Performance Management cycles for 2007/8 are about to begin, and targets are meant to be set by October 31st. The NUT has a policy on Performance Management which is reflected in a Model Policy for Schools, available on line at www.bradfordnut.org

The NUT locally has been involved in negotiations with Bradford Council and EB to agree a Performance Management policy. Whilst this negotiated policy does not contain everything the Union would want, it does provide an improvement on the RIG framework. For instance, it recommends:

• that the number of objectives set for any teacher should not exceed three;
• that any “drop-in” by the Headteacher is not part of the Performance Management process.
• And that only teachers on the leadership spine or with a TLR should make recommendations on pay progression.  

UPS change

Linking performance management to pay progression on UPS is an important change in the Performance Management regulations which comes into effect for any recommendation for progression at the end of the 2007/08 cycle. It is a change which the NUT has strongly opposed but has been included in the regulations with the agreement of the other teacher unions.

For the first time school governors will be required to consider recommendations from reviewers when taking decisions on UPS progression. So performance reviews this year could affect UPS pay increases from September 2008. We have negotiated that only reviewers on the leadership scale and with TLRs can make pay recommendations but we believe strongly that the system has the potential to create tensions between colleagues that everybody could do without . .

One potential problem is that of governors taking at face value the absence of a recommendation that the teacher should progress when the regulations say that governors “shall have regard” to it. The Union believes that, where teachers are eligible to progress on UPS, a satisfactory Performance Management review should be sufficient to allow this, notwithstanding the absence of a specific recommendation by the reviewer.

The NUT will support members who have been denied progress on the Upper Pay Spine.

There is a system for appeal when progress on UPS is withheld .