Teachers' pay

Schools suffering from teacher shortages should have greater powers to pay their staff more, an all-party committee of MPs was expected to recommend on Tuesday.

The Commons education select committee will back controversial plans to move further away from national pay rates for teachers to enable struggling schools to recruit and keep the best staff - a problem found in underprivileged areas or at schools with poor academic results.

Government Response: Department for Education and Skills

David Miliband School Standards Minister, said: "The current pay and incentives package is helping to attract record numbers into teaching.

"Teachers' salaries already operate on a regional basis with four separate pay scales for inner London, outer London, the fringe and the rest of England and Wales," he said.

"In addition schools can also be flexible in the pay decisions they make by giving teachers recruitment and retention incentives, benefits to meet local needs and circumstances, and make decisions on teachers' pay progression."

Party Response: Conservative

Tim Collins, shadow education secretary, said: "While this report is pushing the debate on teachers' pay in the right direction it will, if implemented, create a two tier system between those schools that can set their own pay and those that can't.

 

"Our proposals will ensure that all schools will be given the freedom to set pay and conditions to encourage the recruitment and retention of all teachers in any subject in any part of the country."

 

Stakeholder Response: Professional Association of Teachers

 

Jean Gemmell, PAT general secretary, said: "Where there are recruitment problems, schools can already pay certain teachers more on the grounds of their (shortage) subject specialism or to attract them to the area. We have no problem with this.

 

"However, while we are in favour of a certain amount of flexibility to meet specific needs, PAT remains opposed to the notion of regional or local pay, which would be divisive and counter-productive.

 

"Local pay could even spread or transfer recruitment problems if teachers were tempted away from one part of the country to another in large numbers.

 

"Assistance with housing costs would help to attract teachers to areas where there are recruitment difficulties, and we would like to see this recommended to the government by the Commons committee and the School Teachers' Review Body."

 

Stakeholder Response: NASUWT

 

Chris Keates, acting general secretary of NASUWT, the largest union representing teachers throughout the UK, said: "The Select Committee’s proposals are depressing and unimaginative and simply amount to old ideas recycled.

 

"The suggestions are ill-defined and fail to acknowledge the clear evidence of the ineffectiveness of the considerable number of existing flexibilities in the current pay structure.

 

"Attempts have been made over the years to solve the problems of recruitment and retention by introducing more local pay discretion and yet the problems in some areas persist.

 

"The level of discretion available to schools already causes significant problems.  It makes the pay structure more opaque and prone to inequity. It reduces the value national pay arrangements have in attracting teachers and alienates existing teachers who feel unfairly treated.

 

"Pay flexibility encourages schools to poach staff and leads to schools in difficult circumstances or with budgetary problems being disadvantaged still further.

 

"I find it difficult to see any merit in the proposal for an army of super-teachers to work in the most difficult schools.  It is an inherently divisive and impractical suggestion which I hope no one will take seriously."

 

Stakeholder Response: Secondary Heads Association

 

SHA General Secretary, Dr John Dunford, said: "The Select Committee has addressed some very important issues in its report, but we do not want more new schemes.  We need a national pay system for teachers, with sufficient flexibility at school level for head teachers to pay the rates needed to recruit and retain good staff.

 

"This is essentially a matter of funding.  If schools in challenging circumstances receive an adequate supplementary grant, the head will be able to pay the higher rates needed to recruit and retain the highly skilled teachers needed for the school to be successful."