100 million of funding over two years to help children return to school and recover any lost ground.
“It seems that not even the education minister and first minister can agree over this, so it shows huge skill that our staff have been able to make a policy out of these disagreements.”
Councillor Angus Macmillan Douglas
Commenting on the financial implications of hiring additional staff, depute leader and finance convener Angus Macmillan Douglas said: “Officers are rightly recommending that we allocate this money to allow recruitment to take place and the interests of children and parents to be protected as best we can.
“But we are not funded for this. As I have pointed out before, the Scottish Government has received over £10 billion from the UK government for Covid-19 issues.
“If they really want to help the children of Angus, they should use a tiny part of that £10 billion windfall to meet local authority costs.”
The online meeting was held at the same time as education secretary John Swinney announced plans for schools across Scotland to prepare to return full time.
Despite the government u-turn, Angus children and learning convener Derek Wann described how schools in the region were still preparing for the “worst case scenario” of blended learning come August.
He said: “We are still preparing for the worst case scenario which would be blended learning.
“Guidance on this issue seems to be changing weekly and I would like to thank teachers and staff for the work they have done in getting schools prepared in recent weeks.”
If they really want to help the children of Angus, they should use a tiny part of that £10 billion windfall to meet local authority costs.”
Angus Macmillan Douglas
Mr Macmillan Douglas added: “I strongly support the words of my colleague Councillor Wann and also applaud the work of officers, teachers and staff who have worked hard to try and make sense of the constantly changing Scottish Government policy on so-called blended teaching.
“It seems that not even the education minister and first minister can agree over this, so it shows huge skill that our staff have been able to make a policy out of these disagreements.”
