Scottish Borders Local Association

Cost cuts dressed up as education benefits

Published Date: 1 January 2009

Letters to the editor ...

As an employee of Scottish Borders Council, a teacher, I am not supposed to contact the media regarding the Transforming Children's Services (TCS) proposals.

However, having just read the council’s final report, another triumph of managerial speak and incomprehensible jargon, I felt compelled to contact the press.

I am now convinced that the local authority is about to succeed in achieving its goal – to save money – under the guise of improving children’s services.

Councillor Catriona Bhatia states it will lead to “improved service for our children and young people”, while reducing the “cost base” – reducing the cost base should have been the title for the whole process.

The council has insisted on dressing this cost-cutting exercise up as something it is not. Teachers know this, management teams in schools know this, SBC employees who had to lead consultation meetings admitted this and the education unions are well aware it is nothing more than a cost-cutting exercise (although the money spent on documentation must have been considerable).

It was telling that at the vast majority of meetings Councillor Bhatia and education director Glenn Rodger were conspicuous by their absence – instead leaving others to field difficult questions they could not answer and, more probably, Ms Bhatia and Mr Rodger did not want to answer.

If the council had at least been honest and treated their employees, children and parents with an ounce of respect, I would have been happier. There would obviously still have been anger, but at least we wouldn’t have spent the last few months hitting our heads against a brick wall thinking we may actually have a say.

But now they can breathe a sigh of relief. They now have the correct paper trail in place so they can turn round and say a full consultation process has been embarked upon. They listened, took on board our concerns – blah, blah, blah – what a joke.

The whole process was skewed in the council’s favour – i.e. by putting the final consultation document out to teachers just before the summer holidays, but including the holiday time in the reply period. We had no time to discuss the serious implications properly or consider the document with colleagues and other professionals.

I sincerely hope that the good people of the Borders are not duped by this whole sham and, once it is all approved, are aware that the teachers of their children, especially in the secondary sector, did not support this reform.

Name and address withheld

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