Instrumental tuition charges

[breeksy]

(** mod edit - thread title updated **)

 

According to the Shetland Times, the council face tough cuts.

 

Inter-island ferry fares will have to rise by five per cent, the cost of school meals and meals on wheels will need to be increased by 15p and 20p respectively and an annual charge of £160 must be imposed for children wishing to learn to play musical instruments, if the council is to meet its strict budget targets.

 

What is a better investment in music - Mareel (which may or may not break even, depending on who you listen to, I hope it does but am not convinced), or the education of our children in musical instruments, including what is part of our heritage, fiddle?

 

My son takes fiddle, and I think it would be good value for what he gets. But will there be grants available for parents that simply can't afford to pay an additional £14 per month per child - it is a big chunk of money if you are on a low income.

 

Should kids be allowed to learn an instrument free of charge, or should it be paid for becuase it is elective and not an educational requirement? If thats the case, how far does that go - should kids pay tuition fees to go into fifth and sixth year as the legal requirement is for an education up to fourth year or equivalent?

 

Thoughts?

[MuckleJoannie]

What would you charge for or increase charges instead? The SIC has arrived at a point where real savings have to be made, partly because previous councils would not bite the bullet. There are other things that the SIC provides for free that every other council charges for. A few years ago Cecil Eunson successfully blocked charges for the elderly.

[paulb]

my son loves the lessons and it would be a shame to see them go. however if it was a choice between that and a cut in a major service then i would find the cash. however if it was wasted on another stupid scheme then i would be shouting.

 

i think they need to sort out the blueprint for education before they start making cuts. maybe council members could give each other lifts and save 20k on taxi fares.

[shetlander]

What would you charge for or increase charges instead? The SIC has arrived at a point where real savings have to be made, partly because previous councils would not bite the bullet. There are other things that the SIC provides for free that every other council charges for. A few years ago Cecil Eunson successfully blocked charges for the elderly.

 

Indeed. Cuts have to be made somewhere and regardless of what services folk are users of, everybody is going to have to start to show more willing to bear the brunt than they have in the past. The increases may be regrettable but all seem reasonable under the circumstances. Bairns elsewhere would be lucky to get music tuition free, if not for as low as £160 a year.

 

Shetland has had it rosy for years in terms of council tax paid against the quality of services provided and that will continue to be the case, even if these proposals are implemented. And the savings that are needed in the forthcoming financial year are nothing compared to subsequent years when even tougher decisions are going to have to be made - if councillors have the balls to make them rather than raiding the piggy bank again that is.

 

i think they need to sort out the blueprint for education before they start making cuts.

 

No time paulb. These savings need to be found for the next financial year.

[bug]

maybe council members could give each other lifts and save 20k on taxi fares.

 

Taxi drivers need to make a living too you know - helps them pay their Council Tax - perhaps less money spent on "off-island" resources like consultants etc should be a starter for cuts so at least the local economy suffers less.

[Guest Anonymous]

what "ticks" me off is that what money that comes to the council is dictated by un-holyrood and its farcical existance, far better off without them holding the purse strings

[Spinner72]

This is a perfect time to make a point I've been mentioning for a while, that being that the Shetland public are so used to hearing what are, for most of us, unimaginable amounts of money coming and going in news reports etc, that we almost shut it out.

 

Now, £160 a year is a lot of money for many families, but is also a bargain for the standard of musical tuition offered in Shetland. I am assuming, though it is not made clear, that this is for the fiddle/accordion etc tuition over and above the standard curriculum, so in that manner it can easily be justified.

 

What cannot be justified, is when enough money to provide this tuition for more than 1000 of shetlands children is dismissed by councillors in the way of loans, wasted on consultants, or used to pay for jobs created by people no longer to be employed etc. I don't think I need go into any detail in any of those respects!

 

Now, I know the money isnt all central and comes from/must be allocated to, specific projects and areas, but lets try to keep a mindful balance and compare things in real terms as time goes on.

[MJ]

If we paid for lessons does that mean the child actually gets to study the instrument they wish?

 

Anyway ending free music lessons is a wonderful idea.

Why shouldn't shetland go the opposite way to everyone else.

While other councils are figuring out how to provide free music lessons to raise educational attainment, shetland seems dead set at lowering it's scores in the league tables everyway it can.

[swc123]

Not had time to fully divulge the cost saving recommendations but Wednesday is really the day that councillors must face up to their responsbilities by making the hard saving cuts required.

[Waddersty]

What is the point in building Mareel which is supposed to help support musical talent in Shetland if you are going to reduce the funding for the future of Shetland's musical talent.

 

I appreciate that cuts have to be made but to do this makes it more obvious that Mareel is just a waste of money.

 

The council would be better off biting the bullet and amalgamating schools to save money.

 

One thing we do well is music so it seems daft to limit the potential of future musicians to only those who can afford the tuition.

[Rasmie]

While charging for instrument tuition seems a reasonable notion, what happens if there is not enough uptake to support the tutors and tuition all but ceases for the greater majority?

 

What price Mareel then.

 

In my childhood only the well off families' kids got tuition. Subsequently there was next to no music played in the parish when I was a boy, with the exception of those that were able to teach themselves.

Nowadays nearly every little dear it seems can play a tune on something.

 

Perhaps instrumental teaching should be prioritised over general music and the non-players could listen to "records"

[Styles]

Great news to hear they may make people pay if they want to learn a musical instrument, should have been done ages ago.

I agree with all the other cuts as well as we have had it to easy and have become used to it being the norm, money has to be saved everywhere in the council. Hopeing this time they do somthing sensible and close a lot of schools as well. Money has to be saved.

[Kavi Ugl]

Very interesting item on the Jeremy Vine programme yesterday. It's first up at about 6 minutes.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/jeremy-vine/index.shtml?scope=global&survey=no&surveyname=2009q3&site=jeremyvine&url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/jeremy-vine/index.shtml&js=yes&uid=242b46bd2a5f8a2342b878e38173fc6b4411bea6b070d1696b8b93a2775d496e

 

I'm sorry but cuts in the behemoth number of SIC staff should be made before any more price increases are foisted on the public.

[Guest Anonymous]

^^^ here here, "how many council office staff does it take to change a lightbulb???" , looks more like a plague as over staffing

[Ghostrider]

^^ Exactly, it grates a bit when time and again any proposed "cut" is on the actual level service delivered, but there seems very little ever done in the way of delivering services in the most cost effective and economical way possible.

 

It was only 40 years ago that I was starting school. There were just under 100 pupils, catered to by a headteacher, who teached full time, and three other teachers, a few intinerant specialist teachers on one or two days each per week, the cookhouse staff, one part time caretaker and a couple of part time cleaners. That was it. The school functioned perfectly adequately on it, and a good standard of education was to be had for anyone willing to take it up.

 

A few years later the Headteacher role became non-teaching, a few more, they hired a school secretary, a few more, a janitor. After I left they hired a second secretary and the deputy headteacher role also became non-teaching. I'm not saying all of those changes were un-justified, and I've left out the increase in numbers of teachers and cookhouse staff, as it was a fast growing school roll, which like everything else, admin tasks were no doubt increasing year on year. But you do wonder if such increases in non-teaching paypackets were really justified, when as best as I can recall, the school roll always remained below 200.

 

Last I heard the roll in that school now has fallen back to 100+/- again, yet in recent years we've seen a whole slew of "Classroom Assistants" hired too, on reasonably decent money, and who knows what other roles have been created.

 

While its nice to have an excess of people wandering around doing not much, and ready to jump to whatever issue may arise, if the time has come to trim off fat, that is where it should start, not in reducing services while still maintaining a bloated staff on the books.

 

Many of the posts don't have levels of work available to justify full time staff, there needs to be a good hard look taken at combining rolls in to single posts, making some posts part-time, or deleting them altogether.

 

Yes, its tough on those affected, and it will affect the local economy marginally, but I don't hold with the idea of maintaining job levels for that reason alone, when service delivery is going to suffer, as it is a short-sighted downward spiralling philosophy.

 

If you choose to start producing an inferior product you are going to affect all of the local economy for decades to come, and will negatively affect everybody. Pulling a few jobs now just produces a temporary blip and will not have any significant effect on anyone unless those few directly involved.

 

To my mind, if, as has been stated cuts are inevitable, there has to be a negative effect on someone someplace. Better that negative is restricted to a few on a temporary basis than spread over everyone for many years to come.