City eyes high school closures in cash crisis

EDUCATION bosses are lining up two city secondary schools for closure in a desperate bid to battle the council's funding crisis.

Council leader Jenny Dawe said that the school closures were among the measures on an early draft of efficiency savings proposed by the city's children and families department.

The department – along with all other areas of the council – is looking at radical action that will help it achieve targets of slashing 12 per cent of its frontline costs in the next three years.

The move will revive the fears of parents at Castlebrae Community High School, Drummond Community High School and Wester Hailes Education Centre, which faced closure two years ago.

Cllr Dawe said that the administration would fight the need to close two of the city's 23 secondary schools but admitted that tough decisions lay ahead.

She confirmed that the draft report had recommended two secondary school closures, and added: "There are secondary schools that are not full and it may be that some would get a better education in other schools."

In August 2007, the council announced controversial proposals to close 13 primary schools, three secondaries and six nurseries. Education leaders then ruled out any secondary school closures early last year.

Cllr Ricky Henderson, education spokesman for the Labour group on the city council, said: "Frontline services are very important and every effort should be made to protect them. School closures should always be a last option.

(Education leader] Marilyne MacLaren has said she needs to cut five per cent every year for the next three years. But we do not know the individual department allocations yet."

The council expects to have to make more than £90 million in savings over the next three years, and to have to fill a £247m gap in funding over the next ten years.

Cllr Dawe said: "Clearly we have statutory duties we have to comply with regarding things like schools, vulnerable children and the elderly. There is a lot that we absolutely have to do.

It may well be that services we do not statutorily have to deliver, we will have to look at whether we really need to continue to deliver them."