A REPORT accusing half of councils of not going far enough in tackling the crippling workload burden in Scottish schools has been attacked as "flimsy".
The document by schools quango Education Scotland singled out three of Scotland’s 32 councils - Falkirk, Moray and Shetland - for not giving sufficient support or guidance to teachers.
And inspectors named a further 14 local authorities which it said had not yet done enough to address the issue at school level, including Argyll and Bute, East Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and West Lothian.
However, the publication sparked an immediate war of words with councils who accused Education Scotland of being responsible for much of the bureaucracy in schools. The report's evidence was also questioned.
The row comes after John Swinney, the Education Secretary, asked inspectors to visit councils this summer to establish how well recommendations on reducing workload were being implemented.
The issue has become a major concern for teaching unions following the roll-out of the Curriculum for Excellence which brought with it new ways of reporting on the progress of pupils.
The Education Scotland report said part of the problem was the unnecessary layers of reporting required of teachers to track pupil progress.
In other cases, school staff were being burdened with too much paperwork in areas such as forward planning, pupil assessment and communicating with parents.
Bill Maxwell, chief executive of Education Scotland, said: “It was clear 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, but whilst all were committed to the principle of tackling workload, our review highlighted the need for many authorities to do more to speed up progress. In in a few cases further action is needed."
The review was immediately criticised by councils and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (Ades), which represents senior council schools officials.
John Stodter, general secretary of Ades, said: “We share the minister’s desire to reduce bureaucracy, but are concerned the review was conducted in a hurried and inconsistent way.
“Different areas experienced differing approaches. As a result, concerns have been raised that the findings are not wholly based on robust, reliable and consistent evidence and evaluation.”
A spokesman for local authority umbrella body Cosla added: “This exercise was supposed to be about improving education, but it hasn’t included the workload requirements generated by government agencies. It is ironic the workload issue was created in large part by the agency sent in to sort out the problem.
“Sending Education Scotland into councils suggests a lack of independence. We would dispute how anything credible or meaningful can be ascertained in a two week period based on the flimsiest of evidence.”
The report was welcomed by Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), who said progress on workload was long overdue.
He said: “It is clear that more needs to be done to reduce the impact of workload on teaching staff and this report highlights where and how that needs to happen.”
Councils highlighted as being proactive included Angus, Clackmannanshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
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