§ Mr. CatonTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment she has made of the extent to which the extra money that she provided for new pay arrangements in the further education sector has narrowed the pay gap between school teachers and further education lecturers. [65077]
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§ Margaret HodgeAs independent organisations it is for further education (FE) colleges to agree the pay and the terms and conditions of their staff within the context of the overall resources available to them. We are aware of the differences between salaries in general further education colleges and schools and this issue is being considered as part of the current Spending Review.
We are investing more than £311 million in the Teaching Pay Initiative (TPI) over the period 2001–04. TPI is separate to any general pay increase a lecturer may receive. It is designed to help modernise further education (FE) pay arrangements and to recruit, reward and retain lecturers as part of the drive to improve teaching and learning. Research on the first year of TPI implementation indicates that there is a significant move to teachers being better prepared for the task of teaching students; extra pay has been found to support the recruitment of teachers in skill shortage areas and to address casualisation; and there has been a direct positive impact on teacher morale.