Greatest Good
Here's an previous post from the blog site that I thought would be worth reading again - in the interests of an honest debate about future public spending priorities in Scotland.
Now the point is that 10 years ago the Scottish Government decided to spend an extra £800 million a year - on a new package of terms and conditions for teachers - which was intended to bring about major changes and improvements to Scottish education.
Now whether this has happened or not is a very moot point - but there is no evidence that I have seen to suggest that spending £800 million of public money was a 'game changer' for Scotland's children and young people.
Set against the £200 million which the Scottish Government budgeted for at roughly the same time to pay for concessionary travel - which policy would the Scottish people regard as the greatest success - or failure for that matter.
Which has done the greater good - one that cost £800 million and benefited 50,000 or so schoolteachers or one that cost £200 million and gave a boost to 1 million of Scotland's older population.
To my mind the whole point about having an honest debate is that everything must be on the table - so I hope that Johann Lamont - as a former school teacher and member of the EIS (the biggest teaching union in Scotland) - is willing to broaden out the terms of the current critique about Scotland's 'something for nothing' culture.
I hope so - because otherwise it's all just the usual good, old-fashioned Punch and Judy politics.
Jellies and Ceilings (13 September 2011)
The McCrone Agreement is back in the headlines - later today we will apparently hear about an independent review of McCrone - the McCormac Review - by Professor Gerry McCormac, principal of Stirling University.
I can hear the conspiracy theorists now - 'Why are all these guys called McC something - are they related to each other?'
Anyway I wrote about the McCrone Agreement several years ago - for The Scotman if I remember correctly - and here's what I had to say at the time.
From what I can gather from reports on the radio this morning - the McCormac Review is just talking common sense - and there's nothing in it to frighten the horses - so to speak.
But time - and the teaching unions - will tell their own story - no doubt.
"McCrone and nailing jelly to the ceiling"
"The McCrone agreement heralded a new bright dawn for Scottish education, but just what is it delivering in the classroom, apart from better-paid teachers?
A key feature of the landmark deal, struck in 2001, was a guaranteed working week of 35 hours. For years teachers complained about a long hours culture that forced them to carry out lots of unquantified, unregulated work in addition to their normal hours, such as marking homework and preparing lessons.
Yet, the other side of the coin is that teachers’ worked for only 39 weeks of the year prior to McCrone, and still do. In effect, the working day and working week is being brought into line with other professions, as teachers are guaranteed less time in the classroom and more time for preparation.
Whether teachers try to have their cake and eat it remains to be seen, but the bottom line is that the McCrone reforms must mean a rigid 35-hour week and a 39 week year are untenable; teachers can’t have it both ways. McCrone is about delivering a better education service and better outcomes for children and parents by changing the culture in schools, restoring pride and professionalism and rewarding staff fairly.
A better education system means more teaching, more effective teaching, new ideas, innovations, different ways of doing things and looking at issues from other perspectives. Recent reports suggest McCrone is running into difficulty and that instead of radical change, the process may be about negotiating line by line, refusing to look at the world from any other than a teacher’s viewpoint, and trying to bring all the benefits of McCrone into a 35-hour 39-week year.
If so, the profession will end up back where it started in a few years because the big improvements in salary, worth 23.5% over three years, were sold on the basis that McCrone was a fresh start for Scottish education, and a move away from old attitudes. No other group of council staff, many of them well-qualified professionals, received anything like the teachers.
If the Scottish Executive turns out to have bought itself a pig in a poke, there is bound to be a backlash. For a start, the other unions will want to play catch up, secondly, the employers will not get their fingers burned twice and, thirdly, ministers will refuse to put another £800 million of public money on the table to finance deals that fail to live up to expectations.
Reports about the difficulties of implementing McCrone may be exaggerated, but the stakes are high all round. If things go pear shaped, the Scottish Executive may pay a heavy political price as the country heads towards the Holyrood elections in May 2003. Having little to show for £800 million would put the role of local education authorities under the spotlight as never before.
The main obstacle to change is the mindset of the biggest group of teachers, the 50% or so in the 45 to 55-age bracket with 20 or 30 years experience under their belts; teachers who feel burned out and want to retire early. No pension scheme could accept the additional costs involved and finding that kind of money would lead to howls of protest from other groups facing similar pressures. A mass exodus from the profession has obvious attractions, but in reality is a dead letter.
In which case the only answer to an immoveable obstacle is for the trade unions, employers and politicians to create their own irresistible force by restating what McCrone is all about and their determination to deliver on its key themes. The parties to the original agreement are handcuffed to each other for good or for ill, and though all agreements are like nailing jelly to a ceiling, there is no doubt about the underlying thrust of McCrone and what the negotiators intended to achieve.
New local initiatives and good ideas will no doubt come to the fore in the weeks ahead and ought to be used to inform public debate. McCrone was intended, quite rightly, to strengthen the management role of head teachers. It was also intended to have teachers working more flexibly, which might mean working longer hours in some weeks with peaks and troughs evening out over the year. But this will not happen if the year is restricted to 35 hours over 39 weeks; the arithmetic just doesn’t add up.
Local management is a move away from a ‘one size fits all approach’ and outcomes will vary from school to school. Yet there is every reason for a progress report on how McCrone is being implemented to be put into the public arena, with an indication of how the big issues will be tackled in the months ahead. Parents are being treated as passive onlookers, rather than partners in the process of delivering a better education service.
Implementing McCrone is a big test of the Scottish Executive, despite the fact that its job is not to micro-manage the agreement into place in every classroom in Scotland. The deal will cost the taxpayer £800 million, much more than the cost of free care for the elderly, which will at least be able to point to the benefits of the new service and the difference it is making to older people.
Waiting in the wings are groups such as social workers, whose representatives are making a strong case for a McCrone style agreement to breathe new life into a profession that feels under siege, rightly or wrongly. Inevitably McCrone has become a target, a benchmark for others who believe their claim is just good as the teachers.
Many commentators believe McCrone would never have happened without Jack McConnell who brokered the deal as education minister. The baton has now passed to Cathy Jamieson, who has a trade union background, and her Lib Dem deputy Nicol Stephen. What they should clarify is where they stand on McCrone, the way forward and what it means, in practical terms, for the future of Scottish education.
Mark A. Irvine
April 2002"
