Primary schools in Glasgow have spent nearly £20,000 to purchase resources previously available for free through a city-wide lending scheme, The Herald can reveal.

The School Library Outreach (SLO) service provided extensive and “essential” lending and advisory services to Glasgow’s primary schools, additional support needs schools, and early years establishments. The SLO was operated by Glasgow Life, a quango of Glasgow City Council.

However, the SLO was shut down at the beginning of the current school year due to budget cuts, with a decision made to then sell the materials to schools.

Organisations including the Glasgow City Parents Group, Scottish Book Trust and Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals hit out at the closure, which the council described at the time as a “change to service delivery”.

In response to our initial reports, Glasgow Life wrote to parents claiming that the service “has not been scrapped”, but when questioned by The Herald confirmed that “the delivery and collection of free materials provided via the School Libraries Outreach service stopped at the end of the previous school year.”

In November, we revealed that individual schools would have to find hundreds of pounds to buy the resources from the SLO.

Documents released to The Herald under Freedom of Information laws now show that schools collectively spent £18916.85 to secure materials that, until last year, had been available for free. 

However, access has been unequal, and the new material also reveals that only around one third of schools have been able to purchase resources from the SLO, a service that was used by more than two-thirds of schools in its final year of operation.

Spending levels by individual schools vary from a low of £31.50 to a high of £1016.35, with some having submitted more than one order.

The average outlay across the schools that purchased materials was £332.

READ MORE

Glasgow City Council scraps 'essential' library service for schools and nurseries

Parents 'baffled' as new details emerge on closure of key school library service

Schools to pay the price for educational library cut

The documents released by Glasgow Life also suggest that more than a dozen schools had requests for dual-language books rejected. One of the files states: “All dual-language books were selected by a member of the EAL team for schools they work in.”

In response to the latest revelations, Leanne McGuire of the Glasgow City Parents Group said that the original closure decision “appeared remarkably short-sighted”.

“When news broke about the discontinuation of the School Library Outreach Service, our reaction was one of sheer disbelief. It defied logic to dismantle such an invaluable resource-sharing service that benefited numerous schools, especially when it was widely utilised.

“Transitioning to a model where schools would have to purchase resources jeopardised equitable access, favouring schools with swifter action and deeper pockets. In a country with declining literacy rates, we would expect education authorities to prioritise such a vital service.

“In addition, the expertise provided by librarians was instrumental in assisting schools in setting up libraries and inclusive education displays – a resource not readily available within many school settings.

“While some may perceive this as inconsequential, every erosion of educational resources carries significant long-term repercussions. If we passively accept such decisions with challenge, these incremental losses will culminate in severe slashes, like what we are seeing with the current budget reductions impacting on teacher numbers.”

A spokesperson for Glasgow Life said: “Whilst these library outreach resources were free to schools to access in the past, there was a cost of purchasing and managing resources and delivering the service.  As noted in responses to previous queries, schools have been able to secure ownership of the resource materials from Glasgow Life at a fraction of their original cost.

“Changes to how services are delivered take time to become fully operational, and this resource realignment project is still ongoing. There remains an open call out to schools for resource orders and these continue to be processed as they are received. Glasgow Life will continue to engage with Education Services to support best use of the available resources.

“Education Services establishments and EAL teams, who are best placed to identify the needs of individual schools, are directly involved in the resource ordering process so they can access resources to meet their requirements.”

Glasgow City Council confirmed that no additional funding has been provided to schools to purchase the SLO materials.

A spokeswoman also restated the council’s position from November last year:

“We understand that any change to a service takes time to adapt to and we have developed a process for schools to have access to the resources in a fair and equitable way.

“Schools who decide to purchase the library outreach boxes will take ownership of the materials to complement learning and teaching in their school community.

“Local arrangements could be put in place to share with other schools and that will be a decision for the headteachers.

“A catalogue of the locations of the resource boxes is published centrally and arrangements to transport them between schools will be made at school level.”