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9 July 2009 : Column WS58
School Teachers' Review Body
Statement
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Children, Schools and Families (Baroness Morgan of Drefelin): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls) made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
Part 2 of the 18th report of the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) is being published today, which reviews the appropriateness of the pay award for September 2009 and 2010 which was referred in June 2008. I am grateful for the careful consideration which the STRB has given to this matter. Copies of the report have been laid before Parliament today and my detailed response to it is available in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office, the Libraries of the House and at www.teachernet.gov.uk/pay.
The STRB has recommended that teachers' pay be increased by 2.3 per cent from September 2009 and September 2010; with adjustments to the inner London pay scales from September 2009 and September 2010.
I am grateful to the STRB for these recommendations which, subject to the statutory consultation process, I intend to accept and implement in full. These recommendations represent the second and third year of a three-year pay award and confirm recommendations first made by the STRB in January 2008.
I also note the STRB's recommendations for regular diversity and equality data collection; encouraging schools to use existing recruitment and retention flexibilities in shortage subjects; and consideration being given to the introduction of new measures to improve the supply of mathematics teachers. My detailed response contains further information on all of these recommendations.
Annexe to Written Ministerial Statement of 9 July 2009.
School Teachers' Review Body recommendations and response from the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls)
[The following sets out the full set of recommendations from the School Teachers' Review Body and published in the 18th Report part 2 (Cm 7652) on 9 July 2009, together with the response from the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. The STRB's recommendations below are in bold.]
The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families (Ed Balls): Part 2 of the 18th report of the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) is being published today. It covers the review of teachers' pay which was referred to the STRB in June 2008. Copies of the report are available in the Vote Office, the Printed Paper Office and in the Libraries of the House and at http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/pay.
In making its recommendations, the STRB was required to have regard to considerations a-f set out in the remit letter of 25 June 2008. This report reviews the appropriateness of the teachers' pay award for September 2009 and September 2010. It also makes recommendations about regular diversity and equality data collection; encouraging schools to use existing
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I am grateful to the STRB for conducting its review of teachers' pay and subject to the statutory consultation process I intend to accept and implement its recommendations in full. These recommendations represent the second and third year of a three-year pay award and confirm recommendations first made by the STRB in January 2008.
Other matters arising from the STRB's review
The STRB has further recommended that the department:
undertake regular data collection and analysis to monitor developments in the teacher workforce related to issues of diversity and equality.This should include an ongoing review of matters relating to equal pay and of the extent to which the teaching profession reflects the diversity of the population it serves;should review and strengthen the ways it encourages schools to use existing recruitment and retention flexibilities to address local teacher shortages in mathematics and other priority subjects; andshould consider the introduction of new financial and other incentives and measures to improve the quantity and quality of the supply of mathematics teachers.If asked to do so, the STRB would welcome the opportunity to explore the form these might take in a future remit.I agree with the STRB's recommendation about data collection and analysis. That is why my department is developing the new school workforce census which will provide comprehensive data on an annual basis about the individual characteristics, contract details and pay of school teachers. The development is being piloted with a view to full live rollout in 2010. The data collected from schools and local authorities in England will include age, gender, ethnicity, disability and qualifications-all at individual teacher level-to allow detailed analysis related to diversity and equality issues.
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I note that the STRB recommends that my department should take steps to encourage schools to use existing recruitment and retention flexibilities to address teacher shortages in mathematics and other priority subjects at a local level. Following an earlier consultation on how best to encourage increased use of existing pay flexibilities, there was no appetite for any action plans or guidance or other communications. However, a note was added to the 2008 model pay policy, which states schools should consider making use of existing pay flexibilities within the school teachers' pay and conditions document-particularly to help with the recruitment of teachers of shortage subjects such as mathematics, science and, in Wales, Welsh. Schools will be expected to meet the costs of any payments from within the budgets they have available. I would like to invite consultees' views on whether any other strategies might usefully be adopted.
I note that the STRB has also said that consideration should be given to the introduction of new measures to attract high-quality mathematics teachers in the required numbers. While there is some evidence that the measures we have taken to increase recruitment to shortage subjects such as mathematics and science are working, I would prefer to return to this recommendation once I have further evidence of their impact. Meanwhile I would welcome consultees' ideas, in the context of the recently published 21st century schools White Paper, as to what might be acceptable forms of any such incentives or measures to improve the quality and quantity of mathematics teachers.
Shipping: Smoking
Statement
The Secretary of State for Transport (Lord Adonis): My honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Paul Clark) has made the following Ministerial Statement.
The Government introduced restrictions on smoking in enclosed workplaces, public places and vehicles in England from 1 July 2007. These provisions are described in the Health Act 2006 and aim to save thousands of lives over the next decade by reducing both exposure to hazardous second-hand smoke and overall smoking rates.
The Health Act 2006 includes provisions designed to prohibit smoking in enclosed public places and vehicles, but does not cover ships operating at sea or on inland waters. Therefore, the Government stated their intention to introduce similar provisions to provide protection from second-hand smoke for people on ships operating in UK waters (including the territorial sea and inland waters).
In 2007, the Department for Transport held a consultation exercise seeking first views on how such restrictions should be applied. Following that consultation, draft regulations have now been produced and are being made available for public consultation from today.
The draft regulations being consulted on are made under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. They will apply to all ships operating within the 12-mile UK
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Smoking will be prohibited except in areas of the ship designated by the master in accordance with the regulations which may include designated smoking cabins on cruise ships or passenger ferries. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency will hold the responsibility for enforcement of these provisions with a scale of penalties similar to those laid down in the Health Act.
Pleasure vessels such as yachts, motor cruisers, and small private fishing vessels, are exempted from the smoke-free provisions. However, any such vessels carrying fare-paying passengers, or operating with an employed crew will fall into scope of the regulations.
Copies of the consultation paper and draft regulations have been sent to a wide range of representatives in the shipping industry and they will have 12 weeks to respond to the consultation. Copies have been placed in the Library of the House. Further copies of the consultation paper are available on the DfT website at www.dft.gov.uk.
Swine Flu
Statement
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Darzi of Denham): My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health (Andy Burnham) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
As I announced in my Oral Statement to the House on 2 July (Official Report, col. 497) part of the move to the new treatment phase of our response to the current swine flu pandemic will involve a new way of collecting and publishing information about swine flu.
The treatment phase refers to the period when antivirals are used only for treating those who have contracted the illness; contact tracing ceases as does providing antivirals for prophylaxis. The swabbing and testing of all cases also ceases.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) had previously been collecting, compiling and releasing United Kingdom figures on a daily basis on its website. These statistics set out the number of laboratory confirmed cases, as well as clinically presumed cases.
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Because we will rely on clinical diagnosis instead of laboratory confirmation of swabs to identify cases of swine flu, we cannot continue to measure total number of cases in the same way as we have been doing. This is because without testing everyone we would not know how many swine flu cases there are among other cases of influenza-like illnesses.
Therefore, to replace the data previously published, we will need to move to higher level estimates of spread. This will be combined with other key indicators to give a fuller picture of the progress of swine flu.
The Chief Medical Officer will be setting out today the format and content of a weekly situation report, which will cover:
estimates of influenza-like illness cases, estimated using two different surveillance systems;the number of calls to NHS information lines for colds/flu;the number of deaths of patients with swine flu (reported deaths where the cases have tested positive for swine flu); andthe number of hospitalisations (any swine flu in-patient over the past 24 hours who has been H1N1 swabbed or clinically presumed)This change reflects the World Health Organisation- led move away from the comprehensive assessment component of surveillance, where the focus is on characterising the clinical, epidemiological and virological features of a new disease, to the monitoring component, where the focus is on monitoring geographical spread, trends, intensity and impact.
The UK has well established, and internationally respected, surveillance systems for monitoring incidence and assessing the impact of seasonal influenza. These systems have operated well through the normal flu season over the last few years and we will build on them as we refine the revised surveillance system for swine flu.
The revised system will be augmented by additional surveillance activities that are relevant to the pandemic situation. This will include continuing to assess the severity of disease associated with this novel virus, and monitoring changes in the characteristics of the virus.
In addition to this, honourable Members will receive a weekly update on the impact of swine flu in their local area.
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