Earlier this week, the government announced that it will be amending its own schools bill after it came under fire following proposals to make academies and MATs adhere to national pay and conditions. Leaders said that doing so could result in pay cuts, less flexibility or even lay offs.
The schools minister has now said that the government will present an amendment to the bill, which will ‘set a floor on pay that requires all state schools to follow minimum pay bands’, but academies will only need to ‘have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the schools teacher pay and conditions document’.
Essentially, this means that local authority maintained schools would still need to follow the pay and conditions document in its entirety, but academies would retain their freedom to be creative with their own salaries as long as they meet the ‘floors’ as set out in the STPCD.
The amended bill will be laid out before parliament shortly.