JOHN Swinney has rejected accusations that radical plans to shift power over education to headteachers undermines the democratic role of councils.
The Education Secretary also refused to accept claims that establishing up to seven regional bodies to support schools instead of the current 32 local authorities amounted to centralisation.
Mr Swinney spoke to The Herald a day after announcing plans to hand more power to headteachers at the expense of councils.
In future, heads will have a statutory responsibility to improve standards for the first time and will be given powers to hire staff and shape the curriculum.
The announcement provoked an immediate backlash from council umbrella body Cosla, which said the role of local authorities in running schools was effectively over – apart from the power to appoint headteachers.
Mr Swinney said: “I don’t accept that. Local authorities remain the education authorities and they are democratically accountable for local education services.
“They have the power to appoint the headteachers so, while heads are empowered, the choice of school leaders remains a choice for local authorities to take.”
Mr Swinney said his fundamental belief was that decisions taken in schools would have the greatest impact on the educational prospects of pupils and that therefore they should be allowed to have as much flexibility as possible.
He said: “That is where power and influence should lie, but there are checks and balances and if there is not satisfactory performance by headteachers then local authority would have the power to address that because they remain the employer and are responsible for that.”
Mr Swinney also insisted the new regional structures should be seen as collaborative bodies in which council professionals and groups like national schools quango Education Scotland could work together.
He said: “They are not going to be supervisory boards. They are improvement collaborations which bring together expertise to make sure we provide a seamless improvement offer to school so that if they want to enhance an element of what they do the support and expertise is there.
“I don’t see that resource being available at a sufficiently comprehensive across all of Scotland and that is not good enough.”
Mr Swinney said he decided to put in place a director within the new collaboratives to ensure improvement was being driven more consistently across the country in line with national objectives, such as closing the attainment gap.
“That is not centralisation. This is about empowering schools because the exchange between a pupil and a teacher is where the attainment gap will be closed.”
He added: “That is about absolute decentralisation and putting the ability to shape the lives of young people into the classroom because it cannot happen in government buildings and it cannot happen in local authority headquarters. If it is going to happen it will happen in the classroom.”
Speaking on Thursday, a spokesman for COSLA said: “There can be no getting away from the fact the Scottish Government is trying to give the impression councils still have a role to play in the delivery of education when the reality is that they do not.
“The simple truth is that there will be no meaningful local democratic accountability for education in Scotland.”
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