Bringing a touch of class to the education workforce

From workforce development to workload agreements and public sector modernisation, the government's education agenda has forced the pace of change in schools, as our overview of the sector shows.

As in most large organisations, HR management in schools has many layers. The day-to-day people managers are the heads and deputy heads of the 23,500 primary and secondary schools in the UK. For many years, town halls also had dedicated education personnel sections dealing with bread-and-butter issues such as recruitment, employment contracts and disciplinary or grievance matters. But recently these functions have been rolled into corporate HR departments in council offices, while in some cases HR support to schools has been farmed out to other agencies.

With the Labour government having come to power in 1997 promising to make its priorities "education, education, education", the pace of change in recent years has been rapid - and not necessarily what might have been expected. HR practitioners have often been at the heart of it. For example, the involvement of outsourcing contractors itself is worthy of comment. Chris Keates, general secretary of the second largest teachers' union, the NASUWT, believes this has been a backwards step. She says: "We used to see HR support as a critical friend. Now we are not always so sure. Sometimes when heads ask questions, they get the answers they want to hear, and perhaps the HR adviser does not probe enough."

National picture

Recent years have seen significant innovations that have married education policy goals with HR objectives and outcomes. And there is no indication that the pace of reform will slow - albeit that the fate of the government's Education Bill remains uncertain.

First, some facts about the education system. School education in England and Wales is provided by a teaching and non-teaching workforce. Some 438,000 teachers work in the public sector and 60,700 in the private or independent sector. In addition, there are 404,200 support staff (more than 200,000 full-time equivalents) in the state sector working alongside teachers, and various others who work outside schools but are exclusively engaged in specialist or professional roles. This latter group includes 5,100 education welfare officers, 2,400 education psychologists and some 4,000 advisers, inspectors and consultants, known collectively as "schools improvement professionals".

Teachers are highly unionised. Though collective bargaining over their pay ended in 1987, when the government abolished the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee, an unbroken forum of dialogue and consultation has continued over residual issues. Employment contracts in community schools are with local authorities. In voluntary aided and foundation schools, the employer is usually the governing body and, although teaching staff receive statutory conditions, support staff may find that their conditions vary from those determined by the local government National Joint Council.

In 1991, the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act established the School Teachers' Pay Review Body (STPRB), which makes recommendations to the secretary of state for education and skills. From 1944 to 1987, the Burnham Primary and Secondary Committee performed the same function through collective agreements between employers and unions. Pay and conditions awards for teachers are implemented by a Statutory Instrument.

The Employers' Organisation for local government (EO) provides the servicing staff for the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers (NEOST). This is made up of members of the Local Government Association, the Catholic Education Service, the Church of England Board of Education and the Foundation and Voluntary Aided Schools Association. The teachers' unions (see box) continued to meet NEOST even when they were effectively derecognised for pay bargaining in 1987, and before the establishment of the STPRB in 1991.

Pay issues

In December 1998, the government published a green paper entitled Meeting the challenge of change. It aimed to improve the retention and recruitment of good teachers and improve educational standards. This in turn led to a new higher scale of pay for teachers who are separated from the existing scale by a performance threshold based on appraisal and assessment. Some teachers saw this as performance-related pay, although Mike Walker of the EO/NEOST disagrees. "It was a form of competence-related pay, really, though the emphasis was on competence, rather than competencies," he says.

Following this, various refinements were considered to drive forward the policy of ensuring that teachers' pay adequately rewarded high-quality performance as well as encouraging professional development. In 2003, the STPRB outlined an approach that was taken up by a majority of unions and the employers' group NEOST. The result was an agreement between these parties in 2004 through a working group on rewards and incentives. Known as the Rewards and Incentives Group (RIG) this has remained in place for the past two years and is emerging as an incipient vehicle for a form of collective bargaining. However, one significant absentee is the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the largest of the teaching unions, which was not part of the original agreement and is now therefore not part of RIG.

RIG is engaged in a number of important developments. For example, a new "light touch" validation process for performance management was introduced in September 2005, which marked a move away from the more tightly regulated, externally validated system introduced in 2001. Schemes have been introduced to reward the most highly skilled teachers - a new "Excellent Teacher" scheme comes into operation in September 2006. RIG has issued bulletins explaining these changes, including checklists to help manage the shift. It has some of the hallmarks of a collective bargained approach.

Workload issues

Faced with mounting evidence of a workload crisis for teachers, the four main TUC-affiliated unions came together in 2001 in a united call for an independent inquiry into the pay and conditions of teachers in England and Wales. A motion approved by the annual conferences of each of the unions called for industrial action in support of a 35-hour week. The motion also condemned the STPRB for its "repeated failure to take action to remove the excessive workload …" of teachers. The unions demanded that the 22-hour week of actual teaching time be phased in.

With a general election then only a month away, industrial action threatened, and with Scottish teachers (in contrast) having recently secured agreement on a 35-hour week, education secretary David Blunkett bowed to pressure and agreed to establish a review group to look at the issue of teacher workload. The group was made up of employer, union and government representatives and was advised by an independent study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC). The outcome was a strong critique of the overburdening of teachers. Crucially, it highlighted the need for people other than teachers to do many of the non-teaching tasks, which were absorbing so much time.

The PwC report laid the basis for much of the subsequent policy development. The STPRB and government ministers then went through various stages in rolling out a policy of reform. In 2001, Estelle Morris (by then education secretary) set out a vision of a future role for teachers that suggested better use of their skills and a refinement of roles. Teachers should not be expected to deal with the same range of teaching and non-teaching duties but should instead concentrate on achieving excellence in their pedagogic roles. New jobs were already emerging in schools, including ICT specialists and other administrative and teaching support staff.

Separately, in 2003, the local government NJC published School support staff: the way forward, setting out details of job grading structures and job profiles for the various types and grades of school support staff including teaching assistants. At the time it was stated that: "… more than 200,000 full-time-equivalent support staff currently work alongside teachers in schools. It is estimated that this number will increase by at least 50,000 over the lifetime of this parliament."

Agreement on workload and standards

The Raising Standards and Tackling Workload National Agreement had three stages of implementation from September 2003 to September 2005. It established the gradual delegation of routine administrative and clerical tasks to teaching support staff, the introduction of more work-life balance, and the provision of more leadership and management time for those with corresponding responsibilities. Limits were to be brought in on the extent to which teachers would be asked to cover for absent colleagues, and new arrangements would be made for guaranteed time for planning, preparation and assessment (PPA).

To support this, a Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group (WAMG) was established comprising NEOST (the employer's body) all the relevant unions (including Unison, the GMB and TGWU for teaching support staff) and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES). In April 2003, the DfES established a National Remodelling Team (NRT) to implement the National Agreement on Raising Standards and Tackling Workload. Its brief was to encourage schools to explore the wider implications of workforce remodelling by coming up with ideas and practical suggestions.

Even with such significant developments under way, the NUT chose to remain "outside the tent" and remains bound to do so by decisions of its own annual delegate conference. It was not party to the national agreement, is not part of WAMG and does not belong to RIG either. Nonetheless, the agreement and the work done following it, was described by Dame Patricia Collarbone, director of the NRT as "… a new social partnership, unseen in any of our lifetimes … a truly outstanding leadership initiative".

Workforce change

The final implementation of the staffing review process is planned for the end of 2008, but how does one effect change in 23,500 schools within a relatively short time frame? The work of WAMG and NRT (now formally part of the Training and Development Agency for schools) would in any other context be designated as a change project, working through change managers or an HR-led implementation team. The project includes national leadership of a review of staffing structures to optimise the use of the learning and teaching skills of teachers, while enhanced roles are given to support staff. WAMG is giving guidance to schools and local education authorities (LEAs) in their reviews of staffing structures.

The NRT in contrast sees its role as "facilitating LEAs and schools" in remodelling, which it defines as "a self-directed change process which places the school at the centre of the agenda. [It] recognises that one size does not fit all", and "… requires the participation of the whole school community." The social partnership structures are therefore distinct and separate although they complement each other.

Guidance by RIG to head teachers and governing bodies states that the staffing reviews are to be "in close partnership with their staff and representatives of recognised trade unions …" and should consider how staffing and financial resources can be used most effectively in pursuit of school improvement priorities. Copious advice notes have been provided in toolkit form. The stages include designing new staffing structures, and finalising and implementing them. The involvement of non-teaching support staff is stressed as important at all stages. A plethora of web-based materials and guidance is involved. WAMG and the RIG are engaged in various elements of the project. School governors and local authorities are expected to be involved.

But the exercise has other dimensions, too. Its scope and ambition have to be seen in the context of:

Research suggests the results have been positive. In 2004 an independent National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) evaluation reported favourably on the work of the National Remodelling Team. Keates of the NASUWT agrees, despite the continued opposition of the NUT. "The NUT has been opposing these changes but teachers are embracing them, particularly the contractual changes and particularly primary teachers," she says.

Extended schools

Important as these initiatives are, they describe only part of the changing scene in education from early years to 19. One concept that is being widely discussed is that of extended schools. The DfES defines an extended school as providing "a range of services and activities, often beyond the school day, to help meet the needs of children, their families and the wider community". The concept involves providing anything from childcare to parenting classes. It implies extending the times that schools will be open, beyond their current hours. The impact on employment conditions and the range of people working in and around schools will be significant, as the government wants extended services available for all children by 2010. Schools will provide access to such services although not necessarily provide them.

New relationship with schools

In early 2004, the DfES and schools inspectorate Ofsted set out a vision for a new relationship with schools (abbreviated to NRwS) and changes for the future of inspection. Schools are to be burdened less with the ordeal of long, formal Ofsted inspections although they will be expected to engage more in processes of self-evaluation. Working with School Improvement Partners (SIPs) they are being encouraged to improve standards by their own efforts rather than in response to the scrutiny and rod of external inspections. The DfES expects that head teachers will assume the role of SIPs for neighbouring schools. However, the existing 4,000 or so specialist consultants, inspectors and advisers in local authorities and their union, Aspect, see little enthusiasm among heads for this suggestion to supplant them.

Multi-agency working

Another dimension of change is that, in future, schools will have to adopt multi-agency working (eg with social services, and the health and youth justice systems). This has been identified as necessary if cases of serious maltreatment are not to go unnoticed by professionals, as happened in the tragic case of Victoria Climbié. Part of the solution will be a one-stop shop for all children's services, which will ensure that the needs of children and young people are addressed more holistically.

Under the Every Child Matters agenda, joint commissioning structures (children's trusts) will be put in place so that the interventions to assist children who are failing at school or have other social problems, come through the same central provider. Local authorities have been reorganising children's services (including education) establishing all-purpose directorates of children's services.

Other workforce changes will occur in consequence, including in the training and design of jobs. As well as existing roles being affected, new job roles are likely to emerge, blending elements of currently disparate disciplines, and there will be issues in relation to pay, conditions and grading of this large and more integrated workforce.