Call to change ‘crazy’ funding of special schools

An education law expert is calling on the Scottish government to fully fund schools such as the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh, arguing that the current system is “crazy” and leading to public money being wasted.There are eight schools in Scotland that receive money directly from the Scottish government, as opposed to being funded through councils.However, just one of these so-called grant-aided schools – the mainstream Jordanhill School in Glasgow, which has a budget of around £5.5 million a year – is fully funded. The remaining seven schools, all of which are special schools, are funded to the tune of over £10 million a year, but this does not cover all their funding. According to Iain Nisbet, an education law expert with over 15 years of experience dealing with placing request cases involving children with additional support needs, this causes problems because the cost of placing children in the schools remains high for councils, making them reluctant to use the resource.