Academy trusts trimming staff bills by cutting supply workers during crisis, Education Uncovered investigation hears

Major academy trusts are cutting their staffing bills during the coronavirus crisis by sacking or reducing the pay of long-term supply teachers, Education Uncovered has been told.

Some chains are said to be using the emergency to reduce their financial overheads, even though the government has continued to fund all schools at pre-crisis levels. The trusts are likely to argue that there has been less work for some staff.

Two of the largest 20 academy trusts are said to have terminated the ongoing contracts of supply teachers as schools were about to shut their doors to most pupils in March. I have seen evidence in the case of one of these trusts, and am still investigating.

This website has also uncovered copious details about what seem much less extreme, but still controversial, actions of another high-profile trust, Future Academies.

It has not terminated contracts in cases where supply staff are in the UK, though it has done so in relation to overseas temporary workers who returned to their home countries during this emergency, a letter from the trust’s chief executive to a union representative has revealed.

For some of its supply staff who remain in the UK, it has paid them 80 per cent of their salaries not to work, the letter states.

This, in itself - though seemingly permitted under government guidelines, and leaving these UK-based individuals in a far better position than many supply teachers are reportedly facing - appears nevertheless to have left those affected frustrated, angry and worrying about the impact on their students. The moves appear to have come with little or no warning for the affected staff.

One has given an anonymous first-person account of what happened, saying they received an email having finished their work for the day on May 7th, telling them that they would not be required for the following week and how as a result their planning for children’s work had been wasted. Read the teacher’s first-person account here.

The government has emphasised that schools are continuing to receive funding at pre-Covid levels, and that “that will ensure they are able to continue to pay their staff”.

During the crisis, recruitment agency representatives have issued press releases expressing general warnings about “schools” furloughing supply staff when they should not be doing so, without specifying the academies sector. It seems unlikely that the phenomenon is confined to academies. All state-funded schools in England, of course, have been under budget pressure in recent years.

The TES has reported that large numbers of supply teachers have been going without any pay during the crisis.

The detail: the situation at Bushey Academy

Education Uncovered has been looking into actions Future Academies took in relation to supply staff at one school it was handed control of earlier this year: Bushey Academy, a secondary in Hertfordshire which until recently was run by another academy chain: Meller Educational Trust.

At Bushey, staff were told in an email sent by the principal, Jon Hebblethwaite, on the early May Bank Holiday – Friday, May 8th – that 11 “agency” staff were leaving the school.

Some of these staff were from overseas, with ongoing work at the school.

Several of these staff had returned to their home countries as the UK lockdown loomed, but were still contributing to the school’s education provision online. But all had their contracts terminated immediately, since I understand that supply staff cannot continue to be paid while overseas.

Those remaining in the UK are no longer working for the school, though Future will continue to pay them at 80 per cent of their usual wages until the end of term.

The decisions therefore stand to save the trust money, although the fact that none of these 11 are now working has increased the workload of those staff who remain, I understand, in an academy which has been under pressure since failing an Ofsted inspection under the trust that until recently was running it, the now-collapsed Meller Educational Trust.

The remaining and departing staff are distraught that students, who are said desperately to need a sense of continuity during Covid-19, are losing it in the case of these teachers, seven of whom were the young people’s main source of pastoral support as form tutors.

This website understands that this approach with regard to supply staff has also been taken at other schools within the nine-school Future Academies, which is presided over by the former academies minister Lord Nash and his wife Caroline. At least 30 agency workers across the chain’s schools are said to be affected.

Future’s response and financial savings argument

Asked about the situation, Future offered only a very brief response, saying it did “not respond to specific questions on operations”, despite these questions relating to the allocation of public money. It said: “Future Academies’ utmost priority is the wellbeing of its pupils, staff and wider communities.”

However, a more detailed answer, from the trust’s chief executive, Paul Smith, in a letter to the National Education Union, has been circulating among classroom staff.

In it, Smith seemed to suggest that the decision to end the work of the supply staff was to improve the school’s financial position, and thereby to safeguard the position of permanent employees.

Smith wrote: “As you know, school funding has been very difficult in recent years. The Bushey Academy is budgeted to have an operational deficit this year, [sic] the decision to revert some agency staff was made to protect the long-term employment of contracted employees.”

The letter then disclosed exactly what was happening to the various categories of supply staff working in the school.

Smith’s letter said: “The staff who are employed by the agency are categorised as follows:

-Those that will remain in employment with the academy [presumably beyond July] who continue to be paid 100% of salary.

-Those staff who are not included in the staffing for next year are being paid 80% of salary by Future Academies and not being asked to work.

“I believe this is a fair arrangement for staff who will not return to work at the academy and is better than some other schools.

“Those staff that are overseas and are not being asked to work have had their contracts terminated in agreement with [the supply agency]. It is intended [intended?] that these difficult decisions are reasonable and protect the long-term employment of permanent members of staff.

“This is in line with regular union advice in these matters. As you know, the government decided that the majority of students will not return to secondary schools this school year. I am satisfied that the school has adequate plans in place to provide the support needed to students.”

These last two sentences above may have been implying that it was right to make these changes because there was less demand for teachers’ work in the light of Covid-19.*

Smith had been asked, by the school’s NEU representative, how the trust could be cutting staff at the time of such instability in pupils’ lives, the representative telling him in a letter sent on behalf of members: “I am…informed that many of the 11 were making outstanding, invaluable contributions to the departments they worked in. The 11 agency staff played their essential part in providing this continuity so it remains to be answered, how is the removal of our students’ established subject teachers and form tutors going to help them during this period?

“In addition, how does this fit in with the highly important big push on tracking student well-being and welfare during Covid when…form groups have suddenly and unannounced lost their trusted point of contact - their form tutor? How confusing and upsetting must it be to have your main point of contact suddenly cut off with no prior warning and no explanation. How does this reflect on the reputation of our school?”

What the government guidance says

Government guidance issued in April**, setting out how schools should react to Covid-19, states that supply staff employed directly by the school should continue to have their ongoing contracts honoured, on the principle that public funding for schools has continued at the same level.

For those supply staff employed via agencies – the majority, I understand, including all the affected staff at Bushey – then the guidance is weaker, saying schools “may” continue to pay such staff.

But where schools were in a situation where work for supply staff “is no longer needed due [to] coronavirus”, then they should pay the worker at 80 per cent of their typical pay.

So it appears that Future was acting in line with the government guidance, so long as it was the case that the work they were doing was no longer needed, because of the impact of Covid-19.

However, this seems at least debatable, given that other staff will have had extra tasks to do as a result. The guidance in itself, though, is not mandatory.

Does Future’s argument about the school’s financial difficulties stack up?

Smith’s argument that Bushey Academy was budgeted to have an operational deficit this year is interesting, given that the school was said, in the last set of published accounts for the trust it recently left, to be operating at a small surplus.

A little background is needed, here. Bushey was rated “inadequate” by Ofsted back in May 2018, before it was transferred from an academy trust “sponsored” by one former DfE non-executive director, David Meller***, to another, Lord Nash’s Future Academies, in January.

Meller Educational Trust’s accounts for 2018-19 list the Bushey Academy as having a “fund balance” of £949,000. This was down on the figure of £1,206,000 the previous year. But it still represented  a healthy reserve. The accounts also stated that both Bushey and the other school the trust controlled – Francis Combe academy near Watford – had “buoyant” numbers of pupils, which of course are central to schools’ finances.

Overall, the Meller Educational Trust reported having “revenue reserves” of £1.93m as at 31st August 2019.

If Bushey is now in deficit, for the year 2019-20, the last four months of which have been under Future, it would be interesting to know why this has therefore happened.

Actions at other trusts

Future, however, even if it is cutting staff to reduce costs, appears to be acting less controversially than other major trusts may have been.

A recruitment agency source said that, as the crisis forced the closure of schools to most pupils in March, two major trusts had terminated long-term supply teachers’ contracts at no notice, with the expectation that agencies would then apply for the government’s furlough scheme so that they could be paid at 80 per cent. 

A third, very large, trust had appeared about to make this move, but had backed off when it had looked at the government guidance in detail, the source said.

The government’s furlough scheme sees people not working during the crisis being paid at 80 per cent of their previous wages to enable them to continue to receive an income. Public sector organisations are generally not supposed to be using the scheme given that their public funding has continued at pre-Covid levels, meaning that they should be able to continue to spend the same amount as previously on staffing, with schools continuing, of course, to educate pupils, whether at home or on-site.

As mentioned above, the government guidance states that supply staff employed directly by schools, and who were on ongoing contracts, should continue to be paid by them, while for those employed by agencies, they “may” continue to be paid.

It adds: “Agencies who receive money for workers in line with this guidance should not furlough these workers”.

Separate guidance states that the government expects that its furloughing scheme “will not be used by many public sector organisations, as most public sector employees are continuing to provide essential public services or contribute to the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak”.

The warning from the recruitment agency source tallies with statements which have gone out from recruitment organisations - although they did not mention academy trusts in particular - in recent weeks.

APSCO – the Association of Professional Staffing Companies, which is a trade body for the “professional recruitment sector” – spoke out about the issue in April.

In a press release, its operations director, Samantha Hurley, said: “We have had reports of schools asking recruitment firms to furlough supply teachers and then claim the 80 per cent of pay back from the Government, which goes completely against the rules and is akin to asking recruiters, which have seen their activity slashed, to basically act as a bank for the public sector.

“The guidance clearly states that payment of the temporary worker during this period should be funded via the public sector organisation that has the temporary worker on assignment and it is incumbent upon schools to follow these rules.”

Separately, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, another sector body, warned on May 5th that “many schools and colleges are not aware of this guidance [that they should continue to pay supply staff] or that they are choosing not to use it”. It called on the Department for Education to write to all schools to remind them of the guidance.

The recruitment agency source said: “I find the lack of empathy from some of these major trusts quite shocking. They are meant to be held in high regard, but this is how they behave to their staff. It’s poor leadership, in my view.”

I am not, however, naming the trusts said by this source to be involved, as I am still investigating the details.

Last month, Schools Week reported that another major academy trust – David Ross Education Trust, not one of the three mentioned by our recruitment agency source – had “furloughed dozens of staff,” with the trust stating it was following government guidance that states that this can be done where their work was funded not from the public purse, but from private income.

Once again, you can read of the impact of Future’s move on one of the teachers affected here.

*Otherwise, why make the point about most students no longer being physically in school this academic year?

** This guidance was updated on June 3^rd, though the sections quoted here remain the same. It also contains a link to HMRC guidance which states: “Where employers receive public funding for staff costs, and that funding is continuing, we expect employers to use that money to continue to pay staff in the usual fashion – and correspondingly not furlough them. This also applies to non-public sector employers who receive public funding for staff costs.”

***Meller stood down from the academy trust bearing his own name following the Presidents Club scandal in 2018.