Posted by Dominie

This Coalition promised to protect “front-line services”. They (ministers) promised to ensure that cuts would be fair and equitable. We know that these were lies. Local authorities in Scotland have already announced larger class sizes and withdrawal of specialist support teachers. God knows how bad it will get (now) the October spending review’s announced.

Posted by readyfortheweekend

Parents and teachers can’t afford not to be there on the 23rd (tomorrow). How badly are we going to let these cuts affect our schools before we say enough is enough? It can’t be OK that we’re struggling for pens, paper and books.

Glasgow City Council informed its heidies that it isn’t expecting finances to return to “normal” levels until 2025? Acceptance of that writes off the educational prospects of kids not even in primary school yet. How can that be fair or acceptable? How are we even sure of the scale of cuts to be made? When one of the largest local authorities in Scotland over-estimates the cuts it needs to make by pound;40 million (South Lanarkshire), what confidence should we have in the figures given to us by Westminster?

There are choices to be made: tax at a higher rate the banks who have left us in this situation or reduce the education budget. We have a choice too: say nothing and allow governments to attack our public services or stand up for ourselves.

Posted by vforvendetta

We need to rationalise our multitude of councils down to larger regions and gain the advantage of economies of scale. This is what they are talking about with regard to the police in Scotland. The same needs to happen across all councils. If that means fewer chief executives and HR departments, you will not find me weeping.

Posted by didactophobe

The Conservatives promised no cuts to front-line services in England. In Scotland, education is entirely a devolved matter. This is because people in Scotland object to having a Tory government, so we are allowed to manage our own affairs to a large extent. The responsibility for cuts to education spending in Scotland lies fairly and squarely with Alex Salmond’s unbelievably stupid decisions to cap council tax and to remove ring-fencing from education budgets.

I’m no maths expert, but I can guess the answer to this equation: Starve councils of money + allow them to raid education budgets = ?

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