A report published in October 2000 by the School Teachers' Review Body has endorsed the government's controversial performance-related pay scheme for teachers in England and Wales. In obtaining a number of concessions, teachers' trade unions also claim to have won a victory. This feature considers the implications of the report and the possible consequences of the introduction of the government's pay reforms.
A report published on 20 October 2000 by the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) has finally broken the three-month deadlock between the Labour government and the UK's largest teaching trade union, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) over the introduction of performance-related pay (PRP) in schools in England and Wales (UK9812169N). The report follows a High Court challenge brought by the NUT in July 2000 (UK0008184N). The judge reviewing the case found in favour of the union by ruling that the secretary of state for education and employment, David Blunkett, had acted unlawfully in ordering changes to teachers' conditions of service without due consultation. With the publication of the report, all sides have claimed a victory, despite the fact that that the government's scheme now looks to have been given the all-clear, albeit with minor modifications.
The report of the School Teachers' Review Body
The School Teachers' Review Body report endorses the government's performance-related pay scheme and allows it to start the pay reform ball rolling again, with the 197,000 teachers in England who originally applied for the GBP 2,000 "threshold rise" expected to receive this by easter 2001. Successful applicants "crossing the threshold" will now be placed on a higher pay scale of up to GBP 30,000 per annum with progression subject to annual assessments of performance.
On the most controversial issue of linking pay to pupils' results, the review body has come out in support of the government. The report states: "We remain of the view that pupil progress, fairly assessed in the context of the school and the pupils' backgrounds, should be part of the process for identifying good teaching." It accepts the government's eight standards for determining whether teachers will "cross the threshold". In addition to pupil performance, these include subject knowledge, lesson management and commitment to professional development.
A key change recommended by the report is the introduction of an external appeals procedure. It states categorically that teachers whose applications have been turned down and who believe they have been wrongly assessed must have a right to appeal. The report warns however that teachers who repeatedly fail the threshold assessment are likely to suffer demoralisation. The change allows for those teachers who for various reasons failed to apply in the first round of assessment to be provided with a new opportunity to do so. Details of this will form part of the consultation process.
The review body has also looked into the issue of the so-called "snoopers' charter" under which teachers were to be required under their conditions of service to provide information that might assist in the threshold assessment of other colleagues. On this question, the report stresses that the obligation to provide head teachers with such information will be confined to those with managerial responsibility, notably heads of department.
The STRB's recommendations also apply to Wales where the same performance pay system will operate. Here the timetable is different, however, with a new application date set for 16 March 2001, and additional funding to meet the cost to be provided by the Welsh National Assembly.
The government's response
The secretary of state for education and employment, David Blunkett, has welcomed the report's recommendations including a fundamental review of the system taking into account the threshold standards by the beginning of 2002. On this basis, the government reopened consultation with teachers', governors' and local authority associations with a deadline for responses set for 10 November 2000. Mr. Blunkett stated: "The report is excellent news for the 200,000 teachers in England who applied for an immediate GBP 2,000 pay rise and access to a new pay scale of up to GBP 30,000 and for the very many teachers in Wales that wish to apply. It is our clear commitment to resume this process as quickly as possible so that teachers can get the pay rise they deserve."
Union reaction
The two biggest teaching unions, the NUT and the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) have tended to adopt different tactics in response to the government's pay reforms. Although both have remained flatly opposed to a return to a system of "payment by [pupil] results" (which applied to the teaching profession in the 19th century), the traditionally more moderate NASUWT has criticised the NUT's "irrational hostility to the whole scheme" and its resort to litigation which it sees as only delaying teachers' threshold rises.
The general secretary of the NUT, Doug McAvoy, writing in the Times Educational Supplement, claimed that the STRB's report vindicated his union's action and represented a "victory for the NUT, for all teachers and for natural justice". He declared: "Without our High Court action, the government would not have conceded that teachers who have unjustly been denied threshold payments could appeal. Neither would the government's proposal to require classroom teachers to inform on others for the purposes of threshold assessment have been overturned. Nor would teachers barred from applying this year have had a second chance to apply for the threshold." He went on to argue that under the existing scheme, many excellent teachers would be denied PRP because of the need to demonstrate a direct affect on pupil achievement. Drawing upon a recent analysis of a report by the government's validating consultants, Hay McBer, carried out by Professor David Reynolds, Mr McAvoy pointed out that 13% of teachers with "outstanding characteristics" did not add value to pupils' results. He added that "all the evidence points to the fact that background factors over which teachers have no control undermine the validity of pupil progress being used for pay assessments".
Responding to the report, NASUWT general secretary Nigel de Gruchy said: "NASUWT welcomes the report which puts the 2001 pay increases for many thousands of teachers back on track. The delay caused by the NUT court case last July was completely unnecessary. However, many changes should still be made to the process, including the controversial link to pupil results. These will most likely be achieved through discussion between the government, teacher unions and employer representatives." The NASUWT also welcomed the introduction of an appeals procedure along with the use of external assessors, which it sees as "vital to ensuring justice and fairness, consistency across schools and to minimising the risk of personal bias". However, the union also indicated that the appeals procedure may not provide teachers with the protection they need, since the onus of responsibility will be on teachers themselves to supply "objective evidence" that threshold assessments have been wrongly made.
The decision to postpone until 2002 a fundamental review of what is seen as a "flawed" system has similarly been met with widespread criticism from both unions, as well as the Professional Association of Teachers, which expected this to be scheduled for 2001.
Commentary
The STRB report effectively closes another chapter of what has been an embarrassing episode for the government and the Department for Education and Employment. Although the NUT claims a moral victory, the fact remains that the government's PRP scheme, and its determination to forge a link with pupil results, will now go ahead. The incorporation of an appeals procedure, combined with the lure of hard cash and a government that can now claim it has been prepared to listen, may soften opposition to the scheme among the teaching profession itself. Divisions among the two leading unions and the fact that most teachers have had no alternative form of pay enhancement made available to them, would appear to have made the government's task easier.
The introduction of PRP within schools nevertheless faces a number of problems. Fundamentally, no one is quite sure what "performance" means, let alone how it can best be measured, while any attempt to link teacher "output" with pupils results only adds further complications. The sorry tale of "payment by results" used in English schools in the latter half of the 19th century itself provides a warning from history as to the damaging effect such a system can have on education itself. At the same time, research within the field of industrial relations has questioned the effectiveness of PRP as a motivational tool compared with other factors such as a challenging, well-designed job, effective leadership and opportunities for professional development. There is also the question of the UK's worrying teacher recruitment crisis. Teachers' conditions of work have worsened in the 1990s, and relative earnings have slid further behind other professional groups. It remains difficult to see how PRP, in the absence of measures designed to tackle both these problems, will succeed in attracting high-quality graduates into what remains an already overworked, overstressed and underpaid teaching profession.
Finally, PRP can also be seen as another logical step on the road to a centrally controlled, "Fordist" model of state education management set in train by previous Conservative governments. Rather placing its "trust" in the professionalism of teachers, the government is seeking to ratchet up their performance through a combination of external target-setting, the "stick" of regular inspections and now the "carrot" of performance-related pay. Not only does this go against the grain of much of the present government's own rhetoric about "high-trust", "high-performance" work systems, but it remains to be seen whether such an approach will reap the benefits ministers hope for. (Jonathan Payne, SKOPE)