Glasgow City Council is facing legal action from parents over plans to cut education services, The Herald can exclusively reveal.

The Glasgow City Parents Group (GCPG), which represents parent councils from across the city, has called on the local authority to ‘halt any further steps’ to implement proposed cuts in areas such as teacher numbers. It warns that a failure to do so will lead to court action in pursuit of a judicial review, a process in which a judge considers the legality of “a decision, an action or a failure to act by a public body or other decision maker.”

In recent months, the GCPG has led a series of protests against the planned cuts, including a March for Education at the end of June. The chair of the group said that their legal action has been launched to protect “all children” in Glasgow.

In a letter seen by The Herald, lawyers acting for the GCPG refer to budget decisions from February 2024 that lead to “a number of council-wide cuts, including inter alia cuts to GCC’s education services.” It goes on to specifically reference cuts to teaching posts and reductions in mentoring through the MCR Pathways scheme.

The letter states that the local authority “failed to carry out a proper, openminded and transparent" Equality Impact Assessment "in advance of taking these decisions”, something it claims was confirmed by the council’s own Director of Education, Douglas Hutchison, during a committee meeting in June 2024.

The Herald has previously reported that cuts were proceeding despite the fact that full equality impact assessments had not been carried out. Yesterday, the NASUWT teaching union accused the council of “failing pupils, parents and teachers” after it received an FOI response at the end of July confirming that no risk assessments had been undertaken in relation to teacher cuts, and that the equality impact assessment (EQIA) had not been completed despite hundreds of teaching posts having already been removed from schools. The council has since confirmed that the EQIA was published on its website at the beginning of August.

Attempts to delay mentoring cuts were recently voted down by SNP and Green councillors.

As a result of the failure to complete full assessments, the GCPG argues that Glasgow City Council has not upheld its legal duty to have ‘due regard’ for the impact of policy decisions on equalities issues and those with protected characteristics.

The council is therefore asked to provide “a written assurance” within seven days that planned education cuts will be halted, and that a new process will be commenced on the basis of an “open and transparent” assessment of the impact of any cuts. Failure to do so will see the GCPG lawyers “proceed to raise a court action without further correspondence.”

Speaking exclusively to The Herald, Leanne McGuire, chair of the GCPG, said: “The proposed cuts to education are not just numbers on a budget sheet; they represent a real and immediate threat to the quality of education that all of Glasgow's children and young people deserve. It is unacceptable that such significant decisions were made without a comprehensive understanding of their impact on all pupils, particularly those who are most vulnerable. We urge Glasgow City Council to reconsider these cuts and to fulfil their legal obligations by conducting a full Equalities Impact Assessment before any further action is taken, and to ensure they follow this process going forward.

“We understand that as members of GCPG, we are in a privileged position and are already actively engaged in our children’s education. We don’t challenge this decision for our own children; we challenge this decision for all of Glasgow’s children. For the families who are unable to challenge and feel they must accept any poor decision that is imposed on them.”

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Mike Corbett, NASUWT Scotland National Official, said that the union is “encouraged by the proposed actions being taken by the Glasgow City Parents' Group.”

As we pointed out yesterday, councillors were not in possession of all the necessary information when they made their decision earlier this year to cut teacher numbers (including having access to a full Equalities Impact Assessment). Hopefully, this action by the GCPG will encourage the Council to revisit its decision and reverse these damaging cuts.”

Jane Gow, Glasgow branch secretary for the EIS, said: “Glasgow EIS has expressed deep concern with GCC that an Equalities Impact Assessment was not undertaken before Councillors voted on a cuts budget which proposes to axe 450 teaching posts from Glasgow’s Education provision. The dispute we have with the employer centres on the effect these swingeing cuts will have on all our pupils and especially those who are most vulnerable.

“The impact of a critically reduced service on those pupils and communities who suffer socio and economic disadvantage should have been GCC’s first port of call. This failure to implement its own policy illustrates a lack of due process and the need for these cuts to be reversed.”

Responding to the receipt of the letter, a spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: “We have received legal correspondence that our lawyers are now reviewing.

“It would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”

 

This article has been updated to note that Glasgow City Council has now published an EQIA on its website in relation to teacher cuts. A previous version stated that the document had not yet been completed.