§ Mr. Bill WalkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he intends to issue his national guidelines for staff development and appraisal in schools.
§ Mr. LangI will issue early in the new year to local authorities national guidelines for staff development and appraisal in schools for implementation over the five year period from school session 1991–92. Similar guidelines for the further education sector will follow shortly.
The guidelines have been prepared following an extensive period of consultation which demonstrated much support for the changes they will bring to Scottish education. They provide a national framework within which education authorities and schools can plan and operate systematic arrangements for the management of staff development and appraisal. They are intended to ensure an appropriate degree of consistency across the country but at the same time allow scope for variation in application to meet local circumstances.
Authorities will be invited to prepare and send to me local schemes which provide for teachers to be appraised at least once every two years so that by the end of June 1996 all teachers should have fully completed the appraisal process at least once. Authorities will be free to determine their own pace of implementation. I expect however that by the beginning of session 1994–95 at least half of the teachers within each authority should be within the appraisal process.
I have powers in the Self-Governing Schools Etc. (Scotland) Act 1989 to introduce appraisal on a statutory basis. I have concluded however as a result of views expressed during the consultation period that implementation of my policy on staff development and appraisal should be on the basis of national guidelines rather than by 320W regulations. I will be monitoring progress on implementation and if our policy objectives are not being attained I will consider the use of regulations.
Some but not all aspects of the guidelines will bring resource implications for authorities. I have already provided cover for additional costs of £2 million in determining next year's grant settlement for authorities. Costs of £4 million will be recognised in the 1992–93 settlement. For the following years I will take into account the further costs involved depending on the progress achieved by authorities. I am also providing specific grant support for in-service training of teachers from 1991–92 to support the requirement in the guidelines for teachers to be trained before they fulfil their roles in the appraisal process. My Department is currently preparing training materials on appraisal which will become available from school session 1991–92.