A government plan to impose minimum service levels (MSLs) during teacher strikes could worsen the recruitment and retention crisis in schools, teachers’ and heads’ leaders have warned.
And the proposed legislation, which would require a minimum number of staff to work in classrooms during strikes, would mean around £36 million in extra costs for schools, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has warned
ASCL and the biggest teaching union, the NEU, have issued their warnings as part of responses to the government consultation on its proposed MSL plan for schools.
The responses, published today, warn the move would damage relations between government and the sector, as well as between employers and their staff.
The Department for Education plan to keep up to around three in four pupils in schools during teacher strikes, as part of its MSL proposal, was first revealed by Tes last year.
The NEU and ASCL responses come after members of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) last week hit out at the proposal over legal and workload concerns.
Strike law ‘will hit teacher recruitment’
In its response, ASCL warned that the government “must not underestimate the damage that could be caused by the loss of good will” in the “complex ecosystems” within schools.
And Carl Parker, head of industrial relations at the school leaders’ union, said the introduction of the regulations would “likely to add to the increasing unpopularity of teaching as a career for both graduate entrants and existing employees”.
The government missed its target for recruitment of secondary teacher trainees by 50 per cent this year, according to data published last month.
And the number of state-school teachers leaving the profession hit its highest rate in four years in the academic year 2021-22, with one in 10 (43,997) recorded as having quit the classroom.
Mr Parker warned that restricting the workforce’s ability to negotiate improvements for the sector “will not improve matters”.
And the NEU claimed that teachers will be deterred from progressing to leadership positions under “an increase in bureaucracy, administrative tasks and the risk of having to oversee swathes of data-protection enquiries and potential minimum service level-related disciplinary matters”.
The warnings come just months after polling showed that the proportion of senior leadership team members experiencing consistent feelings of “burnout” had more than doubled over the past five years.
In its response today, ASCL concluded that the regulations would “disproportionally affect” the ability of school leaders to take industrial action and could “completely remove their right to strike”, as a school will always need a school leader present to remain open.
And it said that the government’s impact assessment that the likely cost of adopting the new policy for schools will be a total of £25.6 million was an underestimate, with the real cost likely to be much higher at around £36 million.
ASCL said that the CST calculated there are around 10,000 employers across academy trusts and local authorities, which would push estimated costs far higher than the DfE’s forecast, which was based on 7,000 affected employers.
Risk to vulnerable pupils
The unions also warned the strike plan could result in staff tasked with overseeing children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) being instructed to work every time industrial action is proposed, under regulations prioritising this group.
They said the proposal could also mean that staff without the necessary skills are required to work, putting vulnerable pupils into situations that could take “days, weeks or even years of work to address”.
And both the NEU and ASCL said that women will be particularly negatively affected by the move, saying that it is “inevitable that the regulations will impact...more on women than men”.
It is “essential” that a “fuller equality impact assessment is undertaken and consulted upon to assess all negative implications of the government’s proposals on education workers”, the NEU response said.
And ASCL also warned that the “inclusion of remote education in the regulations would provide an option to issue work notices without limit”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said it is “committed to ensuring that children and young people are not disadvantaged because of any future strike action”.
“We encourage everyone to submit their views and will take all responses into consideration before setting out a final response,” they added.
The government consultation closes on 30 January.
