§ 46. Sir J. BUTCHERasked the Prime Minister whether the Board of Education 753 have any, and, if so, what power of compelling local education authorities to pay the teachers in their locality according to any particular scale laid down by the Burnham Committee; and what discretion, if any, the local education authorities have in the matter?
§ The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Fisher)The Prime Minister has asked me to reply to this question. The Board's Regulations prescribe the payment of minimum rates of salary to certificated and uncertificated teachers in public elementary schools, but do not otherwise require the adoption of any particular scale or scales of salary by local education authorities. The Burnham Commitee is essentially a representative Committee, of which half the members were appointed by the associations of local education authorities, to which all local education authorities belong, and it was constituted in order to secure the orderly and progressive solution of the salary problem by agreement.
§ Sir J. BUTCHERIn cases where the scale laid down by the Board differs from that of the Burnham Committee, is the local authority at liberty to select which it chooses?
§ Mr. FISHERThe Burnham Committee hopes to distribute the scale according to areas. That distribution has not yet been effected. The local authority will then have to consider whether it will adopt the suggestion of the Burnham Committee.
§ Sir J. BUTCHERIf it does not accept that suggestion can it go to the Board of Education and get the scales fixed, or how are they fixed?
§ Mr. FISHERSalaries are matters of agreement between the local education authorities and the teachers employed by those authorities. The Burnham Committee was instituted in order to find some orderly method of settling salary problems throughout the country and in order to prevent one authority bidding against another for teachers.
Mr. T. THOMSONWill the right hon. Gentleman say whether, where a local authority and its teachers have agreed upon a scale under the original Burnham Report, the Board will confirm the agreement reached?
§ Mr. FISHERIf the hon. Member will refer to my correspondence with Lord Burnham, he will see exactly how the matter stands. It is rather a complicated question to explain to the House, because it depends very much as to when and under what circumstances the local education authority came to the agreement.
Mr. THOMSONWith regard to that correspondence, does the right hon. Gentleman, seek to vary the original finding of the Burnham Report in the correspondence?
§ Mr. FISHERNo, not the original Burnham Report.