Agenda and minutes

Any Member with a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest or an Affected Interest in a matter should withdraw from the meeting when the matter is under consideration and should notify the Democratic Services Officer in attendance that they are withdrawing as they have such an interest. If the Interest is not entered on the register of Members interests the Monitoring Officer must be notified of the interest within 28 days.

There were no declarations of interest.

Any other items which, pursuant to Section 100B(4)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972, the Chiarman decides are urgent.

There were no urgent items of business.

To receive the minutes of the Education Employment Committee meeting held on 17 October 2011.

RESOLVED that the minutes of the meeting of the Education Employment Sub-Committee held on 17 October 2011 be approved as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

To receive a report on revewing the new model policies for Performance Capability and Model Pay policies and agreeing to present these to school governing bodies for adoption.

The Human Resources Manager: Children, Young People & Learning presented a report on the development of a Model Policy for Pay and Teacher Capability Procedure for schools.

New policies had been drafted following Government changes in legislation to allow speedier timescales to dismiss poorly performing teachers and to provide schools with more flexibility on the pay arrangements for teachers.  

The main changes of the Teachers Capability Procedure centred around a reduction in the stages of the Procedure and the removal of the informal stage of the process. 

The main changes to the School Teachers Pay document were:

• Pay progressions linked to performance thereafter (i.e. end of annual incremental progression).
• Introduction of minimum and maximum salary levels – reference points in between decided by school
• Removal of Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs) and Excellent Teachers pay scales
• Leading practitioners pay range introduced
• Simpler criteria for threshold assessment
• Removing requirement to protect existing salary at recruitment
• Introduction of fixed term Teaching and Learning Responsibility Payments (TLRs)

In a number of local authorities it has been left to individual schools to arrange and consult with trade unions on their own pay policies.  Following constructive consultation with trade unions and assistance from head teachers, Bracknell Forest has decided the most effective route would be to establish a model policy for schools to adopt.

It was reported that Equality Impact Assessments would be carried out by each school, although it was also noted that the NASUWT/NUT had conducted an EIA at national level on all the proposals.

The Committee discussed the draft procedures and amendments were suggested to the Model Pay Policy:

• Paragraph 2, Aims – the word ‘ maintain’ would be removed.
• Paragraph 12.2, Pay Reviews – a paragraph would be added to explain the position of the Pay Committee and governing body.
• Paragraph 12.9, Pay range for Leading Practitioners teachers – once the pay award had been confirmed this would be inserted into the policy.

RESOLVED that the Model Pay Policy,  with suggested amendments,

be recommended to school governing bodies for adoption.

The Committee discussed the Performance Capability Procedure for Schools and the following points were clarified:

• Paragraph 4.5, the notes taken at formal meetings could be challenged. 
• Paragraph 5, Roles and Responsibilities - the “Senior Officer” from Children Young People & Learning would be the Head of Human Resources or a School Advisor.
• Paragraph 6.3 – all panel members at school had been trained on this issue.

RESOLVED that the Performance Capability Procedure for Schools be recommended to school governing bodies for adoption.