SHARED leadership clusters of schools could be back on the agenda in Argyll and Bute after a review of education services in the area.
But officials insist that the recommendation is not simply a resurrection of the ‘Empowering Our Educators’ proposal which was scrapped three years ago.
A report has revealed that a shared leadership model is one of 10 recommendations as a result of the review, in response to challenges in recruitment.
A proposal for clusters of schools, with shared head teachers, was scrapped in August 2022 following a public consultation and a meeting of the council’s community services committee.
Those plans would have seen ‘executive head teachers’ given responsibility for groups of up to eight schools.
A council official said that these were not a detailed set of proposals for changes to the education service, but were designed for phased delivery over two to four years.
The report will be considered by the full council at its meeting on Wednesday, November 26.
A recommendation stated that the council could “Plan, develop and implement a model of shared leadership across schools and clusters in response to the challenges of recruitment, retention and succession planning relating to school leadership.
“Such a model should include a different approach to business and finance support staffing allocation for primary schools [and] should include all SNCT (Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers) promoted posts.”
It then said: “In 2021 a proposal entitled ‘Empowering Our Educators’ was developed by the education service as a response to the challenges being faced by the wider service in terms of falling pupil rolls, recruitment and retention of school leaders, national reform and head teacher workload set against the backdrop of Argyll and Bute’s unique geography.
“It was an attempt to also recognise that there is no one size fits all leadership model that would meet the different degrees of challenge and needs experienced in the different communities across the local authority.
“Ultimately in 2022, after a period of consultation, based on the feedback received, the council decided not to proceed with this approach.
“The challenges that existed in 2022 persist today and as such it is reasonable to give consideration to how such challenging, wicked issues might be addressed – at least in part i.e. the areas where the local authority has control.
“However, the following section is not, in any way, a recommendation to simply resurrect the previous approach and implement it.”
A projected timeline also contained in the report states that this recommendation should be progressed only when three other recommendations, linked to workforce, have been implemented.
In an accompanying report, council executive director Douglas Hendry said: “The recommendations are not, and are not intended to be, a detailed set of proposals for specific changes to the education service.
“Rather, they identify 10 themed recommendations which are designed for phased delivery over a two to four-year period, with some enabling shorter to medium term efficiencies and savings once lead in requirements are met.
“Careful planning will be undertaken to ensure that the various interdependencies of different recommendations are taken forward in a systematic, coherent manner.
