Teachers' Salaries (Hansard, 10 March 1970)

§ Mr. Ross

At a meeting of the negotiating sub-committee of the Scottish Teachers Salaries Committee on 6th March the Management Side offered salary scales and allowances that would increase the current salaries bill by about £10.7 million or 15 per cent. I understand that the Management Side indicated its readiness to consider adjustment of the deail of its offer but only within the overall cost of 15 per cent. The Teachers' Side, it seems, regarded the new offer as insufficient and stated that it was not prepared to accept the pattern of salaries proposed by the Management Side. The situation reached in the sub-committee is being reported to the full Salaries Committee, which is to meet on 20th March.

I regret that a settlement has not been reached. The Management Side's offer, of which I am circulating details in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown) seems a very fair one. It would provide an average increase of over £240 per teacher and would mean that on 1st 279W April the average salary for a day school teacher would be £1,823.

Because of the restructuring of salaries for which the offer provides, actual increases would vary considerably for different categories of teachers. No teacher on any scale would receive less than 10 per cent. Some 40 per cent. of the teachers would gain more than 15 per cent.; for example, the starting salary of a primary non-graduate teacher would increase by 26 per cent. It has also been the Management Side's aim to increase the financial inducements for suitably qualified teachers to serve in secondary schools and to provide a better salary structure for teachers of practical and aesthetic subjects; it is in these areas that the need for additional staff will be greatest in the years immediately ahead.

I hope that before the full Salaries Committee meets on 20th March the teachers will re-examine the Management Side's offer with the greatest care.