NAHT Evidence to the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB)

NAHT evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) 31st remit

Introduction

1. NAHT welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to inform its 31st remit report.

2. NAHT is the UK’s largest professional association for school leaders. We represent more than 33,000 head teachers, executive heads, CEOs, deputy and assistant heads, vice principals and school business leaders. Our members work across: the early years, primary, special and secondary schools; independent schools; sixth form and FE colleges; outdoor education centres; pupil referral units, social services establishments and other educational settings.

3. In addition to the representation, advice and training that we provide for existing school leaders, we also support, develop and represent the school leaders of the future, through NAHT Edge, the middle leadership section of our association. We use our voice at the highest levels of government to influence policy for the benefit of leaders and learners everywhere.

Structure of NAHT’s response to the Review Body’s 31st remit

4. This year’s submission sets out a brief context to the crisis in teacher and leadership supply. We provide an analysis which demonstrates how successive Secretaries of State have constrained the Review Body’s role by setting increasingly narrow remits that bear little or no relation to the STRB’s preceding analysis.

5. We demonstrate how government has further undermined an already febrile relationship with the teaching profession through its response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Its actions have driven unnecessary new workload, harmed teachers’ and leaders’ well-being and done enormous damage to morale. The implications for retention are serious.

6. Matters have culminated in the needless and foolhardy imposition of another pay freeze leading to another real terms pay cut. Not only is government’s case without merit, our evidence shows that it risks precipitating a catastrophic leadership supply crisis.

7. Our submission provides detailed evidence setting out the way in which pay acts on leadership supply; the findings of our recent survey of school leaders; evidence on the gender pay gap; and a brief of other key evidence and data.

8. Our evidence refers the Review Body to previous submissions to the 28th, 29th

and 30th remits. We also attach: A Career in Education, NAHT, 2020

Context: Recruitment and retention - teacher and school leader supply

9. This year, concern about the longstanding, intractable crisis affecting the supply of teachers and leaders has been further sharpened by the multiple impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools. The pandemic continues to disrupt initial teacher training, impact on recruitment rounds and place extraordinary, continuing and ongoing pressures on teachers and leaders, and the pupils and communities that they serve.

10. The key summer recruitment round was severely affected, with much less movement and turbulence in the system than is normal, while the pandemic sparked an increase in applications to initial teacher training.

11. At this early stage, the uptick in applications to teacher training courses should be viewed cautiously. Training, and particularly bursary funded training, can provide a safe harbour from the economic and social turbulence of the pandemic – parallels exist with the global financial crisis of 2007/8 after which teaching failed to retain many of the new entrants that sought refuge from the economic storm, as teaching salaries failed to keep up and other occupations became more attractive to graduates and career-changes.

12. Nor do high trainee numbers necessarily promise a solution to the intractable issue of the need for more quality candidates at all levels – a recurrent theme of NAHT’s survey findings since 2017. Furthermore, the 2020-21 trainee cohort has already endured greater disruption to their teacher education than their immediate predecessors, posing even more significant induction and support challenges for schools in the academic year 2021-22.

13. The largely unaddressed issue of teacher, and to an even greater extent, leadership retention remains. Last year’s recruitment rounds suggest that many teachers and leaders may have postponed future career decisions, creating the potential for very significant losses of experienced professionals when the pressure of the pandemic is released.

14. It is possible that there may be an outflow from the profession, particularly of late-career teachers and leaders exhausted by a year of constant crisis management, and the inadequacy and incompetence of government’s chaotic approach to the school sector. NAHT is deeply concerned about the impact that the profession’s loss of trust and confidence in government may have.

15. This is compounded by the extraordinary folly of a new pay freeze based on the flimsiest of propositions. Delivering yet another real terms pay cut to a profession where recruitment and retention is through the floor is inexplicable; doing so where that profession is reeling from the huge personal costs to individual professionals of supporting young people, families and communities through a global pandemic is simply incomprehensible. A ‘slap in the face’ doesn’t even begin to describe the betrayal that many school leaders feel.

16. NAHT’s view is that, once again, there has been no substantive or significant improvement to the national state of teacher and school leader supply, including rates of retention, vacancy rates or the quality of candidates entering the profession. Our previously submitted evidence to the preceding three remits continues to apply.

The Secretary of State’s 31st remit

Introduction

17. The remit set by the Secretary of State for the 31st report of the School Teachers’ Review Body is depressingly familiar. Once again, a Secretary of State has set a narrow remit, this time based on a specious notion of comparative pay in the public and private sectors, and ‘probity’ in the dissemination of public finances.

18. Over the last decade successive Secretaries of State have deployed similar tactics to systematically constrain the work of the pay review body, repeatedly refusing to allow sufficient breadth in its work to address the overarching and systemic problems that cause too few graduates and career changers to choose a career in teaching; too few teachers to want to stay in teaching; too few teachers to want to become leaders; and too few new leaders to be retained in their posts.

19. The STRB is charged with taking account of vacancy rates and recruitment and retention issues alongside the wider labour market in England, in order to make recommendations on the salary and allowance ranges for teachers and school leaders, so that pay acts as a lever on teacher and leader supply. Yet, time and again government has prevented the Review Body from conducting the full breadth of this work, insisting, for example, that the STRB must focus solely on early career teachers, regardless of the weight of evidence that so clearly demonstrates the leadership pipeline is broken.

Government constraints on the STRB undermine solutions to the recruitment and retention crisis

20. Since 2010, the STRB has been hemmed in by repeated public sector pay freezes, pay caps and other interference in its role. The last three pay rounds provide ample evidence of government’s unwillingness to allow the pay body to make a full and independent assessment of the challenges and solutions to the parlous state of teacher and leadership supply.

21. Nevertheless, the Review Body has continued to flag the issues that government is unwilling to hear, or address.

22. The 28th remit saw a relaxation of the 1 per cent pay cap but a continued fettering of the STRB’s work through government’s emphasis on a continuing

‘need’ for ‘pay discipline.’1 Recognising the impact of the deteriorating position of teachers’ and leaders’ real pay, the Review Body rejected the government’s case for targeting rises at early career teachers to the detriment of experienced teachers and leaders, recommending instead a 3.5 per cent pay uplift to all pay and allowance ranges.

23. The Review Body’s report offered a detailed and clear rationale for the proposed uplift based on its review of vacancy levels, the overall labour market and the relative position of teachers’ and leader’s pay which had been in real terms decline2 for close to a decade. The STRB noted that:

• teaching had continued to lag behind other graduate professions, both in terms of starting salaries and pay progression prospects • over recent years, the relative position of classroom teachers’ median earnings had deteriorated • data from major graduate recruiters suggested a continuing significant gap between teachers’ minimum starting salaries and median starting pay in other professions • the overall position of teaching in the graduate labour market had deteriorated since STRB’s 27th report, exacerbating the challenges faced in attracting good graduates to become teachers and retaining teachers in the profession • the evidence showed that there had been very little improvement in any aspect of the teacher supply situation in the last year, while there was clear evidence that some factors, most notably teacher recruitment, had worsened • there was evidence that teacher supply challenges were apparent across the school system in England at all stages of teachers’ careers • the pay and allowance framework was central to making teaching an attractive and rewarding career and signalling to graduates the value that was placed on the profession • the relative pay trends described above were important contributory factors in the recruitment and retention problems facing the teaching profession in England and Wales • few classroom teachers told [the STRB] …they aspired to become senior leaders, and most assistant and deputy heads… did not wish to become head teachers. The statistical evidence available also supported this picture, showing emerging problems in recruiting and retaining school leaders.3

24. The Review Body made specific reference to the difficulty of recruiting school leaders, the decline in retention rates for head teachers and that few deputies or assistants aspired to become heads – stating that ‘…the level of pay…must be sufficient that people stepping up to such leadership responsibilities feel that they are being fairly remunerated for the additional responsibilities and pressures they are taking on.’4

1 Secretary of State’s letter & Chief Secretary’s letter to the STRB Chair, STRB 28th report Annex A & B 2 For example, TUC research revealed a 10.4% real terms decline in teachers between 2010 and 2016 3 STRB 28th report 4 STRB 28th report p 63

25. Provided with this comprehensive evidence the Secretary of State simply ignored the STRB’s findings, choosing instead to press ahead with a targeted, differentiated pay award of a 3.5 per cent uplift for teachers on the main pay range, but just 2 per cent for teachers on the upper pay range and 1.5 per cent for those on the leadership pay range. No evidence or rationale was ever provided to underpin this morale sapping decision which did further damage to the leadership pipeline.

26. For its 29th remit, government introduced a new and nebulous requirement for the Review Body to consider the ‘affordability’ of any recommendation on pay ‘across the school system as a whole’.5 NAHT was clear6 that this represented an impossible instruction for the STRB to fulfil, and one that was beyond its statutory functions. We explained that:

• the affordability of any recommended pay award was a matter for government, not the STRB, because a decision about affordability was and remains essentially a political decision • the STRB was not in a position to know the mind of government, nor did it have insight with regard to the government’s funding intentions or priorities for the then forthcoming comprehensive spending review • the STRB was not in a position to make an assessment about affordability across the school system as a whole – this is a complex matter for DfE and the ESFA to address.

27. This unworkable condition served as a further attempt to fetter the functions and independence of the Review Body. NAHT welcomed the STRB’s resilience in explaining its difficulty and discomfort in the analysis it was asked to make.

28. The STRB stated that it was difficult to make a ‘…meaningful assessment of affordability at a system-wide level’ and concluded that ‘any assessment of affordability [needed to take] account of the costs… of not recruiting and retaining enough teachers.’ The review body was clear that ‘failing to prioritise teacher supply through an investment in pay may lead to financial savings in the short term, but these are likely to be outweighed by additional costs and reduced productivity across the education system in the longer term’.7

29. This was accompanied by a misguided steer to focus any uplift on early career teachers. NAHT’s view was that this constituted an unwarranted interference in the of the work of the independent pay review body, whose previous reports had clearly flagged the deteriorating position of teaching within the wider labour market and indicated that a significant pay uplift to all salaries and allowances in payment was necessary.

30. The Review Body was clear on the pressing need to ‘…improve the relative position of the teachers’ pay framework in the labour market for graduate professions and, by so doing, address the deteriorating trends in teacher

5 Secretary of State’s letter to the STRB Chair 21 November 2018, STRB 29th report, p 81 6 NAHT evidence to the STRB’s 29th remit, pp 6-8 7 STRB 29th report p. x

retention’ noting that ‘…unless we act now, graduate pay will have moved still further ahead of current teacher pay ranges by September 2019’.8

31. While the Review Body’s recommendation of a 2.75 per cent uplift fell well short of the 5 per cent that NAHT and other teaching unions jointly regarded as the minimum acceptable uplift, we welcomed the Review Body’s robust recognition that the decline in the competitiveness of the teachers’ pay framework remained a significant contributor to the shortfall in teacher supply.

32. Importantly the Review Body was unambiguous in its view that the 2019 award should represent a first step towards improving the position of the teachers’ pay framework in the wider labour market, and that ‘more will be necessary over the period of the next spending review’.9

33. Rejecting the government’s renewed case for a differentiated uplift, the STRB also offered an unequivocal view that the ‘targeting’ or ‘differentiation’ of uplifts in favour of early career teachers risked ‘being ineffective in its own terms’10 and offered no solution to the ongoing recruitment and retention crisis.

34. Before setting the remit for the Review Body’s 30th report the Secretary of State once again made clear that its remit would be restricted to consideration of the pay of early career teachers, ignoring the carefully weighed conclusions of the two previous STRB reports.

35. Government made clear, in advance of setting the STRB’s remit, that its intention to increase starting pay, would result in a ‘…move towards a relatively flatter pay progression structure than [was] currently typical,’11 ignoring the conclusion of the Review Body that ‘Targeting starting pay risks being ineffective even in its own terms. Those considering joining the profession, and particularly career changers, look ahead to potential future earnings, as well as at starting pay. We conclude we should prioritise recruitment, retention and career progression equally.’12

36. The 30th remit was further constrained by no fewer than four references stating that the Review Body should ensure that its recommendations were ‘…affordable within the funding settlement announced’ [by government] or ‘across the school system as a whole’.13

37. This was despite the Review Body’s clear view on the difficulty of making ‘…a meaningful assessment of affordability at a system-wide level’14 due to the variation in schools’ financial situations; the autonomy exercised by schools and governing boards; and because cost pressures are not synonymous with affordability’.15

8 STRB 28th remit report p 64 9 STRB 29th Report 2019 p xi 10 STRB 29th Report 2019 p xi 11 Letter from Gavin Williamson to Dr Patricia Rice, 18 September 2019 12 STRB 29th report, 2019 p 74 13 Letter from Gavin Williamson to Dr Patricia Rice, 18 September 2019 14 STRB 29th report p x 15 STRB 29th report p x

38. Demonstrating admirable independence, the STRB accepted statutory consultees’ case for the reintroduction of advisory pay points (albeit advisory rather than mandatory), recommending acceptance of the existing jointly agreed trade union pay points, uprated for the 2020 settlement. But the damage of another differentiated pay rise in favour of early career teachers had the effect of ‘baking in’ a decade of real terms losses, leaving the most experienced teachers and leaders relatively worse off once again.

39. Importantly the Review Body’s 30th report again recognised the decline in leaders’ pay, noting a fall in the relative position of the minimum of the leadership pay range ‘by four percentiles’16 between 2010/11 and 2018/19.

40. In addition to signposting ‘a growing literature in economics to suggest that relative income may impact on behaviour more than absolute levels of income, including some indications that differentiated approaches to pay can negatively affect morale and productivity’,17 the Review Body again warned of the inadequacy of a pay policy that focuses solely on newly qualified teachers, concluding that ‘…the extent of the gains in early career retention may be relatively limited.’18

41. The 30th report concluded that a more fundamental review of the structure of teachers’ and leaders’ pay is required, noting the ‘…growing challenge in retaining experienced classroom teachers and those in leadership roles’19 and that the pay system must fairly ‘…reward teachers taking on additional management or leadership responsibilities.20

42. Moreover, the Review Body recognised the magnified risks to the supply of experienced teachers and leaders at a time when the need for experienced professionals is even more essential to ensuring that the school system adapts to, and recovers from, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.21 Noting that given ‘…the high proportion of the teacher workforce who are on the UPR and leadership group pay range’ the STRB was clear that ‘it would only take a relatively small increase in their wastage rates to result in a substantial number of teachers leaving the profession.’22

NAHT urges STRB to undertake a full consideration of the actions needed to improve teacher and leadership supply, despite the narrow nature of the 31st remit

43. NAHT is genuinely shocked by the paltry and insufficient remit that the Secretary of State has set for the Review Body’s consideration in this, its 31st, pay round.

16 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 59 17 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 74 18 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 73 19 STRB 30th report, 2020 p X 20 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 72 21 STRB 30th report, 2020 p XI-XII 22 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 89

44. The STRB’s last three reports have been clear that teaching and leadership salaries remain uncompetitive in response to demographics that reveal a future decline in the supply of graduates.23

45. NAHT was clear in our response to the Secretary of State on the Review Body’s 30th report that a closing window of opportunity exists to address the retention issues that risk further undermining the future supply of teachers and leaders. For far too long, government has kicked the ‘pay can’ down the round. The longstanding failure of the DfE to recognise, investigate or act upon the already pressing problem of leadership supply takes on increasing urgency in light of the pandemic.

46. NAHT’s recent report A Career in Education found that over a third (34 per cent) of school leaders said they would be unlikely or very unlikely to recommend teaching as a career, while over one in five (21per cent) were equivocal, neither likely or unlikely to make a recommendation.24 Below, we reveal new evidence demonstrating that leadership supply continues to weaken further, exacerbated by government’s vicarious incompetence and the lack of timely support for leaders throughout the pandemic.

47. There is no room for complacency. A decade of real pay cuts, compounded by a deliberate policy of undermining the pay differential for experienced teachers and leaders, makes teaching an unattractive career choice both to those seeking a professional career and to those already within the profession. Below we chart leaders’ failing aspirations.

48. But complacency abounds. School leaders and their teams have operated as an essential public service throughout the pandemic. They switched, literally overnight, from normal onsite provision to the delivery of remote learning – something never envisaged or planned for. They remained open to children of critical workers and vulnerable pupils throughout. They worked with next to no protection, in poorly ventilated spaces where it is impossible to maintain social distance. They ensured those eligible for free school meals were fed - before government acted and when its voucher scheme provider failed to deliver. They operated tracking and tracing of infections in their schools. And throughout, most school leaders have worked during their holidays and weekends since February 2020.

49. At this extraordinary time, government has decided, once again to impose yet another pay freeze on all teaching professionals, with the exception of unqualified teachers earning less than £24,000 per annum. Alongside this, it has abandoned its manifesto commitment to raise starting salaries in teaching to £30,000 by 2022-23.25 As a result, statutory consultees are presented with a remit that is largely meaningless. NAHT regards the Secretary of State’s direction to the STRB as an act of gross and irresponsible folly.

23 STRB 30th report, 2020, p 50 and p XII 24 A Career in Education, NAHT, 2020 25 Conservative manifesto 2019

50. Last year, the Review Body’s analysis again found no evidence of any significant improvement in the competitiveness of the teacher pay framework, noting that some indicators had continued to worsen.26

51. The uptick in applications for initial teacher training (ITT) in this single and extraordinary year are insufficient to offset eight years of missed targets, or to meet future need. In fact, the Department’s own data demonstrates that 2019/2020 is the first year since 2012/13 in which the overall secondary Teacher Supply Model target has been exceeded.27 Experience of the 2008 recession would indicate that these numbers are likely to melt away when the pandemic eventually eases and the economic situation improves.

52. There is also no evidence of improved retention, other than that the pandemic may have delayed some individuals’ decision making. In contrast, it seems more likely that the pandemic will have a negative impact on those already within the profession, hastening early retirements and exits from teaching (see below). A sustained increase in those entering and staying within the profession over decades must be the clear policy goal.

53. In these extraordinary circumstances the Review Body has a critical role to play in warning government about the clear and present danger that its renewed austerity policy presents to teacher and leader supply. We urge the STRB to set out the risks posed to retention and the leadership pipeline by further real terms cuts to the salaries of teaching professionals, and to build on the recommendations of previous years, demonstrating the importance of a full review of the pay structure for teachers and leaders.

54. It is critical to the profession that the Review Body continues to carry out its key function to take account of vacancy rates and recruitment and retention issues alongside the wider labour market in England, in order to make recommendations on the salary and allowance ranges for teachers and school leaders, so that pay acts as a lever on teacher and leader supply.

55. NAHT puts on record our opposition to government’s continued and shameless interference in the very purpose of the pay review body.

The case for a pay freeze is not made

56. NAHT rejects the partial and selective evidence relied upon by Treasury to evidence its case for a pay freeze to the pay review bodies.28 This evidence was published on 21 January 2021, long after the political decision to freeze public sector pay had been announced.

57. The supposed evidence for a blanket freeze on most public sector workers’ pay fails to take account of the unaddressed and ongoing impact of the government’s austerity programme on real pay levels. In the case of teaching professionals, this froze pay for two years from 2011 before the imposition of a 1

26 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 86 27 Initial Teacher Training Census, Academic Year 2020/21, DfE, 3 December 2020 28 HMT Economic Evidence to Review Bodies 2020

per cent cap that lasted until 2018. The small subsequent uplifts that have followed have been insufficient to recoup the real terms losses to teachers’ and leaders’ salaries.

58. Government’s own evidence to the Review Body admitted that between 2002/03 to 2017/18 the median salaries of classroom teachers fell by 10 per cent and overall teacher median salaries by 11 per cent in real terms,29 meaning that classroom pay fell by more than £4000 per annum in real terms.

59. Continuing real pay losses for school leaders have been of an even greater magnitude as a result of recent differentiated pay rises in favour of early career teachers. Last year’s pay uplift was the first since 2011 that provided leaders with an above inflation settlement but did little to offset a decade of real pay cuts. NAHT’s evidence to the Review Body’s 30th remit provided illustrations of the extent of the erosion of leaders’ pay.30

60. For example, the difference between the minimum salary for the Leadership Pay Range and the maximum salary for the Main Pay Range (excluding London) was dramatically eroded from 18.7 per cent in 2014 to 14.2 per cent in 2018. In cash terms this equated to a fall in the differential from £6,028 to £4,957 in just four years. The differential remains at 14.2 per cent.

61. The scale of real-terms losses to School Leaders’ pay is equally shocking. Had pay increased at the same rate as CPI inflation since 201031 the minimum salary on the Leadership Pay Range (excluding London) would have been £46,717 (if calculated using the yearly average provided by the ONS). Had pay kept pace with RPI inflation since 201032 this figure would have been £50,655 in 2019.

62. The actual minimum salary for the Leadership Pay Range in 2019 was £41,065. Over 8 years that salary had lost £5,652 against CPI inflation, and £9,590 against RPI inflation, representing tens of thousands of pounds of lost income over the period to an individual school leader. Those individual losses increase to potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds if pension accruals and payments are taken into account over time.

63. In 2019 government drew extraordinarily misleading comparisons in order to bolster a narrative that stated teaching professionals had fared better than those in private sector graduate occupations. Government asserted that private sector workers had seen a larger decrease in the real value of median salaries of 15 per cent between 2002/03 and 2017/18, compared to 11 per cent for teachers.33

64. Close scrutiny revealed that the data cited, ‘median salaries of private sector graduates’, referred to graduates from all occupations, and not graduates employed in comparable professional occupations.34 These data included

29Government evidence to the STRB: the 2019 pay award p 32 30 NAHT evidence to the School Teachers’ Review body 30th remit p15 31 Office for National Statistics: CPI Annual Rate – Yearly Frequency 32 Office for National Statistics: RPI Annual Rate – Yearly Frequency 33Government evidence to the STRB: the 2019 pay award p 32 34 Ibid p32 footnote 37

graduates working in all manner of non-graduate roles, which were not comparable to teaching as a professional occupation.

65. Moreover, the selection of 2002/03 as the reference point for the decline in real salaries was arbitrary. It masked the 2007/08 starting point in the decline of the real value of teachers’ and leaders’ pay (following the financial crisis) and the steep acceleration of pay losses from 2010/11 that resulted from government’s adoption and implementation of austerity policies. NAHT’s evidence to previous remits has charted the impact of falling real salaries on the full-blown recruitment and retention crisis that has afflicted the profession since 2017.

66. Disappointingly, the Treasury’s evidence in defence of its return to a pay freeze follows the same well-trodden path. It uses evidence and data selectively to prosecute the misleading premise that pay is lower in the private sector than when compared to the public sector. NAHT rejects this false narrative.

67. Indeed, over successive remits the Review Body has been clear in its view that pay in the teaching profession has fallen behind other comparable professional graduate occupations. The STRB’s 30th report highlighted the pressing need to address the pay of both experienced teachers and school leaders as a matter of priority. So, in the face of this evidence and after a decade of cuts to real pay, how can it be that government has concluded that pay in teaching is higher than in other comparable occupations?

68. The answer, of course, lies in the way that the Treasury has assembled its case, choosing not ‘like for like’ comparisons, but a generic approach that produces an essentially meaningless broad-brush view of all public sector occupations regardless of qualifications, skills and experience.

69. Recent analysis conducted by the Institute for Fiscal Studies35 demonstrated that, once controlled for observed differences between workers in each sector such as age, education and experience, the estimated differential is almost non- existent. In fact, the early 2000s was the last time that the gap between public and private sector wages was last so narrow. At that time there were acute recruitment shortages in some parts of the public sector, mirroring current challenges.

70. Further, public sector workers are likely to be more highly educated professionals than those in the private sector and therefore able to command higher wages in the labour market,36 making direct comparisons or ‘averages’ across the sectors both inappropriate and misleading.

71. Since 2000 the average weekly earnings for those working in education have been consistently lower than the private sector average.37 And those that will be affected by the forthcoming pay freeze will actually face a public sector pay penalty: the average worker in this group earns close to 8 per cent less than comparable workers in the private sector.38

35 Public sector pay and employment: where are we now? (IFS, 2019) 36 Public sector pay and employment: where are we now? (IFS, 2019) 37 Earnings Outlook Q4 2020: Public Sector Pay (Resolution Foundation, 2020) 38 Earnings Outlook Q4 2020: Public Sector Pay (Resolution Foundation, 2020)

72. Looking ahead, the latest salary guide from Hays39 indicates that while employers reported caution in their overall hiring plans, many continue to face skills shortages and are therefore looking for competitive ways, including pay, to attract candidates. The findings indicate that positive salary growth is set to continue in 2021, with 71 per cent of employers expecting to increase the salaries of their workforce over the next year.

73. Government’s specious comparisons in support of its pay freeze policy not only lack care and precision, they risk further corroding the already damaged relationship between dedicated, hard-working education professionals and government. The implications for retention, and the recruitment of new professionals who are ‘clear-eyed’ about their future careers, could turn the existing retention crisis into a catastrophe.

74. NAHT’s evidence (below) shows the pandemic risks hastening a spate of early exits from the profession – further undermining leaders’ pay at a time of such extreme professional stress is simply foolhardy. NAHT is dismayed at this dismal lack of foresight.

75. NAHT supported the Review Body’s request to the Secretary of State to set a remit for the STRB to review the leadership pay structure set out in the STPCD.40 We also called for a full review of the overall pay structure in order to restore coherency to the pay continuum that encompasses teachers, middle leaders, assistant heads, deputies, head teachers, executive leaders and those leading school business functions. Our strong belief remains that a fundamental review of the pay system is urgently required in order to resolve a broad range of supply issues.

76. In the interim NAHT urges the Review Body to clearly set out recommended pay uplift for all teachers and leaders for this pay round. It is then a matter for government to determine whether it wishes to accept that recommendation.

77. Our strong view is that any recommendation should identify the minimum uplift required to remove pay disincentives to leadership by restoring the losses to leaders’ real salaries accumulated over the last decade and reverse the decline in the leadership differential, as a minimum.

NAHT’s own evidence

Introduction – recapping our 2019 survey findings

78. In this section we provide evidence that builds on our submission to the 30th remit which included 2019 survey data that was later published in our report, A Career in Education.41

39 HAYS UK salary and recruiting trends: talent demands pay transparency (2020) 40 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 94 41 A Career in Education: resolving the recruitment and retention throughout the teaching profession, NAHT 2020

79. A Career in Education, shone a light on the scale of the crisis in leadership supply, identifying pay as a key factor. In a system characterised by high stakes accountability measures and little tangible support for those in leadership roles, leadership itself is a risky proposition. We showed how a decade of year on year real terms reductions in leadership pay was further compounded by recent differentiated pay rises in favour of early career teachers that undermined the salary premium for leadership responsibility.

80. Our research offered a clear message – school leadership is a professional occupation with wide ranging and serous responsibilities. Remuneration matters – the qualitative evidence that NAHT presented to the Review Body for its 30th remit demonstrated how the erosion of leadership pay has undermined the willingness of teachers to step up to assistant and deputy head roles which, in turn, has made headship an unattractive proposition.

81. It is worth briefly summarising the key findings of NAHT’s 2019 member survey,42 as these have informed and shaped the research that we have recently conducted with school leaders, specifically to inform this submission.

• Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of respondents told us that they were aware of at least one member of staff leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement – a substantial increase on the two-thirds of respondents who told us this in 2018 (67 per cent) and 2017 (66 per cent).

• We asked school leaders how likely they would be to recommend teaching as a profession: over a third (34 per cent) of the professionals that lead our schools said that they would be unlikely or very unlikely to recommend teaching, and over one in five (21 per cent) were equivocal, neither likely or unlikely to make a recommendation.

• Key drivers cited by respondents remained consistent with previous findings: three-quarters (75 per cent) identified workload pressures; with similar proportions pointing to the need for a better work-life balance (72 per cent) and a reduction in stress (70 per cent). Insufficiency of pay, also remains a key issue, cited by nearly a quarter of respondents in each of the years.43

• When asked what could be done to improve the attractiveness of teaching as a profession, almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of respondents chose ‘more competitive pay across the profession’, the second most popular response behind the closely related option of ‘better professional recognition’ (69 per cent).

• The survey showed strong support among school leaders for a return to national pay scales, with more than half (57 per cent) of respondents indicating that they believe this would have a positive or very positive impact on recruitment and retention. The very small minority (5 per cent)

42 NAHT members’ pay and well-being survey ran between 1 and 21 October 2019 receiving 1238 responses. 43 25% in 2019, 28% in 2018 and 21% in 2017.

who felt that such a move would have a negative impact implies that the so-called ‘pay freedoms’ introduced in 2013 have failed to deliver the promised gains.

• Nearly three quarters (74 per cent) of respondents stated that the number of quality applicants had decreased or significantly decreased over the last few years.

• 59 per cent of respondents reported receiving no induction training in their first role as a senior leader

• Over four-fifths (82 per cent) of respondents reported that in the last twelve months their role had impacted negatively on the quality or quantity of their sleep, while 79 per cent said their role meant they had inadequate time for exercise.

• Over three-quarters of respondents told us that in the last year their role had: a negative impact on their family or personal life yet (77 per cent); reduced time spent with family of friends (75 per cent); or led to an increase in work-related worry, fear or stress (75 per cent).

• Approaching two-thirds (61 per cent) of respondents stated that their role had a negative impact on their mental health, and over half (52 per cent) said that their physical health had been affected. System change is required if teaching is to be positioned as an attractive, decades-long professional career choice

Findings of NAHT’s 2020 survey of school leaders

82. For this submission we present new evidence from our most recent pay and well-being survey44 of members (due for publication in early 2021), which was designed to build on and further interrogate the above findings. We also included questions designed to help us better understand the various ways in which the pandemic was affecting school leaders in order to explore the potential impact on future leadership supply.

83. Overall, more than two-thirds (70 per cent) of respondents reported being less or much less satisfied in their role than last year. While this is, perhaps, not surprising given the huge pressures on leaders and their teams that have been generated by the ongoing pandemic, these low rates of satisfaction must be viewed in the context of a school leadership workforce that already showed high levels of dissatisfaction before the pandemic (see above). The conclusion that the pandemic will exacerbate existing supply problems is unavoidable.

84. Undoubtedly the huge workload, additional responsibilities and long hours worked by school leaders throughout the pandemic is taking a further toll. When asked to choose three words that exemplified their experience (in an open free text format) the most frequent descriptors were: ‘challenging’, ‘exhausting’

44 NAHT’s 2020 pay and well-being member survey ran between 12 -26 October 2020 and received 2061 responses.

and ‘stressful’. Of the 1637 respondents for this question just one offered a positive descriptor.

85. It’s worth noting that our fieldwork took place before the Secretary of State threatened legal action against schools in areas of high infection that wished to move to remote learning to protect their communities; and the subsequent government U-turn, made within days, to do just that. As infection rates soared over Christmas, school leaders were again ahead of government in recognising that the prudent and safe action was for schools to return to a mixture of remote learning for most pupils and onsite education for vulnerable pupils and children of critical workers. Again, government dithered and then u-turned, further damaging morale and driving new workload across the profession.

86. Our survey data does not capture the impact of these events, but even ahead of them respondents gave a damning indictment of the quality of support that they feel they had received from government during the pandemic, with over 90 per cent rating government’s actions to support their well-being as being ineffective or very ineffective.

87. NAHT is deeply concerned that the additional workload and long hours endured by school leaders during the pandemic will serve to weaken future leadership supply even further. The toll on school leaders is very visible to all of those who might consider future leadership positions. Leaders’ weekends have been constantly disrupted by late and incomplete guidance issued by the DfE at short notice. The overwhelming majority of school leaders have worked through their holidays and taken on a range of additional roles supporting vulnerable and poverty-stricken families in their communities. Botched initiatives and the failure of government contractors to deliver, for example food vouchers and laptops, have been compounded by test and trace responsibilities being outsourced to schools, effectively leaving school leaders on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

88. Respondents told us that the most challenging aspect in managing their schools in the last year was keeping pace with constantly changing government guidance (72 per cent). This ranked far ahead of the pressures of establishing remote and/or blended learning (48 per cent) and protecting the health and safety of staff and pupils (47 per cent). Segmenting responses from our assistant and deputy head members produced the same ‘top three’ answers, indicating that the impacts are consistent across the leadership group.

89. Over recent remits NAHT has pointed to the long working hours endured by school leaders. Our survey found that working hours have continued to increase since the start of the new academic year. Since the beginning of September 2020, one in four (25 per cent) reported working an additional 11-15 hours a week; and almost one in three (30 per cent) reported working an additional 6-10 hours per week. A further hugely worrying finding showed one in twenty school leaders (5 per cent) reported working an additional 26 hours a week.

90. In light of these data, it was no surprise that three quarters of respondents (74 per cent) reported that the pandemic has made it harder or much harder to

balance caring responsibilities, adding further strain to their already pressurised roles.

91. The short to medium term impact of these burdens on a profession already struggling under the weight of excessive workload could prove to have very serious consequences for future leadership supply. Nearly half of all respondents (47 per cent) told us that as a result of the pandemic they are now less likely to remain in school leadership for as long as they had initially planned.

92. NAHT is very concerned that this points to an exodus of late-career school leaders from the profession when the pandemic eases. Many members tell us that they have felt a responsibility to guide their schools through this extraordinary period but intend to leave the profession at its conclusion.

93. NAHT ran a new series of members’ roundtables, mirroring the approach that we took in 2019, in order to provide the Review Body with further qualitative evidence that captured the voices of serving school leaders.

94. One roundtable member told us:

“When I meet with school leaders and head teachers, deputies etc, the vast majority of them have said the last few months have been re- lentless. They are exhausted; they can’t see an end to it.”………“I see an issue with retention coming up for those who are maybe close to or even above the age 55 cut-off for being able to take your pension.”

95. Our 2019 submission provided a detailed analysis of the disincentives to leadership,45 which we table again for this remit. This year’s roundtables allowed us to gather views from specific constituencies within our membership. We held separate sector discussions for assistants and deputies, heads, school business leaders and BAME school leaders. Interestingly, the roundtables provided a consistent view, reinforcing last year’s findings:

“Leadership is an extremely hard job, and we are all trying our best. But, for me, the question would be, ‘what would be the incentive for me to take on that extra responsibility again for either a pay cut or very little [extra] pay?”

“It will be difficult to go from a three-form entry large primary school, as being a deputy head. To make sure I’m on at least the same or even a little bit more, I need to be looking at a two-form entry primary school. Now that’s quite a big step for a first headship.”

96. Respondents to our survey revealed that despite falling levels of real pay, school leaders’ hours continue to extend far beyond the working day.

• Over three quarters (77 per cent) reported regularly working in the evenings

45 NAHT evidence to the STRB 30th remit pp 15 -22, paras 108 - 150

• Over two-thirds (68 per cent) reported regularly working at the weekend • Just under two-thirds (60 per cent) reported regularly working in the early morning • Almost half (48 per cent) reported that they had worked every weekday and weekend since September • Approaching half (46 per cent) reported that they have worked later than 9pm

97. Our survey revealed that almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of assistant and deputy head teachers have a regular teaching responsibility, of which two-thirds (66 per cent) in the primary phase have responsibility for an individual class meaning that there is a continuing ‘balancing act’ for these professionals who must juggle weighty management responsibilities with the demands of classroom teaching.

98. Over two-thirds (70 per cent) of assistant and deputy heads who responded to our survey are their school’s designated safeguarding lead or curriculum or subject lead (69 per cent). Approaching half (46 per cent) lead assessment in their school.

99. The implications for the supply of future head teachers are serious. Nearly half (46 per cent) of assistant and deputy heads told us that they did not aspire to headship, while more than a quarter (27 per cent) indicated that they were undecided. This response from our assistant and deputy roundtable was typical:

“I know that I work long hours as it is at the minute. And I worry that I would lose that work-life balance if I was a head teacher.”

100. Key reasons for not applying for a head teacher position were predictable: three-quarters (75 per cent) cited concerns about work/life balance and approaching two-thirds (60 per cent) set out concerns about the risk to their personal wellbeing.

101. All school leadership roles are demanding, but this year’s survey findings underline the high personal costs of being a leader; this year’s well-being indicators for school leaders make for particularly hard reading:

• 83 per cent reported an impact on the quality and/or quantity of sleep • 77 per cent reported a negative impact on quality of family life or personal life • 72 per cent reported an increased worry, fear or stress about their job • 72 per cent reported a reduction in time spent with family or friends • 69 per cent reported inadequate time for exercise and physical activity • 62 per cent reported a negative impact on their mental health • 46 per cent reported a negative impact on their physical health

102. Once again it is clear that pay is an important disincentive. Well over a third (40 per cent) of assistants and deputies told us that that the level of pay acts a barrier to them seeking promotion: ‘Insufficient’ and ‘Inadequate’ were the most common words used by this group to describe leadership pay.

103. NAHT’s evidence to the 30th remit provided a detailed examination of the perverse incentives and unintended consequences that result from the current pay system and the approach of targeting uplifts solely on early career teachers. We refer the Review Body to that analysis and, in particular, the testimony of school leaders on the shortcomings of the current pay structure in the section NAHT’s qualitative findings on the views of school leaders on the importance of leadership pay.46

104. The majority of members (51 per cent) who responded to our most recent survey indicated that differentiated pay awards have had, or are having, a negative or very negative impact on those aspiring to leadership in their school or network.

105. Moreover, nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) reported that recent differentiated pay awards have had a negative or very negative impact on the morale of school leaders in their school or network.

106. NAHT is clear that a solution is urgently needed that will make the teaching profession more attractive overall. School leadership roles do not exist in a vacuum – they are part of a continuum. Resolving the issues over leadership pay are vital components in the articulation of the proposition for teaching as a long-term career.

107. Teaching professionals have played an extraordinary part in the response to the pandemic, reaching out beyond their schools and roles as educators to support whole communities. There is no case for a pay freeze. School leaders have endured a decade of real pay cuts, seen their salaries undermined by differential pay awards, and are, right now, subject to an unparalleled period of workload never before seen. At no time since the passage of the 1944 Education Act has there been greater pressure on teachers and school leaders.

108. It falls to the Review Body to call out government on its monumental miscalculation. We urge the STRB to build on its previous findings, by setting out a recommended pay uplift that will reverse at least some of the damage of recent years to teachers’ and leaders’ pay. It is then a matter for government to determine whether it wishes to take the advice of the pay review body.

The pay and conditions of School Business Leaders

109. NAHT continues to believe that there should be one national framework for the pay of all staff working in publicly funded schools. This would deliver transparency, probity and parity.

110. Our response to the 30th remit outlined the variation in pay for school business leaders (SBL) which is often constrained by local government pay scales that fail to reflect the expertise, experience and responsibility of those in post.

46 NAHT evidence to the STRB 30th remit

111. As noted previously most school business leaders are responsible for leading the business functions of a school, exercising a similar level of responsibility and accountability to their colleagues whose work is focused on, for example, teaching, learning and behaviour. Where SBLs perform such leadership roles, then they should be remunerated on an equivalent pay scale to assistant and deputy head teachers, as they effectively deputise for elements of the head teacher’s role.

112. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role that SBLs play within a school’s management team. Their expertise in health and safety, and estate and contracts management has been critical to supporting pupils, school staff and the wider school community.

113. The Key47 found that over half (52 per cent) of School Business Leaders reported regularly working more than 7 additional hours a week, while the proportion working more than 11 unpaid hours had increased to 28 per cent, almost double the 15 per cent recorded in December 2019.

114. Many school business leaders are employed on term-time only contracts. However, they often provide unpaid supervision of building programmes and other key elements of site maintenance that typically takes place during school holiday periods in order to minimise operational disruption to a school.

115. NAHT is clear that this part of the school leadership workforce requires recognition and investment. Our call for a thorough review of the leadership pay structure includes recognising the important role played by SBLs by aligning their pay alongside a revised STPCD.

Review of other evidence and key data

116. The existence and extent of teaching’s recruitment and retention crisis has been extensively charted and investigated. The Review Body has recognised the weight of the quantitative and qualitative analysis that has established that teacher and school leader supply is in crisis across at all levels within the profession and across all regions.

117. In this submission we do not seek to recover that ground, particularly given the narrow remit provided by government, but refer the Review Body to evidence submitted to the 28th, 29th and 30th remits.

Government’s lack of focus of the impact of its policies on leadership pay

118. Despite the weight of evidence produced by NAHT over a five-year period, identifying and cataloguing growing and longstanding concerns about the future supply of school leaders, the issue remains unaddressed by the DfE. And the

47 The challenges of school business management during COVID-19, The Key, September 2020.

Review Body’s clear messages on pay and the need to revisit the pay structure itself have been ignored.

119. NAHT draws the Review Body’s attention to data we provided in the previous pay round, which demonstrates that as service increases, the attrition rates for school leaders continue to rise. In the absence of refreshed data from the DfE, we resubmit the table below which shows that, on average, more than one in three school leaders in secondary schools leave within 5 years of appointment. The position is little better in primary schools where the attrition rate over the same period is between one in four and one in five school leaders.

Percentage of postholders new to post in 2011 that have left within 5 years of appointment Head teachers Deputy heads Assistant heads Primary phase 22% 25% 26% Secondary phase 35% 32% 37%

Wastage rate of new school leaders aged under 50 within five years of appointment48

120. As far as NAHT is aware, the Department has either not collected or not published any refreshed data on leadership wastage beyond that last collected in 2016.49

121. Doubtless, government will reference its recruitment and retention strategy, as evidence of steps that is taking to improve matters. But the strategy remains firmly focused on early career teachers. Two years on from publication, there is still no significant strand of work in train to support leadership retention other than a refurbishment of the content of existing national professional qualifications that may provide some limited mentoring.

122. Meantime the DfE continues to refuse to recognise the part played by declining leadership pay to the broken leadership pipeline. Government’s failure to seriously consider and act upon the evidence of statutory consultees and the recommendations and findings of the STRB is an extraordinary dereliction of duty.

Applications to Initial Teacher Training

123. As noted above the uptick in numbers applying to Initial Teacher Training (ITT) represents at least a pause in the seven-year trend of missed recruitment targets. Applications (8,160) in November 2020 rose by 16 per cent compared to November 2019 (7010).50 However, this is insufficient to make up the previous year-on-year shortfall of applicants: for example, applications are 36 per cent lower than in 2017 (12,840).

48 School leadership 2010 to 2016: characteristics and trends DfE, 2018, pp 55-56 49 School leadership 2010 to 2016: characteristics and trends DfE, 2018, pp 55-56 50 UCAS teacher training statistical releases

Wastage rates

124. Wastage rates remain extraordinarily high. The latest workforce data shows that retention rates for teachers one year after qualification have ‘generally declined slightly in each year since 2011’ – in 2018 14.6 per cent of teachers left the profession within one year. Workforce data shows that that over a quarter of teachers that qualified in 2016 left within their first 3 years (26.8 per cent), rising to a third (32.6 per cent) within the first 5 years.51 These remain some of the highest levels since the data collection began.

Teachers from overseas

125. In our submission to the Review Body’s 30th remit we pointed to the way in which the impact of the continuing uncertainty over Britain’s future relationship with the European Union was undermining a valuable source of teacher supply. Teachers from overseas are often helpful in filling gaps in shortage subjects, particularly in the secondary phase (for example, teachers of modern foreign languages).

126. The most recent data show that the decline in the recruitment of teachers from overseas has continued, most markedly in supply from our European neighbours.

127. The award of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) to qualified teachers from the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland fell steeply by 47 per cent from 4,690 in the financial year 2016-1752 to 2,458 in 2019-20.53

128. The data also shows a substantial decline in the award of QTS to teachers from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA which fell by over 18 per cent between the financial year 2016-2017 (from 1,715)54 and 2019-20 (to 1,410).55

129. It remains NAHT’s view that there is likely to be an, as yet undefined, impact on teachers from Europe already working in the English system as a result of our withdrawal from the European Union. It is possible that complications over the settled status of individual teachers or their families may result in a further loss of EEA teachers. No data is available to measure the number of European teachers that have left the UK since the 2016 referendum.

130. The decision to align the visa salary requirement under the new ‘points- based’ immigration system the minimum salary for a qualified teacher is helpful, but NAHT’s remains concerned that the sponsorship requirements for overseas teachers will prove too bureaucratic and time-consuming to operate for all but a handful of schools.

51 School workforce in England: November 2019 52 IITT Census for the academic year 2017-18, DfE p 10 53 Teacher regulation Agency - Annual Report and Accounts, 2019-20, HC522 p 17 54 ITT Census for the academic year 2017-18, DfE p 10 55 Teacher regulation Agency - Annual Report and Accounts, 2019-20, HC522 p 16

131. NAHT’s clear view is that the solution to the recruitment and retention crisis facing England’s schools lies in delivering a compelling proposition that will encourage teaching professionals to commit to a decades long career, wherever they come from. However, salary rules governing indefinite leave to remain and NHS surcharges for overseas teachers and their families will not facilitate this.

DfE workforce data continues to under report vacancy rates

132. Once more, NAHT records frustration that DfE workforce data56 continues to provide only a partial picture of school vacancies that vastly under-reports the extent of the teacher supply crisis. As noted in our previous submissions the Department’s standard measurement vastly obscures the true scale of the challenge facing schools.

133. In our last submission we referenced our repeated requests for an update to the data showing the number of schools with at least one advertised vacancy or one temporarily filled post on census day, which was last reported in the DfE’s school workforce data in 2017.57

134. This stated:

‘In 2016, 12.3 per cent of all schools reported having at least one advertised vacancy or temporarily-filled post on the census day in November. For primary schools, it rose from 6.9 per cent in 2015 to 8.9 per cent in 2016, and for secondary schools it rose from 23.0 per cent in 2015 to 27.0 per cent in 2016.’58

135. Last year we reported that DfE officials provided verbal confirmation that this data was still collected, but not reported. As far as we are aware, an undertaking to provide the data has not yet been met. NAHT’s view is that this data provides an important assessment of the true extent of the teacher supply crisis because it provides an insight into the real impact of the supply crisis on pupils.

136. NAHT suggests that the Review Body seeks an explanation from the DfE as to why reporting of this valuable data has been discontinued, because the lack of stable, permanent staffing has a profoundly negative impact on the progress and attainment of pupils, ultimately affecting their outcomes, life chances and overall school performance.

The Gender pay gap

137. NAHT’s evidence to the Review Body’s 30th remit signalled our ongoing concerns about the DfE’s failure to address the serious pay inequalities that exist within the current teacher and leadership pay structure.

56 School workforce census, DfE, 2019 57 School workforce in England, DfE, 2017 58 School workforce in England, DfE, 2017 p11

138. The STRB recognised statutory consultees’ evidence that the pay system resulted in discriminatory outcomes for teachers with protected characteristics, linked to pay progression and performance appraisal. The 30th report was clear:

‘We [the STRB] stated in our 28th and 29th reports… that further research should be conducted by the Department that focuses on the equality implications of the teacher pay system. The Department has, to date, not undertaken further research to examine these matters.’59

139. NAHT believes that there is an urgent need to conduct a full review of the existing teachers’ and leader’ pay structure. Central to this is the removal of performance related pay progression and the restoration of pay potability which the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has recognised as a source through which inequality can become embedded in performance-related pay systems, widening, for example, the gender pay gap.

140. NAHT provided clear evidence to the Review Body in our most recent submission that performance related pay progression in schools was both divisive and flawed. Our review of the research evidence showed that, at best, performance related pay systems in the public sector were ineffective and, at worst, positively harmful.60 There is an urgent need to return to a predictable and transparent national pay structure which should be informed by the ‘further research’ and robust monitoring’ that the Review Body recommended the DfE undertake in order to remove sources of pay discrimination.61

141. According to research conducted by the Trades Union Congress in 2019, ‘in education the gender pay gap is currently 25.9 per cent, so that the average woman effectively works for free for more than a quarter of the year (95 days) and has to wait until the 4 April… before she starts earning the same as the average man.’62

142. The data used to arrive at the above conclusion includes all of those working in education, across all phases and roles, which can obscure some differences. This year, the latest school workforce statistics (June 2020) reveal that that average salaries for male teachers are higher across all grades, despite women continuing to make up the majority of the teaching workforce.

• For male classroom teachers the average salary was nearly 2.5 per cent higher (£37,885) than for female teachers (£36,985) • For head teachers63 the gender pay gap was even wider; the average salary of male head teachers (£77,362) was over 12 per cent higher than that of female head teachers (£68,870) (which includes executive heads and other similar roles).64 65

59 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 95 60 NAHT evidence to the STRB 30th remit (Annex) 61 STRB 30th report, 2020 p 95 62 https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/gender-pay-gap-means-women-effectively-work-free-more-two-months-year 63 Including executive head teachers and other similar roles 64 School Workforce Statistics, DfE, 2020 65 Compares average gap for 9 years to 2019; excludes part-time workers, for whom the gap is greater as more part time workers are female

143. Research by the Office of Manpower Economics reveals that the gender pay gap in the public sector is most pronounced towards the top end of the wage distribution. The same evidence highlights the role that Performance Related Pay systems paly in driving the gender pay gap, because female workers are less likely to receive pay progression based on performance, particularly in the public sector.66

144. NAHT’s initial analysis of the official government data on school leaders’ salaries provided in the School Workforce Census67 reveals that over the period 2010 - 2019 the average percentage gap in pay between male and female headteachers has remained consistent at about 3.24 per cent.68 There is no indication that this gap is closing.

Source: School workforce in England: methodology69

145. Close analysis also reveals how the gender pay gap increases with, and is compounded by, age and service. The pay gap between male and female senior leaders widens as leaders enter their forties and continues to increase into their fifties and sixties. This inequality in earnings also has a profound adverse impact on women leaders’ pension entitlement, reducing their overall pension benefits on retirement. This magnifies the salary losses accrued during women’s working lives leaving them even further behind their male counterparts when they leave the workforce.

66 Understanding the Gender Pay Gap within the UK Public Sector 67 Statistics: school workforce 68 To negate the impact of part-time working (which is currently more common in women than men) the analysis only considers full-time equivalent workers. 69 School Workforce in England: methodology, DfE 2020

Source: School workforce in England: methodology70

146. The above chart encompasses all leadership roles as defined in the School Workforce Statistics, including executive heads, heads, deputies, assistant heads and advisory teachers.

147. NAHT has focused solely on gender due to the dearth of available data to conduct a detailed analysis of salary inequality for teachers and leaders by other protected characteristics, including ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation. All of the aforementioned groups are underrepresented in teaching and, to an even greater extent, in school leadership. Our reasonable contention, therefore, is that these groups face similar or worse pay inequality, along with a range of other structural pay barriers, and are at least as likely to be affected negatively by performance related pay systems and the absence of pay portability.

148. By introducing a pay freeze, government has once again ‘kicked the can down the road’ on pay inequality. Not only is the pay system dysfunctional and in need of urgent review, it is systemically unequal. There is little point in the DfE opining about the need for teaching and leadership roles to be more flexible, if it is unable to resolve a pay and performance system that is, of itself, unequal.

149. The narrow remit set by the Secretary of State should not discourage the Review Body in holding the Department for Education to account for its lamentable inaction on the issue of pay equality. Far from ‘levelling-up’, the Department’s refusal to act is embedding existing inequality.

70 School Workforce in England: methodology, DfE, 2020

Teachers on the unqualified pay scale

150. Our evidence, above and to previous remits, has made clear NAHT’s principled and unequivocal opposition to ‘targeted’ or ‘differentiated’ pay uplifts.

151. NAHT’s strong view remains that differentiated pay rises simply compound and exacerbate the existing iniquities and failings of the current teachers’ and leaders’ pay structure. Undermining the premium for experience and leadership not only damages morale and disincentivises those who might otherwise seek promotion, it undermines the pay continuum that is essential to attract and retain career professionals.

152. We refer the Review Body to our previous submissions which have set out these arguments in detail.71

153. Of course, NAHT does not object to a pay uplift for low paid, unqualified teachers. However, it makes no sense whatsoever to uplift the pay of unqualified teachers without also uplifting the pay of the rest of the profession.

154. The minimum starting pay for a teacher outside London is just £25,714. NAHT sees no case for narrowing the pay differential between an unqualified teacher and a qualified teacher. Instead, what is urgently needed is the real terms restoration of teachers’ and leaders’ salaries to reverse a decade of real pay losses that have undermined the profession and contributed to the longstanding recruitment and retention crisis.

Conclusion – another year without progress

155. NAHT’s evidence to the 30th remit was clear that too much of the DfE’s activity continues to be focused on incentives for prospective trainees and early career teachers. While we support the Early Career Framework and the manifesto commitment that the government made to uplift starting salaries for qualified teachers by 2022-23, we were clear that that a step-change on pay was needed to retain serving teachers and leaders.

156. In the absence of any new data from DfE, we provided our own longitudinal survey data and carefully compiled qualitative evidence that comprehensively charted the worsening problems in the leadership pipeline and the aridity of leadership supply.

157. We reported the anger and low morale among leaders who had delivered a decade of ‘reform’ at the behest of government, leading and supporting both their colleagues and pupils through a challenging change agenda, only to be rewarded with lower real pay and a reduced pay differential for their role as leaders.

71 NAHT submissions to the 28th, 29th and 30th remits

158. We were clear that school leaders are increasingly voting with their feet, leaving a high-stakes, high pressure, high-workload school system that has delivered lower year-on-year real pay over the last decade. Again, this year’s survey evidence clearly demonstrates that there are too few leaders-in-waiting to replace them.

159. This year those pressures have increased exponentially. Teachers and leaders have confronted their greatest ever challenge in the face of a pandemic event for which they had no time to plan or prepare.

160. At every turn they encountered government obduracy and incompetence: from chaotic food voucher schemes and contradictory, poorly timed guidance; to examination chaos, inadequate funding for Covid costs, and ill-informed ministerial diktat divorced from the realities on the ground.

161. The profession nevertheless rose to the challenge, developing and refining entirely new programmes to deliver wholly new remote learning approaches; caring for existing and newly vulnerable children and families; and working at the heart of their communities to support children and young people.

162. Teachers and leaders stepped up, operating complex ‘bubble’ systems to reduce the risks of transmission. Schools took on operation of 24/7 track and trace responsibilities and managed the concurrent education of pupils both onsite and remotely.

163. Inexplicably, government has chosen this moment to further constrain the work of the Review Body, imposing a pay freeze across the main, upper and leadership pay ranges. This is despite NAHT’s evidence in the last pay round that leadership supply teetered on the verge of catastrophic collapse, and the STRB’s clearly articulated conclusion on the urgent need to uplift the pay of experienced teachers and leaders.

164. A real-terms pay cut for teachers and leaders in these circumstances is both tin-eared and wrongheaded. The urgent need to support leadership retention has not changed. Nor has the need for a full and concurrent review of the teachers’ and leaders’ pay structure in order to develop a compelling proposition that will retain experienced teachers and leaders.

165. We urge the STRB to set out to government a vision of a decades-long career in education with clear career and salary progression points, and flexible, sustainable career pathways that are underpinned by appropriate opportunities for funded training and development.

166. There must be an attractive premium for leadership that is progressive, predictable and commensurate with responsibility. And the real value of leadership pay must be protected over time.

167. NAHT therefore urges the Review Body to make a full and detailed analysis that builds on the themes of recent years, providing clear recommendations for government on the following areas:

• reform of the pay structure for teachers and leaders, recognising that professional pay is a continuum • restoration of leaders’ real pay to 2010 levels and reinstatement of the pay differential for leadership • consideration of the introduction of mandatory pay points and pay portability • codification of executive leadership roles within a revised STPCD, and inclusion or alignment school business leader roles with the leadership pay range • establishment of a range of ‘key worker’ packages, differentiated to meet local or regional circumstance and need • commitment to fully fund future uplifts in pay – school budgets have not risen in real terms since 2009-10 meaning that it is essential to ensure that there is no trade-off between spending on pupils and spending on pay.

168. NAHT remains ready to work formatively with the Review Body, sister unions, other stakeholders and government to help shape a better, brighter future for the profession. The need to secure a stable pipeline of supply that delivers a long- serving, professional workforce of teachers and school leaders is essential if we are to meet the needs of England’s post-Covid generation of children and young people.

169. NAHT remains opposed to:

• differentiated or targeted approaches to pay – we do not support the focusing of uplifts or incentives solely on early career teachers • pay being focused on particular subjects, phases, or areas • performance related pay progression

170. We reiterate our call for the STRB to recommend specific actions to support the retention of serving assistant and deputy head teachers. NAHT urges the STRB to review the role of assistant and deputy heads, and vice principals, as defined in the School Teacher’s Pay and Conditions Document and consider how best to protect their leadership time in order that they are able to deliver their strategic leadership responsibilities. We believe that such action would impact positively on these leaders’ readiness to step up to more senior roles.

171. We also call for the development of a national pay scale for school business leaders that is aligned with the leadership scales within the STPCD, or an amendment of the STPCD to include a school business leadership scale. This will ensure that the value of these leadership roles is recognised and properly remunerated in line with other leadership roles.