§ MR. MANSFIELD (Lincolnshire, Spalding)To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether he is aware that the salary of the head master of the Hickman Street Wesleyan School, Gainsborough, has been reduced from £225 (the amount given by the managers previous to the school being taken over by the Lindsey Education Committee) to £200; and, if so, will he say whether, in cases where the salary of teachers is reduced by the education authority, the managers of the school concerned, or the teachers, can appeal to the Board of Education.
(Answered by Sir William Anson.) The Board have no official knowledge on this subject. It appears from the records in the office that the teacher has never been in the receipt of a fixed salary of £225. His salary has fluctuated during the last twelve years between £204 and £222. The Board of Education have always discouraged fluctuating salaries. The local authority has, under Section 7 of the Education Act, the control of all expenditure required for the purpose of maintaining and keeping efficient the public elementary schools within its area. The matter of teachers' salaries is not one in which the Board of Education would intervene unless it could be shown that a reduction of salaries amounted to a failure by the local education authority in its duty to maintain and keep efficient a public elementary school.