Conservatives try to block new law on school support staff pay and conditions from applying to academies

Conservative MPs have been seeking to stop a new law, which aims to set national minimum pay and conditions expectations for school support staff, from applying to academies.

As the new government’s Employment Rights bill continued its passage through Parliament yesterday, Conservative members of the legislative committee scrutinising it in detail proposed an amendment which would have given an opt-out for the academy sector.

The bill will re-introduce the school support staff negotiating body (SSSNB), which was abolished in 2010 by Michael Gove as education secretary. Ministers want to set national pay and conditions terms for support staff, whom the government says comprise more than half of the school workforce. The move was set out in Labour’s 2024 manifesto.

However, during debate on this section of the bill yesterday, Conservative MPs argued both against the restoration of the SSSNB in itself, and the notion that, if it did come back, it would apply to academies. Their argument was that employers need the “flexibility” to determine their own pay and conditions. Labour countered that their opponents appeared to want to allow academies the freedom to pay support staff less.

Greg Smith, Conservative MP for Mid Buckinghamshire who is also a shadow business minister, tabled an amendment which would have given academy trusts the ability to disregard the SSSNB’s “framework” in “exceptional circumstances”. The argument was that academy freedoms were an important part of what had been a successful policy.

He told MPs: “In 2010 the then Conservative Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, rightly abolished the school support staff negotiating body. The Conservative government had a clear and principled reason for that: employers should have the flexibility to set pay and conditions locally, rather than having a top-down, centralised framework imposed on them. Instead of giving employers the flexibility to do what works best for them, this government are establishing a national terms and conditions handbook on training, career progression routes and fair pay rates for school support staff.”

He added: “We are not advocating for a race to the bottom on pay and conditions for school support staff, but we believe that the current arrangements are working well and have allowed for innovation that is beneficial for pupils…our worries about the re-establishment of the school support staff negotiating body are principally that we believe that school employers must retain a degree of freedom and flexibility to recruit, develop, remunerate and deploy their staff for the benefit of the children in their community…

“Academy trusts sign a funding agreement with the Secretary of State that gives them certain freedoms, among which is the ability to set pay and conditions for staff. What the government are trying to do with the Bill is therefore to unpick a clear, established and positive freedom that academy trusts have…His Majesty’s loyal Opposition worry that this is just the start of the government’s longer-term mission to unwind academy freedoms, and that it shows that they fail to understand how to support educational excellence.”

Nick Timothy, a former joint chief of staff to Theresa May as Prime Minister and one-time director of the free schools support group the New Schools Network, said England’s recent relatively good showing in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s “PISA” tests for 15-year-olds “was absolutely to do with the academy freedoms which we are addressing with the amendment, and which risk being undermined by the Bill”.

Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough, for the government, said it would not accept the amendment as it would “drive a coach and horses through what we are trying to achieve”.

He said: “As the shadow Minister [Mr Smith] knows, as roughly half of the 24,000 state-funded schools are academies the amendment would seriously undermine the policy intention of the SSSNB. We believe that about 800,000 employees would be positively impacted by the Bill, but the amendment would mean that school support staff would have no voice, and no opportunity to raise their concerns about pay, career progression and training prospects, which we know are real issues, particular in the SEN [special educational needs] sector.

“There would be no vehicle for them, because they would not be part of this body. Of course their employers would have to have regard to what the SSSNB decided, but there would be no legal requirement for those terms to be incorporated into individual contracts…I do not accept that there is a connection between good educational outcomes and low pay for teaching assistants, which seems to be the thrust of the argument from the Opposition.”

Mr Smith responded: “This is not about some sort of race to the bottom. It is not about, as the Minister asserted, arguing for low pay…this is a point of principle about support for the academy system…this is a point of principle about diversity in the education system [so that] academies have the freedoms to decide things themselves, locally”.

The Conservative amendment failed, however, with Labour in charge of the passage of bills through Parliament through their large majority. This means that academies will have to abide by the SSSNB, as the bill currently stands. The Liberal Democrats appeared also not to back the amendment.

Another Labour MP, speaking later in this session, seemed to sum up the government’s case for the reinstatement of the SSSNB. Lawrence Turner MP, who represents Birmingham Northfield and is a former head of research and policy at the GMB union, said: “School support staff are the hidden professionals in the education system. I did not just represent school support staff; I was once a school governor in a specialist SEND setting, and there were school support staff and teaching assistants.

“It is important to remember that the term covers site staff, cleaners, caterers and all sorts of other workers, who often do not get talked about.

“Those workers make lifesaving interventions—they may have to administer medicine or perform a medical intervention that literally keeps a child alive—but they are paid about £14,000 a year.

“That represents a failure of central Government to account for the pay, conditions and wellbeing of all the people who work in schools. The measures we are discussing are hugely important and welcome, and it is very welcome that the Bill has been brought forward this early in the Parliament.”

Will academy CEOs be subject to national pay and conditions? 

This session also saw it left open as to whether highly-paid employees at multi-academy trust headquarters, perhaps including chief executives, might end up being classed as “support staff” and thus covered by national pay and conditions arrangements.

This has never been the case within the academies sector, the lack of a national framework arguably helping fuel high salaries for trust leaders.

In October, the Confederation of School Trusts, which represents trust leadership, said in a briefing to members that such central teams should be excluded from being categorised as “support staff,” reported Schools Week. No reason, however, was given explaining why was necessary.

An amendment to the bill which was set out by Mr Madders would see the government setting out in regulations as to which roles, among those working in central teams, would fall within the SSSNB’s remit.

Mr Madders said: “The Department [for Education] currently holds limited information about the roles in which support staff are employed by academies or the terms and conditions under which they work. It intends to consult on which roles should and should not be within the scope of these provisions.”

It seems an open question, then, whether academy trust chief executives could come under the scope of national pay and conditions arrangements. This one will be interesting to watch.