Aberdeen’s education chief has claimed local schools are being short-changed by more than £360,000 of vital cash in support of the city’s poorest pupils – because the Scottish Government has based new funding allocations on old data from before the oil and gas downturn.
Councillor John Wheeler, the convener of Aberdeen City Council’s education committee, has argued that this year’s allocation of pupil equity funding (PEF) to Aberdeen schools from the Scottish Government is inadequate, as hundreds more children are living in poverty across the city.
Holyrood hands PEF out to councils across Scotland every year to help reduce the “poverty-related attainment gap” by improving opportunities for children from poorer backgrounds.
The funding is designed to be spent on youngsters who need it most, and is based on schools with the highest number of pupils who receive free school meals.
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But Mr Wheeler said the Scottish Government is still using data from the Healthy Living Survey 2014 to inform how much cash is handed out to local authorities across the country.
He said that in Aberdeen, many more children are growing up in poverty in 2019 compared to 2014, which was before the downturn in the North Sea oil and gas industry resulted in hundreds of redundancies and economic strife across the region.
It is understood city council officers estimate there are an additional 304 children eligible for extra funding support compared to five years ago – and from this estimation, they have calculated a shortfall of £364,900 in PEF.
Mr Wheeler said: “PEF is a key component in closing the attainment gap.
“I’m disappointed that yet again the SNP government in Edinburgh seems completely unwilling to listen to take account of the economic hardships that the region has endured over the previous years.
“Our teachers and staff work tirelessly for the betterment of our schools, and this missing money shows a complete lack of understanding of the challenges facing teachers in the north-east.”
The Scottish Government uses the same methodology for all councils, which involves using the 2014 Healthy Living Survey data to estimate the number of children and young people in P1 to P3 that are registered for free school meals under the national eligibility criteria.
Holyrood has not collected data on free school meal registration for P1 to P3 pupils since the introduction of universal free school meals in 2015 for children in primary one, two and three.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said Aberdeen’s PEF allocation has gone up by almost £60,000, and total PEF allocations for the 2019-20 period across the country have increased from £122,258,280 to £122,517,480 – up almost £260,000.
Recent PEF allocation has been informed from the 2018 Healthy Living Survey data for pupils from P4 to S3.
She said: “We are committed to ensuring that every child in Scotland has an equal chance to succeed.
“This is why we are investing £750 million over this parliamentary term to tackle the poverty-related attainment gap – including £120 million of PEF, that has been allocated to schools in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
“PEF allocations for 2019-20 show that Aberdeen City Council’s allocation has increased from £2,845,080 in 2018-19 to £2,902,920 in 2019-20.
“Seven schools in Aberdeen are also part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge Schools Programme and received more than £582,000 this year.
“This funding will also continue into 2019-20.”
