Glasgow's MSPs and Equal Pay

Paul Hutcheon reported in the Herald on Sunday that the Scottish Government is planning to inject an extra £35 million into the pay packets of Scotland's teachers.

Over the next 15 years this will add £525 million to the teachers' pay bill in Scotland which is 'interesting', to say the very least, given the unresolved issue of equal pay in Glasgow where the City Council's WPBR pay scheme has been judged to be 'unfit for purpose' by the Court of Session, Scotland's highest civil court.

Because the cost of settling Glasgow's long-running equal pay dispute is also likely to run to hundreds of millions and if this kind of money can be found for Scotland's teachers - then it really does go to show that where there's a will, there's a way.

So I plan to share this blog post with Glasgow's MSPs including the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, as they must now surely get behind the city's equal pay claimants who have been fighting against blatant pay discrimination in Glasgow for the past 12 years.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16735846.teachers-could-get-10-pay-boost-under-35m-government-proposal/

Teachers could get 10% pay boost under £35m Government proposal

By Paul Hutcheon - Herald on Sunday

Derek Mackay

THOUSANDS of teachers could be in line for a pay boost of more than 10 per cent under a £35 million Scottish Government proposal.

The package would include a three per cent rise for teachers earning up to £80,000 a year and a separate £25m to overhaul the main grade scale for those in the profession.

However, details of the plan have angered a trade union for other local government staff who are not being offered an extra £25m.

Gary Smith, Scotland secretary of the GMB union, said: “If there is going to be a load more money for teachers, it’s going to be an explosive cocktail for public-sector pay talks.”

Read more: Teachers accuse councils of ‘procrastination’ over pay

Teachers’ pay is determined by a tripartite body that includes the Scottish Government, representatives from councils – as the employer – and union negotiators.

However, the group has failed to reach an agreement after the teaching unions called for a 10 per cent pay rise.

The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), which represents most teachers north of the Border, has signalled that strike action could be taken unless their demand is met.

Leaked papers from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which represents councils, provide a detailed summary of the revised proposal.

In March, Cosla made an initial offer to all bargaining groups, including teachers, of a three per cent rise for staff earning up to £36,500 and two per cent for those on higher salaries. The proposal was rejected.

Derek Mackay, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, then wrote to Cosla last month and agreed to an additional £10m which would extend the three per cent rise to teachers earning between £36,501 and £80,000.

Read more: Proposals to boost teaching profession unveiled by Lib Dems

He also backed another £25m for a wider “restructuring” of the main pay scale, aimed at improving recruitment and retention.

The paper noted: “The Scottish Government has proposed a better offer for teachers and is prepared to fund it. Collectively it represents an investment over its two elements of £35m.”

Cosla, which is responsible for making a formal pay offer, backed the plan this month and teacher representatives are now considering the detail.

A local authority source said the two elements, taken together, could result in a sizeable number of teachers getting a rise in excess of 10 per cent.

The Cosla paper cautioned that the new plan would not “guarantee a settlement” with the unions, but stated: “What it would do, however, is force a decision by the EIS to gamble or settle. Gambling on getting a mandate for industrial action in pursuit of an unachievable claim when three per cent is on the table and a desirable restructuring of the main grade on offer would be a bold move by a trade union not known for foolhardy decisions.”

The document also suggested that the Government had “expressed an eagerness” to “de-couple” that rise from the pay scale revamp, on the grounds that the second element is a “policy intervention” designed to correct a “failure” in the teacher market.

Smith’s GMB members, who include cleaners and care workers, have also been offered three per cent – which the union rejected – but not an additional £25m.

“We don’t grudge teachers anything, but our members are doing more work than ever. It will add fuel to the fire,” he said.

Councillor Gail MacGregor, Cosla resources spokesperson, said the Government’s £10m had been “matched pound for pound” by council leaders for the general workforce: “It should not be forgotten that Scottish local government is the employer and the one making the offer. We are also funding the vast majority of the offer to teachers within the limited resources we have at our disposal – so it would be wrong to solely focus on the £10m from Government.

Read more: SNP under fire as public satisfaction in schools, NHS and transport plummets

“Secondly there is a separate discussion around the £25m for restructuring of the pay grade and a joint commitment to look at that – but that is nothing to do with the pay deal it is totally separate.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Teachers’ pay is a matter for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) and negotiations for 2018-19 are now well under way and making progress.”

An EIS spokesperson said: “At this week’s SNCT Extended Joint Chairs meeting an amended pay offer was proposed. The teachers’ side of the SNCT will now consider the offer in detail. A further negotiating meeting of the Extended Joint Chairs is scheduled for the September 18, where the teachers’ side will respond formally to the offer.”

Who Gets What and Why? (07/09/16)

Over the past 16 years Scotland has put an extra £12.6 billion pounds in the pay of the country's school teachers, courtesy of the landmark McCrone Agreement which increased their basic pay by an eye-watering 23.5% in the year 2000.

The implementation cost of this fully funded pay increase was £800 million a year and this huge sum of money is now part of the Scottish Government's base budget - a budget which virtually double between 1997-2007, as did the spending power of Scotland's 32 local councils.

A year earlier the Scottish council employers signed up to the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement which was designed to tackle low pay at the bottom end of the local government pay ladder and sweep away years of widespread pay discrimination against a wide range of very low paid, female dominated jobs.

The 1999 Single Status Agreement covered over 100,000 of the lowest paid council employee and included cleaners, catering staff, clerical workers, classroom assistants, home carers and so on.

The cost of 'single status' was estimated at £450 million at the time, but unlike McCrone the landmark equal pay agreement was not fully funded and relied upon future pay settlements and productivity gains to achieve its worthy goals.

So looking back all these years later the position is that 70,000 teachers have benefited to the tune of £800 million every year while more than 100,000 of the lowest paid council employees have had to fight tooth and nail for their right to equal pay.

Interestingly, a debate is now underway about the standard of teaching in Scotland's schools and one body of opinion is that the underlying problems are exacerbated by relative poverty and poor living standards amongst working class parents.

Now I don't grudge teachers a decent pay increase, but I think it is obscene that one group of council employees should be treated so much better than another which is, of course, exactly what happened over the McCrone and Single Status pay agreements.

The McCrone Agreement was struck by the Labour/Lib Dem coalition government which was in power in Holyrood at the time, but the deal and allocation of an extra £800 million every year was supported by all of the mainstream political parties including the SNP which now dominates the political scene north of the border.

So the big question is how do the people at the bottom of the pay ladder catch up and improve their circumstances, comparatively speaking, if those above them in the pay pecking order keep pulling ahead?

If you ask me, a far better and more socially just use of that £800 million a year of public money would have been to allocate a large chunk of it to the people at the bottom of the pay ladder.

But for this to happen, in future, the government of the day will need to stop using public money to bolster the interests of comparatively well paid groups in Scottish society who also benefit hugely and disproportionately from other areas of public policy such as free university tuition and the extension of free school meals.

Who Gets What and Why? (06/04/16)

I've been saying for a long time that in these tough economic times people living in rented accommodation have been getting a raw deal compared to their neighbours and friends who have a mortgage.

And that's because mortgage payers have seen their housing costs fall significantly over the past five years with interest rates being at artificially low levels - whereas the cost of rented accommodation keeps going up as this article from the BBC web site shows with a big increase of 7.63% in West Dunbartonshire Council, for example.

Yet to add insult to injury the Scottish Government has announced extra spending on free school meals for a Primary 1-3 school pupils which is worth £114 million over two years or around £330 a year for each child - for families with children.

But not to the less well off families of course because their children already receive free school meals, so all these extra millions of pounds are going to support the better off - like Scotland's school teachers who enjoy much better than average pay.

Now Scotland's largest teaching union, the EIS, has been campaigning in support of these changes which is understandable as it is clearly in the interest of EIS members, but the bigger question is "Is such a policy fair and socially responsible?".

I say "No" because in my view the money would be much better spent on targeting the the less well off instead of further cushioning the lives of the better paid, especially when you stop and think that the majority of teachers will have been benefiting from the mortgage situation over the past five years.

So if you ask me, the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament has got this all wrong - the lower paid are the ones who deserve a break not people in already well paid jobs.

West Dunbartonshire Council announces housing rent rise

Rents for council house tenants in West Dunbartonshire are to rise by 7.63% from 1 April, it has been announced.

The council said the increase would add an extra £4.67 each week to the average weekly rent over the year.

Housing convener, Cllr David McBride, said the rent rise was "needed to pay for the major improvements required to our properties".

He added: "Increasing rents is never an easy decision but I believe our tenants understand why we need to do this."

P1-3 pupils in Scotland to get free school meals

The Scottish government matched a plan being introduced in England

All Scottish P1-P3 pupils will get free school meals from January 2015, First Minister Alex Salmond has announced.

He said the move, affecting 165,000 youngsters, would boost health and was worth £330 a year for each child to families.

The move matches a plan being introduced in England, in September this year.

Opposition parties accused the Scottish government of playing catch-up, and taking credit for Westminster policies.

The first minister also told the Scottish Parliament that free childcare would be expanded to every two-year-old from a workless household in Scotland by August, affecting about 8,400 youngsters.

Mr Salmond said a further extension of the policy to reach 15,400 two-year-olds by August 2015 would see Scotland delivering 80 million hours of childcare to pre-school children, which he said was the greatest amount in the UK.

The free meals announcement came after UK ministers announced plans to offer pupils in the first three years of primary school in England a free cooked lunch.

Scottish ministers followed suit, partly by using extra money going to Scotland, through the Barnett Formula, as a consequence of the English plan.

Mr Salmond said the Scottish government announcements would bring improvements, but fell short of the childcare revolution which Scotland needed.

Ahead of the independence referendum on 18 September, the Scottish government said all three and four-year-olds, and vulnerable two-year-olds, would get 1,140 hours of childcare a year by the end of the first parliament, in the event of a "Yes" vote.

But opposition parties said SNP ministers had the devolved powers to realise their childcare plans now.

Mr Salmond told MSPs: "We need to create a tax welfare and childcare system that doesn't plunge children into poverty, as the UK government is doing, that puts us on a par with the best childcare systems in the world.

"That is why the future of Scotland's children is the future of Scotland, and why Scotland's future is an independent one."

Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said the free school meals plan was promised by the SNP in 2007, but never delivered, adding: "Now it has been reprised, because the UK government has acted on it and provided the money."

She said of Mr Salmond's childcare vision: "What he had was an opportunity to show his new-found commitment to childcare was more than a referendum ploy and start delivering for working families and children now."

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, added: "A cynic might say that the SNP, having promised the earth and failed to deliver for years, has only now re-discovered its commitment to free school meals because the coalition government is delivering it.

"Today, we have a Westminster policy delivered with Westminster money, and the SNP playing catch-up but trying to claim the credit."

From Democracy Live: Alex Salmond announced his plan in parliament

However, the free school meal and childcare expansion plan, being funded at a total cost of £114m over two years, was welcomed by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, a long-time campaigner on the issue.

"The best educational investment we can make is in two-year-olds, because that can change their life," he said.

"If we're going to break the inter-generational cycle of poverty we can make efforts at later stages - we can do stuff about youth unemployment, we can try and improve life chances through schools - but the best impact we can make is in doing it at the age of two."

John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group, told BBC Scotland the school meals announcement was long overdue, adding: "The pressures on families and their ability to support their children are extraordinary, so providing a free school lunch to children in primary one to primary three is a very immediate, direct and well-evidenced way of supporting families at a time of increasing pressures."

Analysis

Brian Taylor

BBC Political editor, Scotland

Alex Salmond's critics suggested his enthusiasm for free school meals was driven by external factors: the availability of cash from the Treasury as a consequence of the previous announcement of a comparable scheme for England; a desire to cosset parents - and especially mothers - with an eye to the referendum.

The first minister insisted he was persuaded by the advantages of the policy: it encouraged uptake including among those who were nominally eligible at present; it improved the health and wellbeing of youngsters and thus their educational attainment

Give to the Needy (29 December 2013)

In the run up to Christmas Scotland's largest teaching union, the EIS, burst into fairy-lights by demanding that Scotland's 'share' of the extra public spending announced recently by the Coalition Government at Westminster - should be used to provide free school meals to all children in primaries 1, 2 and 3.

Now this is serious money we're talking about - around £60 million a year, I think, because Scotland will expect to get 10% or so of the extra public spending announced by the Chancellor, George Osborne, in his autumn statement.

Which is of course a free handout of taxpayers money to people who earn above average incomes - because school meals are already free to people on low incomes and to those claiming benefits.

So, the big beneficiaries of the new policy in England and Wales are the better off - since the less well off gain absolutely nothing from extending free school meals to children whose working parents are perfectly well able to meet the cost themselves.

In fact the policy benefits people exactly like EIS members, as I can't believe that any of Scotland's teachers currently qualify for free school meals - as things stand.

But if I had a Magic Wand, I would target this £60 million on the less well off and probably not just those with children - since that leaves out a great many people who have never had children or whose kids have grown up.

To my mind, £60 million spent on those most in need, would do far more good than spreading £60 million across the whole population - or in this case just people with children of a certain age.

Now some people say that social benefits should be 'universal' or available to everyone on the same basis - free NHS prescriptions in Scotland are a good example although they are not really free since the cost is met out of general taxation.

Yet this approach does not apply to the cost of housing and I've written before about the £20 billion windfall that mortgage payers have enjoyed in recent times which has not been shared with people who rent their homes or living on a fixed income.

So why not use the extra money in a more meaningful and imaginative way, for example, by holding down rents in the social housing sector?

Because this particular group within the Scottish population has not benefited from the artificially low interest rates that Scotland's mortgage payers have experienced in the past 5 years - which means that since 2008 mortgage payers have effectively been receiving special treatment as far as their standard of living is concerned.

A much better and fairer use of £60 million, if you ask me, as such a policy would put a significant amount of money in the pockets of those at the bottom of the income ladder - instead of subsidising members of the teaching profession and EIS (Educational Institute of Scotland).

The statistics tell their own tale - Scotland's share of the great £20 billion mortgage windfall is around £2 billion which makes £60 million look like chickenfeed.

So the argument about universality, about everyone being treated the same way, does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

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