'The future of an essential service is under threat'

Glasgow Times

27-05-2025

This is a school so often filled with joy, resilience, and promise, a place that serves children and young people with some of the most complex additional support needs in Scotland.
But behind that warmth lies a deeply troubling reality: the very future of this essential service is under threat.
East Park is one of just seven specialist schools in Scotland offering care and education to children whose needs cannot be met in mainstream settings.
These schools are national assets.
They are lifelines for families.
Yet, despite the Scottish Government's constant rhetoric about children's rights, social justice, and closing the attainment gap, these schools appear to have been forgotten.
East Park has delivered outstanding specialist education on the same Glasgow site for over 150 years.
But it now faces a financial cliff edge.
The school has historically received £1.3 million in core grant funding, part of a modest £11 million split between all seven schools.
That grant will be withdrawn in 2028, with no plan to replace it.
In any properly functioning education system, this would trigger urgent action.
Instead, we are met with confusion and silence.
When East Park staff raised the issue with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, they were not encouraged by her response.
That's not just disappointing, it's deeply concerning.
East Park, a charitable school, is already feeling the squeeze.
Like many organisations, it faces rising costs from VAT, the Living Wage, and national insurance contributions.
With grant funding disappearing, the school is being forced to pass costs onto already-stretched local authorities like Glasgow City Council by raising placement fees.
It's a short-term fix that pushes the burden further down the chain and risks destabilising vital provision.
The recent Audit Scotland report confirms what we already know: local authorities are struggling to deliver core services under mounting financial pressure.
Against this backdrop, expecting a charity like East Park to fundraise just to keep running is unjust.
Fundraising should be for enhancing pupil experiences like specialist trips, therapy, or learning tools - not to keep the heating on.
There is a better way.
Legal expert Iain Nisbet has argued persuasively that schools like East Park should be designated centres of national excellence and funded centrally, just like Jordanhill School.
That model provides stability and reflects the national importance of this specialist provision.
The Scottish Government's own strategy, The Right Help at the Right Time in the Right Place, sets an ambitious target: that by 2026, Scotland will be a world leader in educating children with complex additional support needs.
Shaped by the 2012 Doran Review, the strategy promises inclusive, efficient, high-quality services delivered early, locally, and in national partnership.
Yet East Park's reality is a world apart.
If we are to take that vision seriously, abandoning East Park and its sister schools would be a betrayal of everything the strategy stands for.
If the SNP Government is truly committed to equity and inclusion, it must act - and act now.
East Park's future cannot depend on bake sales or council bailouts.
It deserves stable, central funding and the dignity of a government that keeps its promises to the most vulnerable.
I will be writing to the Minister and calling for a members' debate.
But more than that, I will continue standing up for East Park and for every child across Scotland who deserves not to be forgotten.