£2m bill if Fife wants to give every P6 pupil the chance to learn to swim

The document from Shelagh McLean, Fife Council’s head of education and children’s services was presented to the local authority’s education scrutiny committee on Tuesday one year after Councillor Aude Boubaker-Calder (Lib-Dem for Dunfermline Central) successfully submitted a motion at full council to explore putting swimming lessons back in the school curriculum.

She previously said that swim provision was removed from the curriculum in 2015 when the Scottish Government pulled funding from a £1.7m programme to support school swimming lessons.

However, she wants to reprioritise what she called a healthy pursuit and a key life-saving skill. She ultimately wants every child to be able to swim 25 metres by the time they leave primary school.

Ms McLean’s report detailed the current swimming provision in Fife and looked at future options for expansion.

There are a number of swimming programmes available through the council and its Active Schools programme and its Fife Sport and Leisure Trust partners, including regular Learn2Swim programme, plus opportunities for underprivileged children to access swimming costumes and alleviate transport costs. However, there is no universal term time swimming offer provided free of charge for primary aged children.

The report outlined some future options for Fife which included continuing “the flexible approach” to enabling young people to access swimming in the “most appropriate way for them.”

It also suggested that Fife continue identifying places to reduce and eliminate barriers such as cost and transport. The report stated: “The overall cost to enable all Primary 6 children in Fife (approximately 4,024) the opportunity to learn to swim over a 38 week period is £2.2 million. This includes £110,000 per year for additional instructors, £970,000 for pool hire and £1.1 million for transport costs.”

There was no further breakdown of costs or necessary infrastructure to roll out swimming provision as part of a primary curriculum.

“I’m concerned that the report that has been presented is not what the [council] was asking for,” Cllr Boubaker-Calder claimed. “[The motion] asked officers to look at how much it would cost us and what’s missing in terms of infrastructure. I fear this report doesn’t answer the questions.”

Scrutiny convener Kathleen Leslie (Conservative for Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy) agreed that the committee is “still looking for that detail.”

However, Councillor Alycia Hayes (SNP for East Neuk and Landward) was of the opinion that the price tag is too steep: “In an ideal world, I would fully back the idea that every child should have access to swim lessons within the school curriculum - but the bottom line is that the cost of educating kids in swimming comes to £2.2 million. Would that money be well spent or effectively spent?”

Cllr Hayes said that a third of English primary pupils still leave school without being able to swim and far fewer have the skills to save their own lives in the water.

“It may be an obligatory part of education in England, but it’s clearly not working there. It’s money down the drain,” she said.

The majority of committee councillors agreed that more detail is necessary before they can make a recommendation of whether or not to reinstate swimming lessons in the primary curriculum. It will likely take six months to bring the new, more detailed report back to the committee.