Funding provided to each council authority for music tuition: FOI release

Information requested

In relation to the recent announcement that parents will no longer have to pay fees for children learning a musical instrument at school:

1. How much is each council getting in terms of funding for music tuition in the 2021-22 academic year?

2. How was it decided how much each council will receive?

Response

The Scottish Government will provide funding in the 2021-22 academic year that replaces the portion of funding previously raised in revenue from charging. The funding allocation will be distributed in two ways. Firstly, every local authority will receive a share of £5m next academic year. The £5m quantum was reached based on data presented in the Improvement Service’s annual survey on instrumental music tuition and reflects the amount raised in fees by local authorities across Scotland. This £5m will be distributed to all local authorities based on the number of pupils 5-18 on the school roll in each area, regardless of current charging arrangements. Details of this distribution are detailed below:

	2021/22 Allocation	2022/23 Allocation
	£000s	£000s
Aberdeen City	112	56
Aberdeenshire	172	86
Angus	72	36
Argyll & Bute	48	24
City of Edinburgh	247	123
Clackmannanshire	32	16
Dumfries & Galloway	89	44
Dundee City	87	44
East Ayrshire	77	39
East Dunbartonshire	82	41
East Lothian	71	35
East Renfrewshire	83	41
Falkirk	104	52
Fife	239	119
Glasgow City	334	167
Highland	146	73
Inverclyde	47	23
Midlothian	64	32
Moray	57	29
Na h-Eileanan Siar	16	8
North Ayrshire	86	43
North Lanarkshire	234	117
Orkney Islands	13	7
Perth & Kinross	86	43
Renfrewshire	113	57
Scottish Borders	69	35
Shetland Islands	16	8
South Ayrshire	68	34
South Lanarkshire	214	107
Stirling	60	30
West Dunbartonshire	59	30
West Lothian	130	65
All Grant Aided Schools	6	3

It is acknowledged that this approach would leave the authorities who were expecting to charge fees in the next academic year with an in-year budget deficit. The Scottish Government is therefore allocating additional funding to ‘top up’ charging authorities to the level they budgeted for instrumental music tuition fee income at the start of the current financial year (2021/22). COSLA and Scottish Government are currently gathering this information from local authorities. This top-up fund does not apply to those local authorities who did not budget for income from IMT fees during 2021/22.

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