Pupils in Cambuslang and Rutherglen have had their voices heard in their schools’ budget process.
Participatory budgeting exercises carried out in the two towns have allowed parents, staff and even pupils to have a say in how money for classrooms is spent.
Funding for participatory budgeting comes from the Pupil Equity Fund and it is recommended that schools use at least five per cent of the fund to carry out participatory budgeting exercises.
The Pupil Equity Fund is Scottish Government funding given directly to schools to close the poverty related attainment gap.
Schools within the Cambuslang and Rutherglen area have collectively allocated £109,421.75 of their £1,819,225 Pupil Equity Funding allocation for participatory budgeting.
This year, five schools in the area have allocated a larger percentage than in 2021 to 2022. Only three schools in the area allocated less than last year.
Between the three learning communities of Cathkin, Trinity and Stonelaw, it was Cathkin that allocated the most on participatory budgeting exercises.
Cathkin learning community, which includes seven schools, spent an average of £40,583 on participatory budgeting, which is six percent of its Pupil Equity Funding allocation.
Trinity learning community, which includes seven schools spent an average of £28,236 on participatory budgeting which equates to 5.7 per cent of its Pupil Equity Fund.
And Stonelaw learning community, which includes eight schools used £40,602.50 for participatory budgeting, which is 5.9 percent of its Pupil Equity Fund.
Councillor Katy Loudon (Cambuslang East), praised the work but called for more transparency to the pupils on the process.
She said: “I’m glad to see we’ve got confirmation from the new leader that the administration isn’t following through with their initial plans to chuck all of this hard work, because it is clearly very valuable.
“I had a chat with a parent council which I said I would raise the next time we were talking about this, it was a general point to consider about managing pupil expectations around procurement.
“What they were finding was the children were coming up with some fantastic ideas and playground equipment was one example. But they were getting a bit disheartened when they came across the procurement process and having to wait a wee bit of time for the equipment because the teacher can’t just go on and order things from Amazon, it needs to be done properly. I just thought it was a good point to consider. I know there is great work going on. I just thought it was an interesting bit of feedback.”
Council officers agreed that the procurement process has been a challenge and managing expectations and timescales has been difficult. There will be new training around procurement and pupils will be given more information.
Councillor Robert Brown (Rutherglen South), asked for some examples of what the children chose to spend funding on. He said: “I’m interested in a flavour of the sort of things they actually did. I appreciate that it is across a lot of schools but are we able to get an insight into the ideas and innovative things that were delivered to inform us and the wider public.”
Last year, pupils came up with a range of different ideas. For example, outdoor learning activities were improved in many schools, including outdoor seating to give pupils a place to eat lunch. Some schools improved free school meal uptake. And one school installed more water fountains and supplied pupils with reusable water bottles to save cost to families and ensure children didn’t have to use their free school meal allowance on bottled water, which meant they had more money to spend on food.
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