As reported in tonight's Evening Telegraph, I called this morning called for next Thursday’s City Council Policy & Resources Meeting at which the Council Tax is set to be postponed to allow proper and all-party discussions to take place over alternatives to SNP proposals to dramatically cut the number of Depute Head Teachers in Dundee schools.
Dundee Primary Head Teachers’ Association has put forward to the Director of Education a series of alternative proposals for consideration and I think these alternative proposals should be properly discussed in detail with the Head Teachers in an all-party setting to ensure we get the best possible outcome for our schools.
The Head Teachers’ proposals are contained in a paper dated 24th January and I have been making clear to the Director of Education that they should be shared with all 29 members of the City Council. I spoke with him again yesterday to be told these could not be shared as they were “the administration’s proposals”. I pointed out that these were actually proposals from the Council’s own staff and they must be shared with all elected members.
Belatedly, and I suspect reluctantly, they were finally given to all political groups just before 9am this morning. The deadline for putting in alternatives to the SNP’s cuts proposals was 5pm today and that leaves far too little time to reach a considered and proper outcome.
I would wish to see an outcome that preserves the staffing structure in our schools as far as possible without contraction of the school estate and it would be infinitely preferable to have all-party discussions with Head Teachers rather than the administration powering ahead with the SNP proposals to cut DHT posts.
I am very disappointed that it took until this morning to release these proposals to all elected members – this should have been done far earlier. It is therefore incumbent on the Chief Executive to allow further discussions to ensure the views of the staff side are properly listened to.