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21 January 2004

“Rewards and Incentives for post-threshold teachers” – another damaging agreement

The draft agreement reached between the employers, Government and five teacher organizations threatens a significant escalation of performance-pay in schools.

For the first time, this dangerous “deal” specifies a direct link between performance management and progression on the Upper Pay Spine. “Using performance management as the machinery of performance pay will create an atmosphere of distrust”. It will “undermine good staff relations and lead to further bullying of staff by poor managers”. ( * - see footnote )

For the first time, progress on the Upper Pay Spine may not just require the “sustained” progress set down in legislation but now requires teachers to have “grown professionally”.

So the leaderships of the other teacher unions have not just signed-up to an agreement that sets a new barrier to pay progression at UPS3. They have also agreed criteria which will allow performance management reviews to be used to ration progress at every stage along the Upper Pay Spine.

But this deal doesn’t just risk denying teachers future progress along the Upper Pay Spine. It also threatens the loss of Management Allowances. It threatens a future where, instead of teachers being paid according to the responsibilities they take on, pay is decided by questionable judgements of their performance.

The Annex to the draft agreement makes clear that some of the costs of allowing some teachers to reach UPS3 will be paid for by savings in the cost of Management Allowances. Over the next two years, the Government hopes to make savings of £48 million through the freezing of the costs of these allowances and a further £30 million by “reducing numbers of allowances”.

As one of the main organizers of School Teachers Opposed to Performance Pay (STOPP), I have always held that PRP distorts and damages education by turning colleagues into competitors. That is why I am strongly opposed to this draft agreement.

While the leaders of the other teacher unions may have signed this deal, I believe that, once it is explained to classroom teachers, their members will question what has been agreed in their name. I will continue to campaign for teacher unity from below, so that, together, ordinary teachers can persuade all the teacher unions to withdraw from this damaging deal – as well as the pernicious “Workforce Agreement”.

This stepping-up of divisive PRP is, unfortunately, another consequence of the NUT leadership’s failure to decisively oppose the performance threshold when it was first introduced.

Unlike the present National Union leaders, I, and others leading STOPP, tried to build a serious opposition to performance-pay, including a lively demonstration through London in February 2000. If elected to NUT General Secretary, I would call for the NUT to hold another similar protest but this time with the full-backing of the National Union of Teachers. A major demonstration by teachers would be a good first-step in opposing performance pay – and the other threats to our pay, conditions and children’s education as a whole.

Martin Powell-Davies, January 21 2004

* This warning is taken from the text of the resolution on Performance Management which I successfully moved at NUT Annual Conference 2001 against the opposition of the present National Union leadership.

email martin@electmartin.org.uk