Item 09 - Reduced Class Contact Time
West Dunbartonshire Council · 16 September 2026
Back to Educational Services Committee — 16 September 2026 and its agenda
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WEST DUNBARTONSHIRE COUNCIL Report by the Chief Education Officer Educational Services Committee: 16 September 2026 ___________________________________________________________________ Subject: Reduced Class Contact Time 1. Purpose 1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide an outline of work done to date preparing for Reduced Class Contact Time (RCCT), and to seek agreement for our proposed development plan for implementation. 2. Recommendations 2.1 It is recommended that Committee: a) Note the work done to date in preparation for Reduced Class Contact Time, b) Note the present position of readiness; and c) Agree the proposed governance and development plan for implementation. 3. Background 3.1 In January 2001, ‘A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century’ (commonly known as the McCrone Agreement) set the framework for Scottish teachers' pay, class contact limits and working conditions. This brought parity of esteem across sectors and ensured that all teaching staff had protected ‘non-contact time’ in their working week. Class teachers now had a maximum of 22 ½ hours that they would be teaching classes, with the remainer of their contracted week being protected time for other activities, such as preparation, correction and marking, planning, collegiate working and professional development. 3.2 In secondary schools, teaching staff would be used for a maximum of 26 periods per week, ensuring that they had the required amount of non-contact time. This number of periods was reduced pro-rata for promoted teaching staff. For young people in our secondary schools, this would have no impact on their 27 ½ hours of teaching time. 3.3 For children in primary schools having 25 hours of learning per week, this change meant that during the week they would no longer be taught by one class teacher but would have input from other teaching staff. ITEM 9
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3.4 In West Dunbartonshire there was no uniform approach to implementation. In some schools, ‘McCrone time’ for a class would focus on a specific aspect of the curriculum such as health and wellbeing or expressive arts. In other schools, classes grouped together with the support of Senior Leadership Teams to undertake Interdisciplinary projects, assemblies or wider school activities. 3.5 In recent times during periods of staff absence and where scarcity of supply teaching staff has been problematic, scheduling McCrone time has been a pressure on school staff, where on occasion time has been ‘banked’ and given in a subsequent week when staffing availability made this possible. This practice is far from ideal and reflects existing pressures in the system still present today. 3.6 As part of their Programme for Government, Scottish Government agreed to implement a reduction in teacher class contact time from the current 22 ½ hours to 21 hours. As this would affect terms and conditions for teaching staff, this would be a formal agreement through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), requiring local agreement for implementation through a Local Negotiating Committee for Teachers (LNCT). 3.7 Despite much discussion, little progress had been made on this matter since 20212. A Special COSLA Leaders’ Meeting took place on 13 March 2026 at the request of the Scottish Government and the EIS to decide on the reduction in class contact time (RCCT), in response to an EIS deadline associated with planned teacher industrial action. 3.8 Correspondence issued to COSLA Leaders proposed a joint agreement, including an initial commitment of £40 million in 2026/27. This funding would allow preparatory work to begin ahead of a fully funded national implementation of RCCT for Primary, Early Years and ASN Schools by August 2027, and for Secondary Schools by August 2029. 4. Main Issues Preparation 4.1 In 2021, Councils were asked to undertake a projection exercise to prepare for implementation, and to assist Scottish Government in modelling the required increase in teaching staff. This is a complex exercise that requires significant coordination nationally to achieve. There are local variances in the number of staff required, and the local availability of staff to fill vacancies. This analysis would also need to be combined with capacity of and recruitment to Initial Teacher Education programmes in universities, combined with marketing campaigns to increase the number of graduates entering the profession. Such an increase in staffing would require significant funding nationally and would not be possible without a national agreement to fully fund it.
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4.2 In 2021, West Dunbartonshire established a RCCT Working Group to begin preparation for implementation. The first activities undertaken were modelling exercises to understand our requirements to implement RCCT across sectors. At that time, initial modelling suggested we would require the equivalent of an additional 77 teaching staff, spread across early years, primary, ASN and secondary sectors. This would require an additional £4.697M in funding. When this data was aggregated nationally, country wide Scotland estimated an additional 4,900 teaching staff would be required, at a national cost of £298.9M. 4.3 With no agreement being reached nationally about implementation, and no confirmation of funding given to West Dunbartonshire, the RCCT Working Group stood down in 2022. Current Readiness 4.4 In 2025/26 the Staffing Team included calculating the teaching staff requirement as part of the Staffing Exercise undertaken each year. This has put us in a strong position of understanding the resource requirement for us in the Primary sector. 4.5 In 2025, West Dunbartonshire considered changes to the timetable in secondary schools through a consultation. The outcome of this was to return to a future committee with other models to consider. Due to the timing of the work to consider the timetable, and the work to implement RCCT it would be best to complete this as one activity, rather than a change to the timetable that then changes again for RCCT. 4.6 In 2025/26 we continued our work with secondary timetablers to reach an understanding of the resource requirement across departments and subject areas in each of our schools. This has given us a detailed understanding of the resource requirement in our Secondary sector. 4.7 In summer 2026, secondary timetablers started to consider models for implementation, and will continue to work on these in this new session. Due to the reduction in contact time to 21 hours, this poses complex operational challenges in constructing a timetable due to the length of periods in the school day. Models are being considered and developed to meet this challenge. 4.8 Further work will be required this session to develop a detailed understanding of the resource requirement in the Early Years and ASN sectors, which will be undertaken through working groups.
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Governance and Development Plan 4.9 Accountability to deliver RCCT will sit with the Council, so it is recommended that Education Committee agrees the governance structure and the Development Plan to implement the change. The Development Plan is provided in Appendix A. Progress with this plan will be reported through the Delivery Plan, with additional papers being brought twice per year to Education Committee for oversight of progress. 4.10 Responsibility to deliver RCCT will sit with the Local Negotiating Committee for Teachers (LNCT), as this directly impacts teachers’ terms and conditions. This will become a standing item on LNCT agenda, with working groups set up to develop models and report to LNCT. 4.11 Two working groups have been established. A working group for ‘Primary, Early Years and ASN’ and a working group for ‘Secondary’ have been established, which will report to LNCT. Membership of the groups is drawn from central education staff, strategic HR, establishment staff and Trade Union representatives. 4.12 Where new delivery models are suggested, stakeholder groups such as parents, pupils and support staff will be consulted, with all stakeholders informed of decisions taken, and timescales for implementation. 5. People Implications 5.1 To delivery RCCT will require additional project management resource in the Education Staffing team, and will require around an additional 70 FTE teaching staff. 6. Financial Implications 6.1 To implement Reduced Class Contact time will cost £5.429M. Scottish Government made an assurance that each council would receive their proportionate share of £40M in 2026/27 to assist with preparatory activities, but this has now been confirmed to be a share of £7.5M. We await confirmation of West Dunbartonshire’s share of this funding. Initial funding would be used to fund delivery of the project, including central costs for HR, Finance, IT etc, costs to release staff for development activities and early recruitment of teaching staff ahead of the first phase of rollout in August 2027.
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7. Risk Analysis 7.1 As part of the Programme for Government, the SNCT agreement to implement RCCT brought about the removal of planned industrial action. Failure to deliver would carry political and reputational risk, as we have agreed to implement this through COSLA. Failure to implement may have financial consequences for the Council and put us at a disadvantage when viewed as an employer for prospective teachers. There is significant risk around the availability of teachers nationally and locally to meet the requirements to implement RCCT. The timing of recruitment could put us in direct competition with our neighbours to recruit and retain staff. 8. Equalities Impact Assessment (EIA) 8.1 An Equalities Impact Assessment has not been undertaken for this report, as we await the outcome of national EIA prior to undertaking a local version. 9. Consultation 9.1 Legal Services and the Section 95 Officer have been consulted on the content of this report. 10. Strategic Assessment 10.1 Delivering Reduce Class Contact Time contributes directly to our objective that ‘our Council is adaptable and focused on delivering best value for our residents, as the way we work embodies continuous improvement, innovation and ambition’ within outcome 4 ‘our council is inclusive and adaptable’ from our Strategic Plan 2022-27. Gillian Hamilton Chief Education Officer 21 August 2026 ___________________________________________________________________ Person to Contact: Andrew Brown Senior Education Officer Email: andrew.brown@west-dunbarton.gov.uk Appendices: Appendix A: RCCT Development Plan Background Papers: None Wards Affected: All wards
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