Angus Council’s budget is under “significant” threat from a potential million pound black hole around teacher numbers.
The area accepted £3m from the Scottish Government for teachers’ pay when it set its budget in February.
At that time it expected the money to help fund 1,154 full-time equivalent posts.
But it has now been told the grant offer is based on a 2024 school census figure of 1,172.
And finance chief Ian Lorimer has warned the penalty for not hitting the target could equate to around £1.2 million the cash-strapped authority does not have.
Talks are continuing with the Scottish Government to try and reach a compromise.
But he warned policy committee councillors the situation is one of the significant pressures on council finances.
Revenue budget update
Mr Lorimer delivered the news in an update on the council’s revenue budget for 2024/25 this week.
He said: “Put simply the council set its 2024/25 budget expecting to receive £3.08m in funding to help maintain 1,154 FTE teaching posts.
“But it has since been advised that to receive that funding a higher number of teaching posts – 1,172 – must be in place for the 2024 School Census.
“The 2024/25 revenue budget does not contain sufficient financial provision to pay for 1,172 FTE teaching posts.
“Accepting the specific grant offer from the Scottish Government creates a significant additional and unbudgeted cost for the council unless mitigating factors are accepted by the Government. ”
Mr Lorimer said: “This is a national issue and has been discussed multiple times by COSLA leaders.
“COSLA leaders do not support the requirement to maintain specific teacher numbers and have sought clarification on a number of aspects of this.
“It is understood that the majority of councils across Scotland – and this includes Angus – have yet to formally accept the specific grant offer for maintaining teacher numbers.”
Not ‘all or nothing’ grant situation
But he said he did not fear the loss of the entire £3m grant from the council’s budget.
“It’s not an all or nothing scenario,” he added.
“The government will make the decisions if they accept mitigations, and if not what the rate will be in terms of each FTE missing.
“We think it will be in the order of £60,000 or slightly more.
“So around £1.1m is the expectation, but that’s guesswork on my part at this stage.
“But that’s the broad scale of it as things currently stand.
“This is being highlighted as a potential significant financial issue and risk at this time given that the matter remains unresolved.”
Conversation