Free School Meals
Mark the spot with an X
The African Queen
Emily Dodd’s new book
Cupcakes
The council’s Education Children and Families Committee meets today when one of the matters before it will be the discussion of The Scottish Government’s policy on free school meals for all Primary 1 to 3 pupils from January 2015.
The council has 88 primary schools and 7 special schools where there are P1 to P3 pupils and estimate that they will need £1.4m in 2014/15 to enable them to implement the policy. They will seek full council approval later this month to this spending.
Extra funding is being made available by The Scottish Government of £16.5m next year and £54m the following financial year but the difficulty is that the council have no funds to meet the additional capital investment of £3.6m needed to deal with issues of capacity in school buildings around the city, but they expect that the Government will fund the gap.
The council estimate that they could be providing 900,000 school meals over a year which is almost double what they provide now. There are logistical problems in providing these meals as well as the cost.
Some schools at Cramond East Craigs, Sciennes and Towerbank will need some works which are described as ‘more substantive’ and it is not believed these schools will be ready by January next year.
In the first place however the Education Committee have to approve spending (and borrowing) of £1.4m to sort the school buildings and to allow them to be ready to provide the meals which the government has obliged them to do.
All the papers for the Education Committee are here.
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Counting Officer for Edinburgh Sue Bruce shows that ‘X’ marks the spot for #indyref voters http://t.co/CRsuf3G9LG pic.twitter.com/gojA7ctcv4
— Edinburgh Council (@Edinburgh_CC) September 10, 2014
The Deputy Chief Counting Officer for Scotland and Counting Officer for Edinburgh has urged the public to make their vote count just over a week before the vote on Scottish Independence.
Sue Bruce, also Chief Executive of City of Edinburgh Council, has reminded the city’s electorate how crucial it is to take care when casting their vote.
She said: “I want to make sure everyone is able to have their say, so can’t stress enough how important it is to take care when completing their ballot paper, putting one ‘X’ in the box beside the option they wish to choose.
“Postal voters should also complete their voting statement carefully by inserting the correct date of birth and signature and ensuring it is returned to the Counting Officer by 18th September.
“All those planning to vote in person should check their polling cards to find out where their local polling place is, or visit the Council website for more information on where and how to vote.”
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We think you should all take the evening off whatever you are doing and go to see The African Queen this evening at The Filmhouse. Booking details here. Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart at 18.10.
If you don’t fancy this then you have to tell us wh
at you are doing that could be better!
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At the end off week 25, Cuckoo’s cupcake opinion poll shows that it is still all to play for with the Undecideds remaining at 8%
YES – 43.2% (-2.1%)
NO – 46.6% (+1.5%)
UNDECIDED – 8.6% (+0.5%)
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
