Memorandum submitted by UNISON
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
UNISON's evidence is focused on areas of the
White Paper where we have a distinct perspective and where any
impact has an overwhelming bearing on our members. Our comments
fall into three categories:
Trust Schools
— We have concerns regarding the accountability
of trust schools, particularly the loss of staff and community
involvement in the strategic direction of the school.
— We have concerns about the long term
incentives that might be introduced to encourage schools to transfer
to trust status and we would urge the Committee to seek assurances
from Government on this point.
The role of Local Education Authorities
— We do not agree with the proposals
in the White Paper which will prohibit LAs from actively seeking
to improve standards in schools, or the shift to a very close
definition of what LAs can rather what they cannot do.
— We believe that local authorities
have a pivotal role in strategic delivery and provision of services,
and an important democratic accountability link which the proposals
undermine.
— We think that in some areas the proposals
will make it more difficult to strategically plan school provision.
— We are concerned about the interface
between schools and other public services and the impact that
the fragmentation of the school system will have on the ability
to deliver other public policy priorities.
Workforce issues
— If school support staff in trust
schools will be employed directly by schools, they will not covered
by national agreements. Does this mean that in the future UNISON
will negotiate directly with 22,000 schools? We would urge the
Committee to seek assurances from Government that there will be
a nationally negotiated minimum set of terms and of conditions
for support staff.
— We are concerned that further fragmentation
of the system will have an impact on the delivery of training
provision for support staff and make delivering career progression
and consistent standards across the sector difficult. Government
needs to set out how the delivery of a "whole school"
approach to training will be implemented. The White Paper does
not anticipate the legislative changes required.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 UNISON is the UK's largest trade union
with 1.4 million members and is the largest education union in
the UK. About 250,000 of our members are employed in schools and
local authority education departments. Our education members include
caretakers, school secretaries, mid-day supervisors, special needs
and teaching assistants, nursery nurses, technicians, administrative
staff and bursars, in fact anyone working in a school who is not
a teacher.
1.2 UNISON welcomes the publication of the
Schools White Paper and many of its proposals. We share the Government's
vision of celebrating the achievements of school staffs in delivering
an education system that we can largely be proud of, while also
recognising that many of the commitments in this White Paper reflect
the Government's intention to prioritise education. UNISON has
supported the Government and worked with Ministers and the department
on reforms that we believe have, and continue, to deliver real
quality improvements in the delivery of school education. We support
the main aims of the White Paper to address under achievement
by many children especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds
or with special needs.
1.3 However, we are concerned that many
of the proposals are about structural and bureaucratic changes
to the governance and structure of schools which will not necessarily
address these issues. Indeed some of the proposals appear contradictory
and unclear. We hope to draw the Committee's attention to areas
of the White Paper that seem to send conflicting messages to parents,
school staff, local authorities, and other stakeholders. We will
also hope to provide evidence of areas where we believe policy
could indeed damage the Government's chances to fulfil its aim
of tackling underachievement by individuals and institutions.
1.4 This is an opportunity for us to offer
advice based on the experience of our members who actually help
deliver education services on the front line. The understanding
and knowledge of our members should not easily be discounted when
it disagrees with the Government. Rather it should be acknowledged
and used to strengthen policy, and employed for the benefit of
children and service delivery. As employees within the education
service, and as parents and citizens within our wider communities,
members of UNISON endorse the importance of securing an education
system that meets the needs of all our children. Children not
structures or staff must be at the heart of reform—where
reform is proven and needed.
2. TRUST SCHOOLS
2.1 In keeping with our belief that children
are best served through a well resourced comprehensive community
school we are concerned at proposals to encourage schools to break
away from the local authority family and allow trusts to take
over control of schools. According to the White Paper this new
category will in effect have the powers (and freedoms) of foundation
schools and the governance similar to Academies.
2.2 UNISON also has concerns regarding the
accountably of trust schools. Parents as well as governors and
staff will lose their say in how the school is run. Proposals
to compel trust schools to develop a Parents Council that can
give guidance on issues like school uniform or dinner menus hardly
compensates for the real involvement parents and community should
have in setting the strategic vision and key policies affecting
the running of the school.
2.3 According to the White Paper the task
of finding individuals or organisations who would want to form
trusts, and the role of encouraging schools to transfer into trusts
falls to the Office of the School Commissioner (OSC). Current
proposals suggest that the transfer of schools away from local
authorities and into trusts will be purely voluntary. However
we believe that if this is the case there may be little interest
in schools changing status. If we look at the example of GM schools
we can see that even with clear financial benefits attached comparatively
few schools wanted to transfer away from local authorities. If
the process is to be allowed to remain totally voluntary therefore
the transition of authorities from providers to commissioners
may take decades to complete.
2.4 However, experience also suggests that
the Government is skilled in placing a great deal of pressure
on authorities to conform to "voluntary" policies. For
example we are aware that the department placed significant pressure
on one authority in the North East to include proposals for Academies
in there Building Schools for the Future bid. In fact two initial
bids that did not include Academies were refused. Despite the
authority justly arguing that according to DfES guidance they
were not required to include plans for an Academy it was clear
that their bid would remain unsuccessful until such plans were
included. We are deeply concerned therefore that document states
that the OSC will be able to place a great deal of pressure on
schools or Local authorities to transfer control of schools to
trusts.
3. ROLE OF
LOCAL AUTHORITIES
3.1 UNISON has a particular perspective
on the interface between schools and other public services. As
a union representing members across the public sector, including
those that relate to schools such as youth services, special needs
support, social services and children's services, we are concerned
that there is clarity over the delivery and implementation of
the Government's broader reform agenda, and that the proposals
to give schools more freedoms and flexibilities does not impinge
on the ability of local government and health services to co-ordinate,
deliver and improve their services.
3.2 We believe that LA's have a pivotal
role in strategic delivery and provision of services. Community
schools are accountable to parents and the community. Often they
are efficiently run. We believe that to exclude the possibility
of establishing new community schools removes choice rather than
extending it. There is no evidence, as far as we are aware, that
LAs "favour" community schools over other types of schools
as has been implied by government ministers as justification for
this.
3.3 UNISON continues to believe that LAs
remain the best way of ensuring the co-ordination and accountability
of the education system at a local level. LAs can have a dynamic
and positive effect on school performance, a function that is
underestimated in the White Paper and other DfES policy papers.
While there is much to be applauded in the current proposals the
sections relating to LAs highlight at least two ways in which
the Government has misunderstood and displayed a distrust of local
authorities. Firstly there is the prohibition on LAs being proactive
in improving standards; second is the constraint of LAs having
defined what they can do rather than what they cannot.
3.4 One consequence of this approach is
a lack of clarity over the provision of schooling for children
with Special Educational Needs. There may well be examples where
none of the new arms-length/independent schools want to provide
SEN services. The White Paper is very unclear what happens on
such an occasion. Can/should the LA step in as a "provider
of last resort"? If so how does this rest with the rest of
the Government's policies of encouraging authorities to be commissioners
not providers?
3.5 There are similar concerns regarding
the lack of joined-up thinking with other areas and policies.
Earlier this year, the Government published a prospectus on extended
schools. This says that the overall responsibility to ensure that
extended services are available lies with the local authority
and services can be delivered via a cluster of schools or with
local private or voluntary sector providers. The prospectus also
recommends the building of strong links or co-location between
schools (especially primary) and "children's centres"
and recommends joint capital funding to bring these together.
It is clear that local authorities will have responsibility for
the strategic delivery of extended core services in schools and
wider children's services. Yet the White Paper's aim is to create
more "independent schools" and eventually to have no
more community schools. Whilst many schools will want to be fully
involved in this agenda, their independence and the increasing
fragmentation of the provision and delivery of education will
make it difficult for local authorities to plan and deliver this
effectively.
3.6 While LAs are to be given a role in
coordinating school admissions, there is a danger that the autonomy
granted to individual schools could lead to situations where certain
schools manipulate the school admissions system unfairly and thereby
become less responsive to the needs of their local communities
than at present and exacerbate the educational divide in localities.
3.7 It is also unclear how the White Paper
fits in with Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and the constraints
of a PFI contract. By loosening up LA control over the allocation
of places and the expansion of schools the White Paper undermines
the ability of the LA to control demand for places in schools
which is the main risk they carry in PFI. Liverpool City Council
is already threatening to stop a £320 million BSF scheme.
The council says that the changes proposed in the White Paper
"make it difficult for the LA to strategically plan school
provision" and may force some new schools to close. "If
schools can expand as they wish, how can we (the council) be sure
which schools will still be around in 25 years time?"
3.8 The reformed role for local authorities
will also have a potentially critical impact on the existing frameworks
for negotiating pay for support staff at this level and in particular
if a national pay framework is not taken forward for these particular
employees (see section below). However, local authorities also
have a crucial role in intervening in matters relating to the
school workforce and in preventing individual schools from denying
employees their statutory rights and/or using flexibilities to
poach staff from other schools.
4. WORKFORCE
ISSUES
4.1 School teachers pay and conditions is
covered by national statutory provisions. Support staff pay and
conditions are very different. Support staff in community schools
are covered by the National Joint Council (NJC) agreement for
local government staff. This sets national minimum conditions
and a national pay spine, however where individuals are placed
on that spine is determined at local authority level following
a local grading review usually involving job evaluation. Staff
in foundation and voluntary aided schools, city academies (and
presumably the new trust schools) are employed directly by the
individual school and are not covered by either the NJC agreement
or any agreement reached at local level.
4.2 The White Paper appears to recognise
the inconsistencies inherent in this and is proposing a "more
coherent approach" (paragraph 8.19). This has been followed
up by an invitation to sit on a "Working Group on Support
Staff Employment Issues". This group is due to report to
the Minister of State for Schools by 30 April 2006. This is very
welcome but we remain concerned that at a time when the roles
and responsibilities of support staff are increasing, the fragmentation
of the provision of education will make it increasingly difficult
to deliver consistent standards across the sector. Changing the
framework for support staff pay and conditions and adopting a
"whole school" approach to staff training and development
is likely to require legislative change and this does not appear
to be anticipated in the White Paper.
4.3 Local authorities currently have a strategic
role in training school support staff in community schools (and
indeed other maintained schools). Many either deliver training
programmes or provide fairly detailed guidance to schools. This
role is particularly important in relation to the new extended
services schools need to provide. Not every school, particularly
primary school, can be an extended school. So collaboration between
schools is particularly important and clearly the local authority
needs to play a co-ordinating role to provide these. Extended
services have training implications that cannot necessarily be
met by an individual school. Staff working in one particular school
may also be involved in providing extended services at another
site. Quality of service is inextricably linked with training
of the staff providing it and the local authority would be best
placed in ensuring standards are met that staff are qualified
to the right level. The White Paper is totally silent on this
tension and this causes UNISON great concern.
4.4 Without a strategic plan for staff training
and development UNISON's concern is that there will be huge variations
between schools which will have an impact on quality and service
delivery. As stated above this could have a particular impact
on the ability to deliver extended services and the new personalised
learning agenda envisioned in the White Paper. There is already
evidence of inconsistencies and we believe this can only be exacerbated
by the proposals to encourage independent schools. A UNISON survey
of LAs on support staff pay, conditions and training carried out
by LRD in 2004 showed that although access to training for teaching
assistants had improved, training for other support staff including
technical and administrative staff was lagging far behind. For
example, school support staff receiving NVQ level 2 training were
61% teaching assistants , 16% administrative staff and 11.4% technical
staff. At level 3 the split was 60% teaching assistants, 11.4%
administrative staff and 4.5% technical staff.
4.5 UNISON's most recent survey carried
out by MORI in 2005, shows that 35% of teaching assistants and
53% of administrative staff have no training plan or had any discussions
on training needs and development with their managers. Many LAs
have responded to the school remodelling agenda by prioritising
training for school support staff and putting in place effective
strategies to improve delivery and uptake. They are trying to
remove some of the barriers to training which included head teachers
refusing to release staff unless the LA paid for cover or training
being held at venues far removed from schools or at times outside
the normal working week. (Far fewer support staff use cars, most
live local to the schools and the majority work part time).
November 2005
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