Item 08 Appendix 3
West Dunbartonshire Council · 18 March 2026
Back to Educational Services Committee — 18 March 2026 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions Please find the full set of questions below for ease of view. We would be grateful if you could ONLY submit your responses by using the Microsoft Forms link below. Microsoft forms link: Call For Local Authority Views: Future School Reform – Fill in form QUESTIONS IMPROVEMENT This section seeks your views on current approaches to school improvement, including where improvements can be made. 1. What do you consider as ‘school improvement’? School improvement is the continuous, collaborative strengthening of key areas of educational provision, with a robust focus on the quality of what is delivered and how it is delivered. School improvement is shaped by: Curriculum for Excellence, Getting it Right for Every Child, and UNCRC incorporation, with a strong emphasis on equity and children’s rights. Operating across service, leadership, practitioner, and learner levels, school improvement is underpinned by robust evaluation, accountability, and strong professional expertise. In West Dunbartonshire, the school improvement domains provide a framework that both assures quality and builds capacity, supporting the local authority to meet its statutory duties and deliver provision that reflects local context and need. It is strengthened through clear guidance, empowered leaders and strong partnership across WDC services, community and national agencies. How effective are arrangements within your local authority to support and drive school improvement? As reported at the national thematic inspection of local authorities there are very effective arrangements in West Dunbartonshire for both service wide, school and ELC level proportionate support and challenge with high levels of engagement and commitment to collective improvement. Inspectors reported that West Dunbartonshire demonstrates a structured, evidence-informed and equity-based approach to education improvement. Our strategy integrates: Data-driven school improvement Collaborative practice and professional learning Appendix 3
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions 2. What arrangements do you think make the biggest difference to supporting and driving school improvement? A Service-Level Improvement Framework clearly articulates expectations and uses a programmed, data-informed approach. This is implemented through both universal and targeted models, applying a “pathways” methodology to ensure proportionate support and challenge. All schools and early years establishments are allocated to a pathway based on capacity for improvement, performance data, and contextual local knowledge. School improvement is further strengthened by highly skilled senior school and ELC leaders who are empowered to focus on the quality of delivery within their settings and to lead improvement with confidence. This is supported by a policy environment that enables leaders to make and enact informed decisions. While stakeholder views are actively sought and valued, leaders retain the authority and autonomy required to drive change without being disempowered by accountability pressures. Protected and sufficient time for improvement activity ensures that the focus remains on sustained school improvement rather than being diverted by frequent or unnecessary change initiatives. This is complemented by a core and adaptive suite of improvement activities delivered by highly effective central teams, providing informed support and challenge to schools and ELC settings and guiding improvement in leadership, management, and outcomes for children and young people. Enhanced Scrutiny and Collaborative Action (ESCA) visits provide in-depth evaluations of specific areas of a school’s work, drawing on the expertise of experienced, highly effective school leaders. Professional learning and development is delivered both service-wide and tailored to individual school and ELC contexts, ensuring that staff have the knowledge and skills required to lead and sustain improvement. A networked approach distributes knowledge and expertise across local authority, school, and ELC levels. Monitoring of impact and quality is undertaken by credible, knowledgeable, and experienced local authority teams in partnership with peer headteachers, including HMI Associate Assessors. Professional critique and evaluation with partner authorities through the West Partnership and our ADES Quad engagement further strengthens our capacity for improvement and provides opportunity for innovative approaches to build capacity and share our resource and expertise, offering challenge, support, and opportunities to share learning about what works. There are opportunities to further strengthen this approach to maximise impact.
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions 3. What are the challenges in supporting and driving school improvement and how might these be resolved? Change overload for school and ELC leaders: managing nationally and local driven priorities against the school and ELC local priorities. Ensuring consistency in high quality school leadership, through recruitment and continued support, challenge and development. Reconciling staff emotional resilience with maintaining high-quality professional expectations. The range of indicators and descriptors of quality which results in unrealistic (and sometimes competing) expectations across too many domains, which results in a reduced capacity and clarity of focus on quality in learning, teaching and leadership. Being responsive to increasing parental expectations and demands making time to provide quality responses and outcomes, again shifting time away from improving quality at the school / class level. Current lack of capacity in HMI to be able to provide improvement advice and support following inspection – recognise the opportunity to change this approach within a soon to be independent HMI. Range of expectations at local and national level of the role of senior school leaders which can move the focus from core business of improvement and quality of provision in every day of learning. Constraints linked to ASN funding and uncertainty about other national funding streams limits the flexibility local authorities have to deploy resources effectively in both the short and long term. 4. What further actions could be undertaken both within local authorities and across the education system to strengthen school improvement? Streamline and clarify expectations through national directives. Although this is the aspiration of the National Improvement Framework, this would benefit from further streamlining and clarity on high level national priorities, including the existing range of performance measures. Sustained investment in leadership development and high-quality professional learning to achieve the expectations and positive aspiration of ‘A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century’ which promoted teaching / headship as a positive profession, and which expected a high level of commitment to continuous development. Clarify the role of respective national bodies in supporting and strengthening school improvement – this was an aspiration of the Education Reform agenda announced in 2021 but has not yet been fully achieved.
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions 5. Are there any additional comments you would like to share that aren’t covered above? Consent Question: Are you content for your organisation’s views on improvement to be referenced in the report? Yes FUNDING This section of the form seeks your views on school funding. 1. What funding arrangements do you currently have in place to support school improvement? Core school funding is allocated directly to establishments and managed by headteachers in line with the approved Devolved School Management (DSM) scheme. Headteachers deploy these resources in accordance with the priorities set out in the school improvement plan. National funding streams to support excellence and equity, including Strategic Equity Funding and Pupil Equity Funding is allocated with school improvement as a central focus of the overall resource allocation. Inclusion and ASN-related resource allocation 2. How well do current funding arrangements support schools to deliver high- quality education for all learners? Core funding is limited, reducing the capacity to focus resources on improvement priorities once essential capital and core staffing costs are met. The impact of budget reductions on schools and the local authority affect ICT infrastructure, staffing levels, curriculum delivery, and the ability to support a growing number of children with Additional Support Needs (ASN). The change to the model of Strategic Equity fund and Scottish Attainment allocation resulted in significant tapering of funding to West Dunbartonshire Council, significantly reducing staffing capacity. 3. How do you monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of Devolved School Management (DSM) Guidelines within your local authority?
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions There is robust oversight by senior officers: they rigorously evaluate financial management and resource deployment across all establishments to ensure alignment with DSM guidelines, and a specific devolved school management section is included in the operational policy guidance with regular direct discussion, review and challenge between individual headteachers and their link local authority officer. Targeted management of improvement interventions: Deployment of improvement-focused interventions is co-ordinated by senior officers with responsibility for specific thematic or operational areas. Comprehensive central oversight and evaluation of major cost areas, for example staffing costs for teaching and support staff. Pupil Equity Funding in individual schools is used effectively, with oversight from senior officers, to support targeted improvement for our most disadvantaged children and young people. Systematic monitoring of school spending: The Education Finance Business Manager tracks each school’s rate of spend throughout the year, identifying potential overspends or underspends early. Responsive action by central teams: Senior Education Officers intervene directly with headteachers to address financial risks or ensure full and appropriate utilisation of DSM allocations. Transparent capital and revenue budget reporting to elected members. Regular financial reports are provided to the Education Committee to support transparency and enable political scrutiny of DSM effectiveness. Support systems for forecasting and equity-focused planning: a structured system allows school leaders to access additional support for budget forecasting and expenditure tracking—particularly around equity funding. Focus on optimising impact for children and young people: Monitoring aims to reduce annual under/overspends and ensure resources are used effectively to raise attainment and close the poverty-related attainment gap Head teachers and Early Years leaders are able to bid for additional staffing resource from the Early Years and ASN Central Support Teams based on pupil need. 4. Could and should the DSM guidelines be amended to allow for greater autonomy for school leaders? The current national DSM guidelines emphasise that headteachers should have maximum flexibility over their budgets, while recognising that certain
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions areas of expenditure are not suitable for delegation, which West Dunbartonshire adheres to. Within West Dunbartonshire, headteachers have indicated that the current balance between responsibilities managed at school level and those retained by central teams is generally appropriate and supportive. They welcome opportunities to review this balance, provided that any increase in autonomy does not result in an unsustainable additional workload for school leaders. 5. Are there any barriers or challenges to supporting school improvement? Local budget context has reduced available core fund for school improvement. The key resourcing challenge facing education authorities relates to both the local economic profile and the resultant lack of funding to meet the local needs and demands with current challenges, particularly the increasing numbers of children with Additional Support Needs Workforce pressures and staff absence levels Reductions to local government budgets Scottish Government strategy of maintaining teacher numbers Short term-ring fenced grants limiting long term planning 6. Are there examples from your local authority of innovative funding approaches that have addressed barriers or challenges to supporting school improvement? Devolved leadership commitment funding five headteachers to lead Local Learning Communities. This small investment covers part-time cover costs, enabling headteachers to influence local strategic and operational developments, act as lead change agents, drive collaborative improvement, and support broader educational progress. This model supports headteachers to work together to share resource - supporting collaboration, efficiencies, and reduction of silo working. 7. Any additional comments not covered above? Further proposals to amend or update school funding or DSM guidelines would have to take account of existing statutory legislation regarding best value in discharging public funds, purchasing and procurement protocols; workload and risk analysis of strengthened decentralised school autonomy. Consent Question: Are you content for your organisation’s views on funding to be referenced in the report? Yes
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions GOVERNANCE This Section of the form seeks your views with regards to school governance. 1. What governance arrangements are currently in place and how effective are these in ensuring that schools deliver high quality education for all learners? Education Committee (regular reports on all aspects of service provision, including quality and performance). Excellence and Equity Board chaired by Chief Education Officer. Improvement Framework: scrutiny and capacity building programme to all schools/ELCC delivered by officers and headteachers. Engagement with national agencies: Education Scotland’s Senior Regional Advisor, Attainment Advisor, HMI Head of Inspection link Standards and Quality reporting at school and local authority level Robust evaluation and monitoring of the quality of delivery and outcomes has contributed to a strong record of performance in external evaluations, with the local authority outperforming several comparator benchmarks 2. Does the education system provide school leaders sufficient responsibility and autonomy to lead their school in a way that delivers high quality education for all learners? The provision of education in Scotland, as outlined in the Standard for Headship, the Headteacher’s Charter and national Quality Frameworks, sets clear expectations for the responsibilities of school leaders in delivering high-quality education. West Dunbartonshire has well-established collective and collaborative structures, including school and ELC partnerships, authority-wide forums and networks, and close working relationships between senior school leaders and central teams. These structures enable school leaders to deliver provision that reflects local need and context, supported by a flexible framework and responsive central teams. Leaders are empowered to make informed decisions and to shape improvement within their own settings. However, the autonomy required to achieve this can be constrained by challenges such as limited resources, the availability and quality of staffing, and the increasing demands arising from national policy changes. Examples of structures and systems which empower school leaders to be autonomous: Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) is fully devolved to head teachers, who control spending and impact reporting however, localised feedback indicates head teachers welcome support & guidance in this area from central officers to maximise impact.
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions Local Learning Communities led by headteachers gives greater local decision- making power over resources, interventions and targeted supports. Schools lead their own improvement planning, aligned with corporate and service priorities, with strong emphasis on self-evaluation. School leaders are supported in this endeavour by centrally produced guidance materials, data and moderation activity, facilitated by central officers. Head teacher autonomy supported by data tools (Insight, dashboards, tracking systems) enabling local strategic choices. This autonomy is enabled, safeguarded and made equitable through Local Authority oversight, data assurance, policy guidance, specialist staff and compliance framework. In West Dunbartonshire, there is a strong commitment to curriculum change and innovation, with strong support for the recommendations set out in seminal national research, including the IRQA Report (Hayward) and the OECD Review. However, progress in implementing these recommendations is often hindered by a complex and uncertain policy environment, alongside a lack of national commitment to funding the scale of change required. These factors combine to constrain the pace and depth of curriculum development locally. 3. What further actions could be undertaken both within local authorities and across the education system to both empower and support school leaders to deliver high quality education for all learners? Local authorities: Build on existing mechanisms for consulting school leaders to inform strategic decisions and operational planning. Build on existing ground up feedback to influence expectations and feasibility for delivery. Further develop parental engagement mechanisms to ensure meaningful family engagement in shaping school priorities. Expansion of data intelligence tools and digital platforms supporting effective and efficient modern service delivery. Strengthen the local decision making by further devolving decision making regarding service design and resource allocation. Increase opportunities for head teachers to work as part of central teams and in national education roles. Currently, salary levels for local and national senior roles are lower than secondary head teachers, depute head teachers and the largest primary schools, which impacts on applications for these roles. Education System: Recognise the impact of increased autonomy on headteachers’ workload, with realistic expectations of the role—balancing autonomous leadership with the
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions demands of operational delivery of change and improvement at school and ELC level. Streamline and align the school, local authority, cross authority, national networks (and workstreams). Authentic evaluation of the capacity in the education system at operational (school) level to deliver the Education Reform programme. Evaluate the range and scope of national and inspectorial expectations on schools/ ELC to reduce repetition and competing expectations (for example, Care Inspectorate and HMI – the shared inspection framework is a step forward, but not sufficient) Make resource decisions that reflect the local context of each authority, acknowledging significant variation across the country and ensuring that funding models are fair, proportionate, and responsive to local needs. More stable and long-term reform programmes to support stability. Expand collaborative networks to strengthen leadership, share intelligence and importantly, to reduce duplication. Expansion of national data intelligence tools and digital platforms supporting effective and efficient modern service delivery, aligning with the Scottish Government’s principles of ‘Once for Scotland’. 4. What changes or improvements could strengthen oversight, support and governance arrangements for our schools? Using the principle of empowered communities, evaluate how Parent Councils and wider Parent Forums support and challenge school improvement. Review the governance structures and layers of accountability to determine their effectiveness and impact on the focus for education at a local level and school level. Enhanced digital systems using more sophisticated platforms for improvement planning, data analysis and self-evaluation delivering our commitment to streamline systems, processes and reduce bureaucracy. National stability in education priorities to enable long term improvement work and enhance the capacity of the system to deliver quality at the school / ELC level. 5. Are there further considerations for the governance of schools and school education? Refreshed and strengthened national leadership programme which re- establishes through investment the primordial importance of highly trained leaders in Scottish education. Establish training for leaders which requires investment in quality immersive learning in advance of and during headship. A stable and predictable funding position that supports effective workforce planning, ensuring sufficient and sustainable staffing levels which commits to 3 year funding.
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Call for Views: Future School Reform Local Authorities’ Full set of questions Evaluate the impact of societal changes and expectations on schools and school leaders’ and teachers. Clear, cohesive and stable expectations. 6. Any additional comments not covered above? A narrow focus on governance will not meet the needs of our children and young people, who are entitled to a high-quality, personalised curriculum offer that leads to sustained positive destinations. Achieving this requires investment in the people and resources needed to facilitate curriculum change and development at both local authority and school/ELC level. Governance reform alone will not deliver the changes identified in the OECD findings, which reaffirmed the mission of Curriculum for Excellence while highlighting significant implementation weaknesses—particularly in the secondary phase—that prevented the mission from being fully realised. If the current reform programme is to succeed where previous efforts have stalled, it must be supported by meaningful investment that frees teachers and leaders to plan, design and implement the curriculum and assessment changes required to meet the needs of all children and young people. Consent Question: Are you content for your organisation’s views on governance to be referenced in the report? Yes We would be grateful if you could submit your views by ONLY using the Microsoft Forms link below. Microsoft forms link: Call For Local Authority Views: Future School Reform – Fill in form