Highland Council chief offers assurances over additional supports needs cuts
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HIGHLAND Council chief executive Donna Manson has insisted that a “significant” level of support will remain in place for children with additional supports needs (ASN) despite moves towards cuts that have angered and upset parents across the region.
In the last four years Highland has seen a 54 per cent rise in cases of pupils designated as needing the greatest care – twice the national average.
The ASN budget also risen by 20 per cent over the same period – and was overspent by around £800,000.
The council agreed in February’s budget to reduce it by £5.9 million over the next three years in what the council claims will be a better targeting of care towards those pupils that really need it.
Mrs Manson said yesterday that the service as it currently works is over-priced and not meeting targets.
“Resource has been stuck in certain schools and it has not been moving around enough,” she said. “There is a lot of scaremongering going on.
“In the budget we said we had 880 pupil support assistants (PSAs) but when we looked at it again it was up to 1100 to 1200. That is an average of about five to six PSAs a school. That tells me there is plenty of resource there and we need to get it back down to more appropriate levels.”
Defending the council against claims that it is simply not qualified to determine which pupils need support and which do not she said: “As an educationalist I wouldn’t diagnose a medical issue, so we shouldn’t have our medical people say that a particular child needs a particular level of educational support.
“What we are finding is that a lot of parents are going to other agencies saying ‘my child needs one to one support’.
“The people who should be saying that a child needs PSA support should be the educationalist in the room, in discussion with everybody else.”
