Evidence to the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, on the School Support Staff Negotiating Body
Evidence to the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, on the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB)
22 October 2010
The case for the SSSNB
Prepared by the support staff unions (GMB, UNISON and UNITE)
Why was the SSSNB established
The SSSNB was established in response to the changing needs of schools and their ability to deploy their support staff effectively as part of the professional, modern school workforce. In so doing schools needed to be able to use a pay and conditions framework that met their needs rather than the requirements of local authorities. Since the 1980s but especially in the last five years, the professional role of school support staff has changed beyond recognition both inside and outside the classroom.”
There is now near universal recognition, from teachers, heads and parents of the value and contribution support staff make to improving standards and the learning environment in schools. This has been consistently backed up by Ofsted. Its fifth report evaluating the impact of school workforce reform (2010) found that 80% of the schools visited provided evidence that the wider workforce had contributed to improved learning outcomes. It quoted a headteacher (p.8) who ascribed the dramatic improvement in school standards and achievement (up 30% into the top 8% of improved schools) to the effective deployment of the wider workforce and their increased status and recognition.
However Ofsted also identified a number of areas where it had some concerns about the wider workforce and particularly how effectively they were being managed and developed. The report states that:
“members of the wider workforce and their managers were confused and uncertain about pay and conditions attached to the increasingly diverse roles that have developed as a result of workforce reform.” (p.5)
Ofsted recommended that government
“provide guidance on appropriate levels of pay and conditions for the increasingly diverse roles that have been introduced as a result of workforce reform.” (p.6)
Current issues
Around two thirds of School support staff are employed on pay and conditions which are agreed in the Local Government National Joint Council (NJC). Most local authorities sign up to a national set of minimum conditions (the ‘Green Book’) although their pay structures vary considerably. The conditions that apply to the whole local government workforce have not and cannot adapt to meet the changing nature of the wider school workforce. Schools and headteachers have been increasingly frustrated that they have to accept pay and conditions’ packages arrived at by the council rather than do what is best for the school and its staff. The result has left local authorities facing massive equal pay liabilities. Around 35% of local authorities with schools have not carried out a pay review and face an equal pay bill of at least £214 million for their school support staff alone. The poor fit between school and wider local government employment provided the rationale for establishing the SSSNB. The rationale behind it was also to address the fact that the role of school staff had changed, and that teachers were increasingly expected to concentrate on teaching and learning and that other work in schools could be done by staff who were not qualified teachers. There was – and continues to be – a clear need for a workforce pay and grading framework and advice that could support schools in managing these changes in their workforce.
The work of the SSSNB
The SSSNB was therefore established in 2009 to design a national framework of pay and conditions for support staff in maintained schools combining ‘national consistency and local flexibility’. It comprises employer and trade union representatives making decisions by consensus and empowered to make recommendations to the Secretary of State on matters referred to it under its remit.
It has identified over 100 support staff roles with indicative profiles for schools to use as benchmarks to assess the jobs they decide that they need. It has been working on a pay and conditions model, including a working time formulation that would assist schools in arriving at appropriate pay levels consistently. The job profiles had reached the testing in schools stage, a ‘handbook’ of minimum conditions of service was a work in progress and employers and unions were moving towards an agreed expression of working time. The SSSNB agreement should have been finalised by January 2011 for phased application from April 2011. It would have recommended a national framework and guidance to schools to enable them to apply them to the jobs they require within their individual school. It was never intended to be prescriptive in telling schools what kind of support staff structure they should have.
The SSSNB would give schools significantly more flexibility in aligning job descriptions of support staff with the roles they carry out. It would reduce the burden on self-governing schools of having to create their own job descriptions and pay structures and would significantly reduce the exposure of schools and local authorities from future equal pay claims.
The government has already identified the value of pay review bodies for other sectors including teachers and head teachers. This has enabled the government to introduce structures which address performance issues in schools. We would welcome further clarification from Government on why the school support staff workforce is an exception.
Maintaining the status quo
In the absence of the SSSNB, most schools will continue to inherit their support staff terms of employment from their local authority. They will continue to be restricted from aligning their support staff employment policies with the needs of the school. Self-governing schools may follow local government NJC terms as it is beyond the resources of most individual schools to develop and collectively bargain pay structures and job evaluation processes that will recruit and retain professional staff. For this reason, academy chains, a significant number of local authorities and the 6th Form College Employers have been waiting in the wings to adopt the SSSNB job evaluation system. Local authorities will continue to be vulnerable to equal pay challenges. School support staff will feel that the long awaited acknowledgment of their professional contribution and fair and consistent reward has been taken from them.
A possible way forward
GMB, UNISON and UNITE have expressed their opposition to the abolition of the SSSNB. This is based on concern for the fair and consistent employment of school support staff but also in the sincere belief that its work would give schools more flexibility and would reduce the administrative burden of managing job descriptions and pay structures.
We believe that the SSSNB should be allowed to complete its current programme of work and be given the opportunity to prove its worth. The Secretary of State would retain his discretion on the future of the SSSNB but would have outcomes by which to judge whether it will support headteachers and the delivery of higher standards in schools. We believe strongly that to abolish it without evidence of its impact would be premature.
We would therefore ask the Secretary of State to give the body a review period of, for example, 12 months, to deliver on some its key tasks.
Whilst the employers representative organisations have been consulted about their views on SSSNB, we would ask the Secretary of State to consult schools and headteachers as well.
We would also ask that there is an Equality Impact Assessment carried out on the impact of its abolition.
If the Secretary of State decides to abolish the SSSNB we would ask him to address the following issues.
o How would he envisage schools receiving support and advice on pay and grading for the wider workforce?
o Will he consult headteachers on what they want to assist them in managing pay and conditions issues in schools?
o How will he deliver on national commitments including the Chancellor’s promise of £250 for all public sector workers earning less than £21,000 p.a.
o What is the rationale for denying a national structure for school support staff when the government accepts the value of the School Teachers Pay Review Body?