Concern over cut to award-winning scheme

My colleague Laurie Bidwell and I have raised our concerns about cuts to the award-winning Peer Education Project. These cuts were only supported by SNP councillors, by Tory councillors and by the Lord Provost. The Administration is in charge of its own priorities the usual excuse of 'a big boy did it and ran away' will not wash. Cuts to the Fairer Scotland Fund will have an impact on real people in Dundee and these cuts are the responsibility of the SNP Administration. It would appear that their proposals lacked clarity so much that SNP councillors do not understand what they have done.

Please find below the statement issued by Laurie Bidwell and myself:

Labour's Education and Leisure, Arts and Communities spokespeople on Dundee City Council, Councillor Laurie Bidwell and Councillor Richard McCready today raised their concerns that there will be budget cuts to an award winning scheme. The Peer Education Project recently won a Gold Award in the tackling health inequalities and improving health category at the COSLA Excellence Awards. Funding changes pushed through by the SNP-led Administration will result in a budget gap of £37,000.

Councillor Richard McCready said, 'I have been fortunate enough to visit the Peer Education Project on a number of occasions and I have always been very impressed by the work that it carries out. I was delighted when I heard that the project had won a Gold Award from COSLA recently. This is a very impressive project and it provides excellent value for money for the City Council. I know that it makes a real difference to the lives of young people. I am concerned that there have been cuts which result in a budget gap of £37,000. Along with my colleague Laurie Bidwell, I will be writing to the Director of Leisure and Communities seeking reassurance about the ability of this project to maintain its current high standards.'

Councillor Laurie Bidwell said, 'I have also seen at first hand the excellent work of the Peer Education Project in the city's Primary and Secondary Schools. For example, peer educators from Craigie High School, have been working with pupils in P7 in their former primary schools to help make the transfer to Secondary School more positive. The beauty of peer education is that it not only benefits the young people who receive the peer education but the peer educators gain in confidence and self esteem as well. This is a win-win. Unfortunately the capacity of this project to maintain its current levels of activity will be undermined by the cuts imposed by the SNP Administration. This will be disheartening to the staff of the programme whose work has deservedly just received external recognition. These cuts will obviously put on hold plans to involve more schools in the Peer Education programme."

Notes

Background on Peer Education's Funding

The funding position for the Peer Education project is that a sum of £108,000 has been mainstreamed into the Leisure and Communities budget from the Quality of Life funding. The Fairer Scotland Fund allocation to the project was cut by £20,000 for the financial year 2010/11 and this combined with the effect of having a fixed budget allocation with rising staff costs, means that the project will have to find a way of addressing a gap of £37,000 for the next financial year.