SCOTTISH Labour yesterday launched an ambitious crusade to combat social deprivation by borrowing ideas over New Deal schools from the USA and announcing the creation of community-based action groups across Scotland to combat social exclusion, writes Frances Horsburgh.
Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar said the new Social Inclusion Partnerships would co-ordinate locally-based interest groups focusing on prevention and innovation. Pathfinder projects - at least one of which would be in Glasgow - would pilot the idea of schools also delivering health, after school care, and family support.
Other initiatives at Easterhouse in Glasgow and Wester Hailes in Edinburgh would develop new approaches to improving local service delivery and giving local people access to those managing the services.
There would also be additional funding of #240,000 for the Capital City Partnership in Edinburgh which is preparing a strategy to try to ensure a better quality of life for the city's less well-off residents.
He acknowledged that the challenges being set on promoting social inclusion would not be judged in weeks or months but in years.
The Scottish Tories immediately attacked the initiative on New Deal schools as ''just soundbites without substance''. They claimed that the taxpayers did not want to see money wasted on expensive experiments imported from America. ''We don't need armies of counsellors, therapists social workers and the like bolted onto our schools'' said vice chairman David McLetchie.
However, the Scottish Secretary, who was delivering the inaugural Social Urban Regeneration Forum lecture at Wester Hailes, said Labour was trying to maximise the educational potential of our schools and believed the American concept of full service schools could play a valuable role in Scotland.
He added: ''Local schools can be the heart of the community but in communities on the margin with declining populations they may struggle for viability. Meanwhile there is a crying need for local facilities to deliver health, after-school care, family support and other services.
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