FROM MANAGEMENT ALLOWANCES TO TLRs

Guidance for School Reps

(updated September 2005)

This is advice is intended to help you to support members in your school this term during the implementation of Teaching and Learning Responsibility Payments (TLRs). It has been updated from the advice issued last term.

There is also advice in schools from the Government and some other unions that form the RIG Group (called “Transition Guidance”). This advice is not “statutory”, and so schools are not obliged to follow it. The NUT disagrees with important aspects of it. There is more detailed advice from the NUT contained in the orange-fronted booklet “From MAs to TLRs”, referred to in places in this letter.

The replacement of Management Allowances by TLRs is part of the Government’s “remodelling” agenda, which seek to replace teachers with other staff for certain kinds of work. It is also intended to reduce the amount spent on promoted posts for teachers.

The NUT was not allowed in the talks that led to these proposals because it would not sign up to these principles. The NUT remains opposed to a system that removes all Management Allowances, is intended to force their holders to compete for a smaller number of promoted posts, and removes the permanent salary safeguarding that teachers have enjoyed in the past.

The NUT’s position is that every teacher who had a Management Allowance should have a TLR of at least equal value, and we will negotiate, and take whatever action is necessary, to achieve this.

YOUR ROLE

As NUT Representative, you have a key role in supporting your colleagues. In turn, we will do everything we can to support you. We will be holding further briefing meetings this term. We can also be contacted by phone, email, fax and post. We will come into your school when requested to talk to members or talk to management on their behalf.

Throughout this Review process, you have a legal right to represent your members in discussions on developing and implementing the new staffing structure. You should keep copies of all drafts, correspondence and minutes of meetings within the school in case you need outside help. The National Union has written to your head teacher, asking that you be given the items of information relevant to the process of creating TLRs. There is a copy of the letter in the pack sent to you by the National Union last term.

WHAT ARE TLRs AND WHAT HAPPENS TO MANAGEMENT ALLOWANCES?

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/payandperformance/pay/2005/ is a link to the various legal/statutory documents incorporating the arrangements for introducing TLRs.

TLRs can be awarded with effect from January 1 st 2006 , and no new Management Allowances can then be awarded.

Before January 1 st, each school has to have conducted a staffing review, and decided on the value and nature of its TLR posts. These posts have to be introduced over the next 3 years.

There are two types of these TLR payments: TLR1 and TLR2.

To get a TLR2 a teacher must carry out “a significant responsibility that is not required of all classroom teachers and

• is focused on teaching and learning;
• requires the exercise of a teacher’s professional skills and judgment;
• requires the teacher to lead, manage and develop a subject or curriculum area; or to lead and manage pupil development across the curriculum;
• has an impact on the educational progress of pupils other than the teacher’s assigned classes or groups of pupils; and
• involves leading, developing and enhancing the teaching practice of other staff. “

To get a TLR1 , a teacher must also have “line management responsibility for a significant number of people”.

Providing the criteria above are satisfied, there is nothing to stop a school, as a result of its review, retaining all of its current promoted posts and paying TLRs for them instead of Management Allowances.

Unlike Management Allowances, the value of TLRs can be chosen from within a range:

• TLR2s can be awarded within the range of £2,250 to £5,500.
• TLR1s can be awarded in the range of £6,500 to £11,000.

Within either of these ranges, a school can award more than one value of payment. If it does so, the difference between payments in the range must be at least £1,500. Once awarded, the value of the payment is fixed, rising only with annual salary increases. The TLR is permanent as long as the teacher fulfils the role.

Existing Management Allowance 1 is worth £1,638, having been frozen for 2 years.

Existing Management Allowance 3 is worth £5,688, also having been frozen. This leaves MA1 below the bottom of TLR2 and MA3 below the bottom of TLR1, but a significant amount of the shortfall is because of the freeze in value.

Schools could replace MA1 and MA2 with Salaries within the TLR2 range, and MA3, 4 and 5 with Salaries within the TLR1 Range at an additional cost of between 0.4% and 1% of the current salary bill. The national NUT booklet contains worked examples. This is a possible model.

SEN allowances and payments and Recruitment and Retention payments remain as before.

CONSULTATION ON THE INTRODUCTION OF TLRs

There is a legal requirement to consult you as NUT Representative:

“(5)During the conduct of the review the relevant body must consult—

• all staff;
• representatives of recognised trade unions ; and
• such other persons as the relevant body considers appropriate.”

(The Education (Review of Staffing Structure) ( England ) Regulations 2005)

The NUT has already written to your head teacher explaining this.

You must to be consulted on:

1. Posts of responsibility in the new structure
2. Levels of payment for these posts
3. How teachers are allocated to the posts
4. When the changes will happen.

Suggested Timetable for Consultation and Implementation:

Your Governing Body should by now have arrived at a timetable and procedure for implementing the changes after the headteacher has consulted union reps on this.

September/October: Head develops initial ideas for staffing structure in consultation with union reps

November: Head submits agreed proposals to Governing Body, and Governing Body publishes draft structure and implementation plan. Unions then consulted again

December: final plan agreed by Governing Body. Staff allocated to posts.

You will need the school’s current staffing structure and the payments attached to particular posts in order to work out the effect on your colleagues of any proposed new structure. You are entitled to this and any other relevant information. The Union has provided you with a letter to the head which requests this.

Consultation is only likely to be meaningful if some of it takes place before the head submits any draft plan to the governors, so you need to insist on this. If it appears not to be happening, you need to contact us.

At every stage you must have the opportunity – after any proposals are put forward - to discuss them with fellow union and staff members, and to seek advice from the Union , before responding.

PROTECTING MEMBERS’ RIGHTS

If proposals put to the Governing Body do not have the agreement of NUT members, there must be the opportunity for the views of Union members to be presented in writing – and, if desired, verbally – to the Governing Body before it makes a decision. This applies to individual as well as to collective concerns. The salary and status of teachers is at stake here, and their concerns need to be heard.

The Union is available to provide advice and representation at all stages in the process. We want to know when any changes are proposed that would worsen the pay of NUT members, or increase their responsibilities without appropriate increase in payment.

HOW MUCH NEEDS TO CHANGE?

Schools are required to “review” their staffing structure, but how much they change it is up to them. Your school may feel that it has good reasons for its existing structure, and may see no reason to change it. The “blank sheet of paper” approach that is suggested in the “RIG” document will inevitably lead to significant numbers of skilled and hard-working teachers currently doing a valuable job finding that their role has disappeared or been devalued, and losing pay and pension in the future. Why would any school choose this option? Any proposals for radical change need to bear in mind the following:

• Moving everyone on a Management Allowance to the nearest (higher rather than lower) level of TLR payment will have relatively minor cost implications.
• Teachers cannot reasonably be expected to undertake duties for which they currently receive a payment if that payment is removed. Nor can those duties be assigned to other teachers without payment.
• Pastoral responsibilities may be challenged as a basis for receiving payments under the new system. They can be defended, not only on sound educational and social grounds, but also on the grounds that they do meet the specific TLR criteria. Pastoral work does have a substantial impact on teaching and learning and it is vital to “pupil development across the curriculum”. It is not necessary to take such roles away from teachers because of the new system.

IMPLEMENTING A NEW STRUCTURE

Once a staffing structure has been arrived at, your school must appoint teachers to the posts in it, and decide when to implement it.

Where a TLR post in the new structure has the responsibilities of an existing Management Allowance post, the individual in post should be allocated the new job without the need for application, interview or competition. This will usually be the situation. If there are new kinds of post, and other posts of responsibility held by members of staff have disappeared, it will be necessary to decide what “ring-fencing” should occur. You should seek advice from us whenever situations like this arise, or when individuals are threatened with the loss of a promoted post with no alternative available.

Schools can implement their new structure from January 1 st 2006 or at any time in the next 3 years. Delay is likely to cause complications with the filling of vacancies, so it is only justifiable if the school wants to implement a more expensive structure (to protect all existing allowance holders from loss of pay) and expects it to be affordable only in the next financial year.

WHAT HAPPENS TO TEACHERS WHO LOSE POSTS OF RESPONSIBILITY?

In the past, teachers involved in reorganisations have had their salaries permanently protected if they lost posts of responsibility. The Government – supported by those unions in the RIG – is proposing that this protection is for a maximum of 3 years in this review. Only the cash sum of the lost Management Allowance (or the difference between a previously held MA and a smaller TLR) will be protected. Pay rises will not be applied to it. Protection can be removed altogether if a teacher’s progress up the pay scale and basic annual pay rises exceed the value of the protected sum. The National NUT booklet on TLRs gives some worked examples.

The lost pay could also turn into lost pension on retirement. The NUT is seeking to get pension regulations changed to give protection.

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CAN I DEAL WITH ALL THIS?

Representing members through a process which could cause them to lose significant amounts of pay and status is a big responsibility. We don’t have the resources to do all of this centrally for every school. We will be very grateful if you accept some of the responsibility, and will help you at every stage. But only do as much as you feel able to cope with. Let us know at what stage you want us to take over. You can do this at the beginning if you feel you need to, by telling the head that the address on this letter is the one for consultation material to be sent to, and telling us that you have done it.

Thank you in advance for helping us to help teachers cope with what might for some be a difficult time.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Murch, Bradford NUT Secretary

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