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FEATURE


Budget 2011/12 – what it means for you

Teachers in Scotland are facing the stark impact of the spending cuts imposed by the Westminster Government with an announcement last month that public sector pay is being frozen for two years from 2011 and the national framework of pay and conditions coming under threat.

Setting out the Scottish budget for 2011/12 last month, Ministers announced overall cuts of £1.3 billion, equating to an 11% cut in spending and 36% cut in the capital budget between 2010/11 and 2014/15.

During the Comprehensive Spending Review, the Chancellor George Osbourne claimed that all the devolved nations have received rises in their budgets, but the Scottish and Welsh budgets published on 17 November reveal the true reality of the real terms cuts facing the devolved nations, if inflation is factored in at its true level. The Coalition Government has also announced its intention to reform the operation of the Barnett formula by which funding is allocated to the devolved nations. This could lead to an even tighter squeeze on funding.

The NASUWT will be fighting any cutbacks to teachers’ pay and working conditions and believes it is folly, at a time when skills and education represent the best opportunity to secure economic recovery, to undermine the profession in this way.

The Scottish Government opted to postpone the first £330 million of cuts this year but this decision has contributed to the massive spending reduction from April 2011.

Although education strategies may be different across the UK, there is no doubt that the adverse impact on children and young people, teachers and schools will be the same. Teachers in the devolved nations face the pay freeze, potential rises in pension contributions and job loss. Children and young people will lose vital education programmes and services. Schools will have to make difficult decisions wrestling with reduced budget and capital expenditure. Local authorities, governors and school leaders are being left to make impossibly difficult decisions on spending priorities.

This makes it especially critical that all NASUWT members join the NASUWT’s Championing Education campaign to press for a fully resourced education system, which recognises and rewards teachers and principals as highly skilled professionals.


The budget – in detail

Pay and conditions under threat

Ministers have announced a review of the McCrone Agreement which is due to report in June 2011. In addition, Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) is being pressed to make a number of immediate cuts to teachers’ pay and conditions, including a two-year pay freeze, increases in contact time for probationary teachers and changes to holiday allowances and pay. Further details of these developments can be found on pages 22 & 23 of this edition of Teaching Today.

The NASUWT will be resisting vigorously any attempt to downgrade teachers’ pay and conditions.

Education budget headlines

• Education and Lifelong Learning is facing a year-on-year cut in cash terms of £168 million in resources and £65.8 million in capital;
• Additional investment of £9 million in the development of a new generation of National Qualifications;
• Additional investment of £20 million in 2011-12 in Scotland’s schools for the future;
• the Scottish Education Quality and Improvement Agency will be established to replace Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education and Learning and Teaching Scotland;
• Establish a new Early Years and Early Intervention Fund from 2011-12 with initial start-up funding of £5 million which will provide additional funding to support the third sector;
• Additional investment of £86 million to support the continued delivery of the early years framework, establish the Children’s Hearings Scotland; modernise the Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration and support the continued roll-out of getting it right for every child in support of improved outcomes for children in need of protection and looked after children;
• maintain the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme;
•Reduction in the national support and challenge budget by £26 million.

Local authorities

Local authorities are facing a 2.6% cut in their revenue budgets and 17.9% cut in capital spending. This will inevitably affect the support they can give to schools and is likely to see cuts to centrally deployed services such as SEN and school transport.

Local authorities are being asked to agree to:

• remain committed to the delivery of the current Single Outcome Agreements, the 3 jointly agreed social strategies and the Curriculum for Excellence;
• a council tax freeze for 2011-12;
• maintain the pupil-teacher ratio in P1-P3;
• an independently chaired review of all aspects of the McCrone Agreement, to report by June 2011 with the clear intention that its recommendations should be available for implementation before August 2012;
• protect the number of teacher posts as far as possible in order to secure:
• places for all probationers who require a place under the induction scheme in August 2011;
• sufficient teaching posts available for all probationers who achieve Standard for Full Registration in summer 2011 (i.e. successfully complete their probation); and
• a reduction in the total number of unemployed teachers.

While many of these commitments may sound attractive, this package is in return for local authorities accepting the package of cuts to existing teachers’ pay and conditions. The NASUWT does not accept that hard working and highly skilled teachers should pay the price for the financial mismanagement of the banking system which led the UK into the current fiscal crisis.


 

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