Adult education scheme spared in cuts vote

MORAY Council has ruled out the "drastic step" of axing an education service to save cash.

At a special meeting of the council, it was decided that Essential Skills services to adults throughout Moray will now be taken off its list of budget cut proposals.

The move would have made Moray the only council in the UK to scrap the service – which helps adults improve writing, spelling and maths. The £172,000 which would have been saved by cutting Essential Skills will now need to be found elsewhere.

Council leader Graham Leadbitter said the decision presented a real challenge and added: "Any decision to remove the service would have a particularly big impact on a vulnerable group of service clients.

"Taking all this into consideration, we've decided that we do not wish to proceed with the Essential Skills budget cut."

However, councillors voted to cut library opening hours in Lossiemouth, Burghead, Fochabers and Dufftown despite discussion on holding off until after the council's leisure review in November. Lossiemouth will see its library hours cut to 16, Burghead to eight, Fochabers to 10, and Dufftown to 10.

Mr Leadbitter reiterated that the hours reduction was the "least worst option". He added that library hours could be "pushed out again" and that "squeezing services in and out is better than closing services".

And councillors discussed ways to retain the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) service through Moray College UHI. Moray Council has an obligation to provide ESOL to resettled Syrians for five years, of which two years still remain. Mr Leadbitter said: "The college are willing to expand their service, not to completely replace what the council does, so it would overall mean a reduction in ESOL but not a complete removal. And they are able to use the Syrian refugee funding that we get here for the provision of that service."

He added that councillors were looking at whether employers could potentially contribute to ESOL.

On the retention of Essential Skills, Councillor Tim Eagle, Conservative group leader, said: "Over the last few weeks I have spoken to many about the cost of this saving to people across Moray.

"There was much concern that we would be the only council in the whole of the UK to have taken such a drastic step and the consequences on engaging adult learners could have been devastating. This decision will maintain a good service while we await further information from the Scottish Government on the new adult learning strategy due to be announced next year.

"Frankly this was a terrible budget line anyway – among many of the bad ones Moray is having to make because of underfunding by Scottish Government. We must avoid these types of cuts in the future and the only way to do that is to ensure we all raise our voice and demand fair funding for Moray."

Highlands and Islands Conservative MSP Jamie Halcro Johnston said: "I am delighted that Moray Council has bowed to pressure from Scotland’s Learning Partnership and Conservative councillors and scrapped the disastrous proposal to end the Essential Skills service.

"It was irresponsible of the SNP administration to have floated the idea, which will have caused unnecessary worry to all the people who rely on the service to gain the skills to get themselves into employment."

Councillors deferred decisions on the three services back in May to allow further investigation after quality impact assessments and to look at alternative funding streams for ESOL and Essential Skills.

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.