News / School closure debate postponed
COUNCILLORS in Shetland have postponed a decision on closing 10 secondary and primary schools over the next four years in a desperate attempt to save more than £3 million from the islands’ overextended education budget.
Shetland Islands Council’s education and families committee met on Wednesday morning expecting a full debate on the proposals to dismantle the islands’ network of junior high schools and close five small rural primaries.
However vice chairman George Smith’s motion to postpone the decision to gather more detailed information on how much money would be saved went through unchallenged after he agreed to a special committee meeting on 14 September prior to the full council meeting the following week.
The initial proposals are to close five secondary departments in Sandwick, Aith, Whalsay, Skerries and Baltasound, along with primary schools in Sandness, Olnafirth, Urafirth, North Roe and Burravoe.
The plan would leave two high schools in Lerwick and Brae, along with one junior high at Mid Yell teaching pupils up to the age of 15 in the north isles.
The council has calculated it will save £3.25 million by 2017 if it closes the schools on a staggered basis.
However it emerged at Wednesday’s meeting that transport and other costs had not been factored into those calculations and more work was needed to obtain a clear picture of the final savings.
Committee chairwoman Vaila Wishart insisted that two weeks was sufficient time to obtain those figures and indicated that if the savings were adequate, schools would not close. “If you were only going to save £90,000 you wouldn’t do it,” she said.
The entire plan also depends on building a new Anderson High School in Lerwick, as the existing school is unfit to accommodate the extra pupils. A decision on the Scottish government funding a new build will be made by the end of next month.
Transport staff will now work with the education department to assess the costs of bussing pupils up to 40 miles to school.
Around 150 west mainland residents met on Monday night to denounce the council’s plans, complaining of young children having to spend more than two hours a day on a bus and fearing the gradual dissolution of rural communities.
After Wednesday’s meeting Wishart said she hoped that people felt the council was listening to their concerns.
“We are going to try and calm some of their major concerns and I want to make it clear that we won’t even have a proposal until next year and there won’t be any closures for two years,” she said.
“This report was sprung on people, they didn’t have time to digest it and it grew into people thinking we were going to close their school tomorrow.
“This is about how we are going to provide high quality education with a diminishing budget.
“We are going to have to make huge savings if we are going to balance the books. We will try to make the savings in a measured way over five years, but a lot depends on getting a new high school in Lerwick.”
During Wednesday’s meeting Shetland North councillor Andrea Manson suggested the council could save £5.4 million by eliminating the special allowance paid to council staff to help with the higher cost of living in the isles.
Wishart said that was a matter for the full council, but added that she would be happy for councillors to forego 10 per cent of their allowance. “If anybody is aware of the seriousness of the financial situation it’s the councillors,” she said.
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