SCHOOLS are being urged to use funding intended to improve the performance of children from deprived backgrounds to pay for janitors’ overtime.

Teachers, parents and even the trade union representing the janitors have all expressed concern at the move by Glasgow City Council.

In August, as part of a deal to end a 20 month dispute and a series of strikes by janitors, the incoming SNP administration at the council agreed a deal with the workers’ arms-length employer, Cordia. Among other details this removed automatic janitorial cover from all primaries after 4pm. Additional janitorial staffing after that time can cost a school up to £1,323 a year.

But last week [Thu] support services manager Alasdair Henderson wrote urging headteachers to consider using the Scottish Government’s Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) to cover for the cuts in janitorial provision.

Although the fund was supposed to reduce the attainment gap between pupils from deprived and better-off backgrounds, heads can get round this, Mr Henderson suggests: “You will be able to use PEF monies for additional janitorial hours, for example, if analysis and reporting of attainment is undertaken outwith core hours or study clubs and family learning sessions take place.”

The revelation has led to concern that Glasgow is diverting cash, intended to be additional to improve the prospects of poorer pupils, to mitigate budget cuts.

It follows on from a row over North Lanarkshire Council’s proposal in March that local schools use the PEF to pay for existing classroom assistants, which was later dropped.

Critics said the proposal seemed far from the original intention of PEF. A spokesman for the teachers’ union EIS Glasgow said: “Funding routine overtime to allow teachers to do paperwork, for example, would not be an acceptable use of PEF. “

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Parent Teacher Council said PEF was specifically intended to help pupils in need of extra support. “Schools ... must be very careful to make sure they can demonstrate that the things they are spending this money on are directly related to closing the attainment gap,” she said.

Meanwhile Unison Glasgow, which helped negotiate a new deal for the city’s janitorial staff in August, said PEF money should not be going to their employer.

“Janitors in Glasgow schools absolutely deserve a fair deal but the money for that should not be coming from PEF, which should be going to schools not Cordia,” a spokesman said.

A spokesman for Glasgow city council said: “If there is a requirement to open a school in the evening or at weekends for activity which is focussed on improving attainment then Pupil Equity Funding can be used to cover that cost.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said schools opening in the evening needed adequate staff, but added: “Any school plans for using PEF must be grounded in evidence of what is known to be effective at closing the poverty related attainment gap.”