School Teachers' Pay (Hansard, 22 November 2000)

§ Mr. Blunkett

I have today made an order under the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act 1991 to give statutory force to the new pay arrangements for teachers entailing assessment against a performance threshold for those who wish to have access to a pay increase of £2,001 and an upper pay scale. This follows consultation on detailed provisions further to my acceptance of recommendations made by the independent School Teachers' Review Body in its special report published on 20 October. Threshold assessment, which has been suspended since the High Court ruled on 14 July that it had to be covered by an order under the 1991 Act, will restart as soon as possible. The main elements of the threshold procedures are as followsThe threshold standards remain the same as those my Department promulgated in March; Teachers in England who have applied to cross the threshold will be assessed on their original applications—this means no extra work for teachers or headteachers in the initial stages of the threshold process; Teachers in Wales have until 16 March 2001 to submit threshold applications; headteachers in England may accept late applications up to 16 March 2001 in specified exceptional circumstances; 245W Teachers can be called upon to assist heads with assessments of other teachers for whom they have management responsibility; Headteachers must give written feedback to all unsuccessful applicants. Teachers who feel they have been wrongly assessed will be able to seek a review.

Cambridge Education Associates, who manage the external assessors, have started to contact schools in England to arrange external assessor visits and aim to complete these as soon as possible. Headteachers in England who have not already done so should complete their assessments and send them to CEA by 26 January 2001. Headteachers in Wales should complete their assessments by 18 May 2001. All teachers who successfully meet the standards will get their pay increases as soon as possible after being notified of their success. These pay increases will be backdated to 1 September 2000. In England a new special grant will cover the extra pay costs of teachers crossing the threshold. In Wales the National Assembly has made extra funding to cover these costs available to local education authorities.