School Admin News

One of the most common stories that I have come across in relation to school efficiency in the last few years relates to attempts by schools and local authorities to “reform” the school administration by cutting salaries and lowering grades.

Although this move is often undertaken in the name of “efficiency” in effect it is a simple exploitation of the fact that school administrators and bursars are often less unionised than teachers, and tend to have contracts of employment which give them fewer rights and protections.

One of the most common approaches taken is to say that a regrading process is taking place, and that as a result, administrators are being put on lower grades and their salaries are being cut dramatically.

In commenting on this, let me make it clear that I am not a solicitor, and nor am I working from the offices of a trade union.  But I have taken advice from full time union officials, and from a solicitor, and their views coincide.

The basic view is that in most cases any attempt to reduce salaries or impose regrading is simply illegal.  I have put a link at the end of this article which will take you to a piece by a firm of solicitors that comments on this.

However many LAs and schools have got away with this because they approach the matter by simply imposing the changes and telling staff that this is all perfectly ok.    They are often advised by unscrupulous companies who basically help employers push through illegal deals of this sort.

What’s more, in a few cases, trade unions that should be supporting administrators seem to roll over and leave these cases alone.  This is desperately sad (especially when one is paying the union to look after one’s interests) but in the cases I have looked at it does seem to me that a local elected or volunteer official has been browbeaten or bullied by senior officials in the LA or school, and has just assumed that what the employer was doing was legal.

By putting the plan forward with the authority of the school or the LA it can feel to the individual employee that this must be legal and proper, and that the authority can do this.  After all schools and local authorities don’t break the law do they?

What’s more the approach is backed up with talk about “the need to make sacrifices” and the “good of the school” with suggestions that clearly the children have to have teachers, and so the number of teaching staff can’t be cut.

All of this is bunkum, in my opinion, because there are many ways in which schools can become more efficient – and cutting the admin staff’s salaries certainly has got nothing to do with efficiency.

I would never want to tell anyone what to do, especially when as I say I am neither a union official nor a solicitor but for what it is worth, my view is that if you want to fight an attempt to regrade your work or cut your salary, it is easy to do.

Here’s the link to an article by a solicitor on this very subject.  If I may quote one line from it…

“The starting point is to recognise that an employment contract cannot be unilaterally varied by one party without the consent of the other.”

http://www.lindermyers.co.uk/article.asp?id=872

Tony Attwood

The School of Educational Administration is in the final stages of producing a course for heads, deputies, bursars, managers and administrators, on school efficiency.   We are looking for a few more examples of ways in which schools have increased their efficiency in recent years.

The SEA has been running the Certificate in Educational Administration for five years, and this new course will be a continuation of its work.  However this new course, when launched, will be open to senior management, and heads of department as well as bursars and administrators.

The course focuses on ways in which schools can become more efficient and thus save themselves significant amounts of money – as required by the Audit Commission report.

Some examples of school efficiency given within the course include…

1.  Redesigning a room so that more students can fit in, or each student has more space

2.  Introducing an IT suite which has on line lessons for each subject, and then having students work on the on-line lessons in the IT suite if a teacher is away, rather than have a supply teacher for each absent colleague

3.  Cutting the cost of services (power, water, telephone) that are bought in by the school, or reducing the use of the services themselves

4.  Finding a way of raising significant sums of money for the school (we are not covering normal fund raising activities but instead are looking for more unusual activities that can raise significant amounts without much or any extra work by the staff.  For example, handing over the school playground at the weekend as a car park for the local shopping centre, or because the school is close to a football ground).

5.  Reducing the time taken to handle particular issues or problems.

6.  Using actors or musicians or sportspeople or others as an alternative to supply teachers on occasion

7.  Changing the way teaching works in order to enable the students to cover a course more quickly

8.  Changing the way absences are checked and chased

9.  Changing the way parents are contacted to reduce the time it takes while improving the speed

10. Improving the light or sound in a classroom so that pupils may be able to see or hear better

These are examples – but this is not the exclusive list.  Indeed we are particularly looking for ideas beyond this list.

If you have evolved an approach which has made your school more efficient and you would like to share it, I would like to hear from you.  We are looking for examples of recent efficiency programmes that could be quoted.  We will (unless asked not to) give the name of the person supplying the idea, and the school details, of every idea we include.   We will also (again unless asked not to) arrange free publicity for the school through articles in UK Education News and elsewhere.

To be included, what you need to do is to email in a brief report with an attached word file.   The document must be in word (not pdf) because if it is used in the course, it will need to be cut and pasted into the course materials.   If you have something on your web site that refers to this project please do also provide the link.

There are no length restrictions, but we imagine most pieces included will be between 250 and 1000 words in length – but if you need more space that’s not a problem.

If you want to talk to me about this, please do call 01536 399 013, or if you prefer, but email Tony@schools.co.uk and I’ll be pleased to supply any other information.   If you want to know more about the School of Educational Administration the details are at www.admin.org.uk

Tony Attwood