Over half of councils failing to address teacher workload issues, according to Education Scotland

Marking pile - credit Tobias von der Haar

Government schools agency Education Scotland has reported that over half of Scotland’s councils are not doing enough to support teachers with their workload burden.

In the review, announced by Education Secretary John Swinney in June, HM inspectors singled out 14 local authorities for not doing enough to support teachers with bureaucracy and forward planning at school level.

Three councils - Falkirk, Moray and Shetland - were named as showing insufficient evidence of any impact at all.

Councils have hit back, accusing the quango of being responsible for the bureaucracy in the first place.

RELATED CONTENT

Schools funding may bypass local authorities, John Swinney indicates

Secondary school teaching union to vote on industrial action

Bill Maxwell, Education Scotland's chief executive and chief inspector of education, said: "It was clear from our review that there is too much variability across local authorities in tackling bureaucracy and undue workload.

“We saw evidence of strong progress being made across almost half of the local authorities and some very strong examples.

“Whilst all local authorities were clearly committed to the principle of tackling undue workload, our review highlighted the need for many authorities to do more to speed up progress in ensuring consistent good practice across the schools in their areas and in a few cases further action is needed.”

A spokesman for councils’ body COSLA disputed what could be learned from a two-week review “based on the flimsiest of evidence”.

He said: “This exercise was supposed to be about improving education but it hasn't included the workload requirements generated by government agencies.

“Indeed, it is ironic that the workload issue was created in large part by the agency sent in to 'sort out the problem'.”