Blueprint for Education Update - Closures Again - Aith

[Guest CyprusPluto]

The

[Guest CyprusPluto]

The only way you will get to know what it costs is to employ people to do the costing. The very people everyone is wanting to get rid of!

 

You can't have it every way.

[Staney Dale]

Paulb

so the officers on at least £30k a year a doing their own typing and admin. how is that a cost saving.

 

If there are still Officers writing out reports in laborious longhand to pass to a typist, there's something badly wrong. Typing is the first stage now, so of course Officers do it, than admin sort out the presentation.

[unlinkedstudent]

Paulb

so the officers on at least £30k a year a doing their own typing and admin. how is that a cost saving.

 

If there are still Officers writing out reports in laborious longhand to pass to a typist, there's something badly wrong. Typing is the first stage now, so of course Officers do it, than admin sort out the presentation.

 

Then there is still something badly wrong if such Officers haven't been on touch-typing courses and are say typing at between 30wpm to 60wpm instead of using digital dictation. Most people dictate at between 90wpm and 200wpm. Professional typists self-employed externally type between 75wpm and 95wpm on average. External Quality Control know, for example, the difference between ";" and ":" (which some within SIC appear not to). There doesn't appear to be a 100% imposed house style for SIC reports.

 

The NHS outsource a lot of their typing, as do other Local Authorities. Many firms of Solicitors also outsource. They appear to have found it more cost effective, especially when it is borne in mind that not only are person hours freed up but NI, holiday pay and the like are reduced significantly.

[paulb]

ha its a joke they dont even have a rough costing no wonder they are backing off today. why is whalsey being proposed to go to the anderson brae would be closer. closing sandwick would save twice as much as aith. if the anderson is fit for purpose then why not make the bigger savings first.

[Guest CyprusPluto]

ha its a joke they dont even have a rough costing no wonder they are backing off today.

 

Have just read this bit. This is an embarrassment for the council senior managers; they go to public forum without the necessary information.

 

As a qualified accountant with more than 20 years experience in the public sector (most of it in England), this does not surprise me. The level of investment and understanding of financial management in Shetlands public bodies has shocked me.

[phil.k]

Everyone seams to be very vocal when there piece of pie is threatened and remain silent when there pie is safe. The question seems to be do we share the pie equally amongst all, or do we accept that some need a bigger slice of pie because of the remoteness of where they were born, or chose to live. If the diner ladies at the town hall feel that all are equal, one person one slice. Then that is what will happen and rightly so, they are after all are elected representatives. But I do hope they realise that the master bakers in Holyrood are watching and to them, Shetland is the outer isle, the small fragile community that is asking for more than there fare share of the pie.do un to others and all that. If you have less money for food you don’t pick one member of the family to go without. Every one gets a little less. Keep the pie just as it is just stop serving it with cream.

[hazyday83]

Utterly shocked too. Do they not realise how important the rural communities are to Shetland. Centralising education is not the answer to save money. It is detremental to the children travelling and they want to put our children on a ferry every day to Yell. It is truley obsurd. They should come and live outwith Lerwick and try the things they are wanting to implement!! I truley wish you all the best in your fight and thats what it will need to be a hard fight.

[crofter]

ha its a joke they dont even have a rough costing no wonder they are backing off today.

 

Have just read this bit. This is an embarrassment for the council senior managers; they go to public forum without the necessary information.

 

They are not the slightest bit embarrassed. Look at what happened when they closed the Uyeasound Primary School - the original report to council stated that savings of over 200,000 would be achieved. This figure was prominent throughout the report, (mentioned nine times, in bold print) Then a parent stood up at the consultation meeting and asked how they could save this much when the total running costs for the school were only 150,000. The savings figure was then revised downwards to between 90 -100,000 but the actual savings now turn out to be approx 10,000, so their figures are completely unreliable.

[Guest CyprusPluto]

Everyone seams to be very vocal when there piece of pie is threatened and remain silent when there pie is safe. The question seems to be do we share the pie equally amongst all, or do we accept that some need a bigger slice of pie because of the remoteness of where they were born, or chose to live. If the diner ladies at the town hall feel that all are equal, one person one slice. Then that is what will happen and rightly so, they are after all are elected representatives. But I do hope they realise that the master bakers in Holyrood are watching and to them, Shetland is the outer isle, the small fragile community that is asking for more than there fare share of the pie.do un to others and all that. If you have less money for food you don’t pick one member of the family to go without. Every one gets a little less. Keep the pie just as it is just stop serving it with cream.

 

If Holyrood and Scotland decide that rural communities such as Shetland, the Western Isles etc should remain, then it has to be accepted that they cost more to service and not expect them to manage on a population pro-rata budget. That is simply not feasible.

If they are unhappy with this scenario that should be made clear and 'close' Shetland and other expensive rural communities down and move us all to the cities

 

This also applies to the outer islands within Shetland, they will cost more. If this cannot be accepted and is not financially viable then that has to be made clear. That is the position the Council now find themselves in. It's time for Holyrood and the Scottish government to redo it's sums regarding the rural communities of Scotland instead of constantly passing the buck to local representatives and expecting them to deliver Scottish service standards to a geographically spreadout population.

This does not just apply to Shetland education, but to all Scotland wide services including the NHS.

[Guest CyprusPluto]

They are not the slightest bit embarrassed. Look at what happened when they closed the Uyeasound Primary School - the original report to council stated that savings of over 200,000 would be achieved. This figure was prominent throughout the report, (mentioned nine times, in bold print) Then a parent stood up at the consultation meeting and asked how they could save this much when the total running costs for the school were only 150,000. The savings figure was then revised downwards to between 90 -100,000 but the actual savings now turn out to be approx 10,000, so their figures are completely unreliable.

 

As said shocking, no appalling, understanding of financial management!

[crofter]

They are not the slightest bit embarrassed. Look at what happened when they closed the Uyeasound Primary School - the original report to council stated that savings of over 200,000 would be achieved. This figure was prominent throughout the report, (mentioned nine times, in bold print) Then a parent stood up at the consultation meeting and asked how they could save this much when the total running costs for the school were only 150,000. The savings figure was then revised downwards to between 90 -100,000 but the actual savings now turn out to be approx 10,000, so their figures are completely unreliable.

 

As said shocking, no appalling, understanding of financial management!

 

http://www.shetnews.co.uk/news/5453-shetland-school-closures-debate

 

10.44am Sandison stresses the need for accurate and honest figures

 

If there were accurate and honest figures available, we would not be having this debate because it would be obvious that there is very little money to be saved by closing schools. Look at the amount of money spent on schools from the education budget, then look at the amount spent on administration. Hmmm. Now look at who is writing these reports.

[paulb]

they keep warning us that the scottish goverment will come in and take over. if this is an example of the very best SIC can do then hi Edinburgh. they are paying more than an average private education. now the teachers are paid the national wage and the buildings are there so WHERE ARE THEY SPENDING THE EXTRA.

[Guest CyprusPluto]

If there were accurate and honest figures available, we would not be having this debate because it would be obvious that there is very little money to be saved by closing schools. Look at the amount of money spent on schools from the education budget, then look at the amount spent on administration. Hmmm. Now look at who is writing these reports.

 

Unfortunately it's not as simple as that as financial data will be challenged by someone whatever is produced, including accurate and honest data.

 

To ascertain the viability of Shetland education you would need to benchmark it's costs (once accurately done) to other similar education bodies (and assume they're accurate and honest).

A similar exercise would have to be done for administrative costs. You would also need to determine what administrative costs you are referring to. To get the accurate and honest data and for it to be presentable in a report that is agreed by most (probably not all, for reasons already mentioned) and highlighted/detailed at a public forum in a manner understandable to all, needs administrators. The teachers cannot do this, they do not have the time nor skills to do it.

 

So you cannot cut administration in a haphazard way and reduce it to very little as the business planning, strategic and operational outlooks will be adversely affected. This action was taken in the English NHS system in the 1990's, it resulted in doctors, nurses and technicians doing the admin work; something they are not trained to do. What happened was, the work was done slowly and badly and the medium term result was that the NHS had to employ more admin in the late 1990's to put it right.

 

Admin is needed to pay wages, pay suppliers and on time, organise employment of indivuduals and the law etc. Such work cannot and should not be undertaken by teachers or other front line staff. I sure most would agree with this.

 

What is the problem with the systems at present is the understanding of what they want to achieve and the lack of knowledge of those expected to make decisions with financial data. If they don't know what they want or what to ask for, the admin staff spend most of their time producing irrelevant and unused data. They and everyone else then blames admin staff for being too numerous.

 

I understand they recently had a large overhaul of SIC management from top to bottom. That should have resolved this problem - let's emphasize the word 'should'.

[viblir]

Does anybody have the actual figures for the admin costs for education, how many folk are there in the HQ providing "support"

 

 

During the Scalloway High school "consultation" we experienced the total lack of competence and integrity from the SIC's imported staff. These are a group of people who seem hell bent on turning Shetland into "just another " Scottish council.

COSLA seems to have the same agenda. (if I remember correctly it was on a COSLA recommendation that the SIC employed and then a COSLA negotiated the redundancy that got rid of David Clark)

When will we learn that the answers that come from this group of jobbing transient mercenaries will never fit the needs of Shetland but will only provide a continuous gravy train for this middle ranking public sector "jobs for the boys" club. Our council needs to provide clear direction to this crew not contiually "take advise from".

tail wagging the Dog comes to mind.