Annual Report 2015 Birmingham Friday 25 March 2016 Monday 28 March 2016 President Kathy Wallis General Secretary Chris Keates Honorary Treasurer Brian Cookson Contents Introduction 5 Policy: Pay 6 Pensions 23 Conditions of Service 44 Funding Across the UK 55 Facility Time 68 Health and Safety 70 National Trade Disputes 74 Education 78 Parliamentary 100 Work with the Wider Trade Union Movement 110 International 117 Organising: Industrial Action 129 Equal Opportunities 130 Recruitment 138 Trade Union Education and Training 140 Legal Aid, Benevolence and Services 144 Personal 153 Appendix 1: NASUWT Conferences and Seminars (other than training) 154 Appendix 2: External Conferences, Seminars and Events at which the 158 NASUWT was represented Appendix 3: NASUWT Motions to the TUC, STUC, WTUC, ICTU, 163 TUC Equalities Conferences and International Motions Appendix 4: General Teaching Councils 177 Appendix 5: Affiliations, Donations and Sponsorships (over £500) 179 Appendix 6: Annual Conferences – Devolved Nations/Administrations 181 Appendix 7: Consultation Responses 183 Appendix 8: NASUWT Major Projects, Research and Surveys 186 Appendix 9: Advisory Committee Members 190 Appendix 10: Standing Committees 192 3 INTRODUCTION During the year, the NASUWT continued to focus all activity upon the key issues relating to the defence of teachers’ pay, pensions and conditions of service across the UK. The focus of the Union’s campaigning was to highlight the inextricable link between teachers’ pay, terms and conditions and the provision of high-quality education for all children and young people. Relationships were maintained and forged with a range of external organisations which shared, supported and could advance the Union’s policy and the interests of its members. Key to the NASUWT’s campaigning across the UK was raising public and parental awareness of the impact of government policy, including policies on economic and social policies, on the educational entitlements of children and young people. The Union also undertook extensive work to highlight issues of poverty, homelessness and the increasing cost of education on educational entitlement. The NASUWT trade disputes continued with ministers across the UK. Some notable successes were achieved. However, by the end of the year, the trade disputes remained unresolved. As the attacks upon public services, including education and on public service workers, including teachers, continued, the Union sustained its industrial action to defend and support members and to advance its trade disputes. The attacks on wider trade union and human rights issues were also a major concern, with the NASUWT at the forefront of campaigning on these critical issues in the UK and internationally. The NASUWT’s policies and strategies proved to be a critical lifeline for teachers, school leaders and the profession as a whole in a continuing hostile political climate. 5 POLICY At the heart of the work of the NASUWT during the year was action on the Conference Resolutions adopted by the Annual Conference in Cardiff in April 2015. The policy work also incorporated resolutions passed at the Annual Conferences in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The detailed work on the matters arising from the Conference Resolutions is described throughout this Annual Report. PAY ENGLAND AND WALES Teachers’ Pay The 2015-16 Pay Award 1.1 The 2015-16 Teachers’ Pay Award was the subject of the 25th Report of the School Teachers’ Review Body for England and Wales. In January, the NASUWT met with the Review Body (Review Body) to present its oral evidence. This oral evidence supplemented the robust, detailed and comprehensive written evidence the NASUWT had submitted to inform the Review Body’s 25th Report in October and November 2014. The Union’s submissions, oral and written, provided a detailed analysis of teachers’ pay and conditions of service, the specific issues set out in the Secretary of State’s remit letter and the actions needed to address the growing concerns over teacher supply. The Union detailed the detrimental impact of the Government’s unremitting attacks on teachers’ pay and conditions of service since 2010 and made a strong case for a significant pay increase above the 1% pay cap imposed by the Treasury. 1.2 The NASUWT evidence highlighted the fact that the Chancellor had announced in the 2013 Budget that public sector pay restraint would continue and that pay awards in 2015-16 would be within that cost envelope, and that the Coalition Government was stifling the independence of Public Sector Review Bodies by seeking to bind them to the pay restraint limitations. The Union called on the Review Body to assert its independence and to question the appropriateness of the Treasury’s directions on a 1% average pay award. 1.3 The NASUWT’s evidence demonstrated, using research, how teachers had suffered significant reductions in living standards as a result of the Coalition Government’s wider economic strategy, public sector pay restraint, pension contributions increases and the rising cost of living. The Union’s evidence stated that: ‘In terms of the impact of inflation, for example, a teacher at the top of the main scale was paid at £31,552 in September 2010. If teachers’ pay had kept pace with inflation, the teacher’s salary level would have risen through cost of living adjustments to £36,091 by 2014. However, the actual pay for the same teacher today stands at £32,187 – a pay shortfall of £3,904 p.a. This pay gap would be further compounded if another pay award limited to 1 per cent is imposed in 2015, producing a total cumulative pay shortfall since 2010 of £16,487, if inflation rises to 3.3% in 2015 as forecast by the Treasury.’ 1.4 The NASUWT’s evidence emphasised the absence of any equality impact assessment of Coalition Government policies. The Union pressed the Review Body to ensure that its recommendations required the Department for Education (DfE) to carry out a detailed and robust equality impact assessment to confirm that any proposals: • did not contribute to unlawful discrimination; • advance equality of opportunity between different groups; and 6 • did not exacerbate the problems of unlawful discrimination and widening pay equality on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity and geography arising from the increasing pay flexibilities already being implemented. 1.5 Following receipt of the circulation of the submissions of the DfE and other statutory consultees, the NASUWT also submitted supplementary evidence to the Review Body in November. 1.6 In its supplementary evidence, the NASUWT noted the views expressed in the majority of submissions to the Review Body which: • underlined the evidence of a widening pay gap between teachers and graduates in other sectors to the disadvantage of teachers; • indicated that the recruitment of teachers is becoming increasingly difficult; • confirmed that retention of teachers is a problem; • identified that the value of teachers’ pay has been eroded; • recommended that the pay award for teachers should be applied without differentiation to all teachers and school leaders; and • recommended that the cost of living pay award for teachers should not be linked in any way to the operation of the system for incremental pay progression. 1.7 The NASUWT responded to research commissioned by the DfE for the Review Body from the Office of Manpower Economics (OME), which published a comparative valuation of individual pension benefits for illustrative purposes. The comparative valuation was produced by Towers Watson Ltd for the OME and the NASUWT demonstrated that the Towers Watson study showed the dramatic reduction in the value of teachers’ pensions as a result of the Coalition Government’s reforms. The NASUWT highlighted the significant reduction in the ‘total reward’ package for teachers since 2010 which had been demonstrated by the OME. 1.8 In March, the Review Body published its 25th Report on what adjustments should be made to theDRAFT salary and allowance ranges for classrCOPYoom teachers, unqualified teachers and school leaders, to reflect the average of up to 1% pay award for public sector workers. 1.9 The 25th Report referenced an extensive number of points from the written and oral evidence submitted by the NASUWT, including the Union’s: • call for a significant, above-inflation percentage pay award fully funded by the THISGovernment; VERSION IS • ‘profound concern’ at the intervention by the Chief Secretary in his letter; • strong representations about recent Review Body recommendations and the need for the Review Body to assert its independence from Government; • referenceUNPROOFREAD to the ‘integrity and independence’ of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which had recommended a 9.3% pay increase for MPs; • representations that teachers have faced a greater degree of uncertainty and turbulence than other public sector workers as a result of changes to the national pay framework; • evidence on the impact of the two-year pay freeze followed by the 1% pay awards in September 2013 and September 2014 and the decreasing value of the teachers’ reward package, which had been eroded by inflation and pension reform; • evidence that teachers had suffered a 14.8% reduction in pay since 2010 and unqualified teachers had suffered a pay cut in September 2013; • warning of the real risk of an increasing crisis in teacher recruitment; • survey of NASUWT members and a ComRes poll on teacher satisfaction, which suggested many teachers were thinking of leaving