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Earlier today, SNP and Green councillors in Glasgow voted through significant cuts to the MCR Pathways programme, which has been providing mentoring support for around 2,000 of the city’s most vulnerable secondary pupils.
A Labour amendment seeking to delay any changes for at least the coming school year was rejected.
As a result, the core staffing provision for the scheme is being slashed, and schools have been told to use anti-poverty money (called Pupil Equity Funding, or PEF) if they don’t like it.
Unsurprisingly, given everything else going on, lots of schools don’t have any of that PEF money left, so provision will now vary across the city depending, at least in part, on how much spare cash each school was able to find.
And to top it all off, councillors have waved this through even though a full Equality Impact Assessment has not been carried out.
Despite all this, both the SNP and the Greens have backed the cut – but why?
The most obvious reason is that Glasgow City Council is facing a massive financial black hole, which is also why those same councillors have supported proposals to get rid of nearly 10% of the city’s teaching posts over the coming three years. Supporting vulnerable young people can get expensive, you see, and things are a bit tight these........