12 minute read
SBL on the leadership scale
NAHT believes school business leaders (SBLs), who are part of the school leadership team (SLT), should be on a similar salary range as other SLT staff. However, many are paid under the arrangements for local authority staff and not on the ranges used for the school’s SLT. Here, Leadership Focus journalist NIC PATON speaks to SBLs about the issue of fair pay.
Nilesh Pandya neatly sums up one of the ironies –and the challenges –that school business leaders face when putting their heads above the parapet to ask for more money.
“Because we oversee the budget and because we generally tell everyone to watch the pennies, I know many school business leaders really struggle to argue the case for their job descriptions to be evaluated,” says the director of finance and school business manager at Roding Primary School in Woodford Bridge, Essex.
“They feel they will be contradicting themselves and given a hard time about it. I’ve spoken to many colleagues who feel this way, which is ironic given the savings they probably generate for their schools because of their ability to negotiate and scrutinise,” he adds.
Earlier in this edition of Leadership Focus, we highlighted how the government’s proposal to raise newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs’) starting salaries to £30,000 by 2022 has brought into sharp relief the erosion of pay and pay differentials further up the teaching scale. So too it appears to have been something of a final straw for many increasingly disgruntled school business leader members.
Rose-Marie Smith, school business manager at Long Furlong Primary School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, sums up the anger: “Much though I value my teacher colleagues, the prospect of being paid the same salary as an NQT leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. I feel our salaries should be at least on a par with SLT - if not, on the lower leadership level.”
We’ll return to Nilesh and Rose-Marie later on. But, even if Rose- Marie hadn’t already articulated it so clearly, it’s not hard to spot the flaw in the government’s NQT plan, even though in itself, it arguably can be seen as a positive ministerial response to the profession’s teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
According to finance consultant Hilary Goldsmith’s September survey of SBLs and school finance professionals’ pay, the average salary for SBLs is now just shy of £39,000, or approximately equivalent to an upper pay scale (UPS) 2 teacher with no teaching and learning responsibility. So, if NQTs are coming in on £30,000 and everyone else is not equally adjusted upwards, you immediately risk pay levels and pay progression being, as Nilesh puts it, “concertinaed” – whether we’re talking experienced teaching staff or senior support staff such as SBLs.
For SBLs, in particular, all this is coming on top of the massive expansion in recent years to their role and responsibilities. This has, in part, been driven by academisation and the resulting heightened levels of financial accountability, reporting and governance required for individual trusts and MATs, and in part, by the national funding crisis in education putting the book-balancing role of the SBL under intense scrutiny, workload and pressure.
“It’s certainly a growing problem,” agrees NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman. “Our SBL members are telling us their pay is well behind that of their leadership colleagues in education. We’ve got to solve this one quickly; otherwise, these essential people will take their skills elsewhere, and who would blame them?
“Financial acumen has become a must-have skill within a school’s senior leadership team. There’s more compliance, more complexity and more dire consequences if things go wrong. Schools are being encouraged to be more efficient with their budgets and more creative with sources of income. The case for SBLs to be part of the leadership team, and paid accordingly, is unarguable.”
NAHT believes there should be a national framework that defines the roles and sets out the pay and conditions of all those employed in a national, publicly funded education system, including SBLs. This should position the SBL on the leadership scale, with comparable remuneration to other school leadership roles, such as deputy and assistant heads.
But this presents SBLs and their schools with another problem. “In some cases, there is no system for any review,” highlights Rachel Younger, business manager at St Nicholas Church of England Primary School in Blackpool and chair of NAHT’s school business leaders’ sector council.
“You were told, 10 years ago, ‘this is the grade you are on’, and there is no system for that being reviewed. I don’t have words for that, to be honest. Even though the job may have changed beyond recognition, there is no system for it to be reviewed; it is just completely wrong.
“I’ve also heard of cases where the head teacher does not recognise the level of skill and knowledge required to do the job an SBL is doing and will block any concept of the SBL getting apay rise. In other cases, the head teacher has been really behind them, really supportive of them getting a pay rise. Yet they’ve gone to a governors’ panel to get their pay reviewed and, even with the head teacher sitting next to them and fully supportive, the governors have turned them down.
“So, I think there is work to be done at all levels. Some people say we need a national pay scale for SBLs. But how easy that is to achieve, I don’t know,” she adds.
Paul concedes that, at the moment, there is simply not “the necessary machinery or systems in place” to effect radical change overnight.
“Our efforts on behalf of SBLs are focused on creating a national framework. We have made an extensive case in our latest submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). Alongside this work, we continue to promote the work of SBLs in schools and ensure other school leadership roles, as well as governors, have a clear understanding of the role.
“It is a systemic change that we are arguing for. There are significant leadership roles that don’t really form part of the school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD) and aren’t, therefore, under the same format and architecture. For example, there is also no single document or framework that is a reference point for how salaries for chief executive roles in academy trusts should be set. By the same token, SBLs, although part of the school leadership team, fall outside the architecture of the provision of the STPCD.
“So, we are arguing there should be a national framework for all school leaders. Whether that is called the STPCD, or whether the STPCD remains the central document but sets the standard for frameworks for other leadership groups is still a work in progress. But what we want to see is a common approach to leadership pay in schools rather than the current fragmented one where you get these huge differentials,” Paul says.
“In the meantime, at a local level, we support individual members with their cases for pay reviews. We have also developed advice for members around school business leaders’ pay and grading.”
With schools’ budgets at breaking point, the role of the school business leader has never been more important. If everyone in the education system is going to be paid fairly for the work they do, the overall levels of funding have to rise.
CASE STUDY
NILESH PANDYA is director of finance and school business manager at Roding Primary School in Woodford Bridge, Essex.
“I fully appreciate that, in the grand scheme of things, we are probably one of the better-paid members of staff. I am on £44,500, so I recogniseand appreciate that I am well paid compared with some.
“The problem we have is the level of responsibility we hold is equivalent to a leadership position, but we’re not generally paid at a leadership level. Because we are categorised as support staff, our pay is decided in line with support staff pay scales, which are significantly less generous than those on leadership and there is limited scope for movement.
“To all intents and purposes, I am the director of operations in my school, even though that is not my actual title. I am not just director of finance; I am also, in effect, the director of HR, and pensions, and health and safety, and premises and so on. In the corporate sector, that would be pretty senior. But my salary is not anywhere equivalent to what that level of post would command.
“You have to fight tooth and nail to get any progression, regardless of the level of your responsibilities. I was lucky enough to get a one-grade increase, but the battle we had to go through to secure that was disproportionate. I don't begrudge teachers their pay at all because they work very, very hard. It is just the disparity there.
“My head teacher is completely on board. She’s told me ‘you’re no different to a deputy head teacher, but I can’t pay you as a deputy head teacher because my hands are tied’. All things being equal, if we were able to be on the teachers’ leadership scale, albeit not as teachers, that would make a real difference.
“We are probably the most senior ‘support staff’ in the school, but we are still recognised as that, as support staff. And that not only creates a barrier to progression but also prevents schools from attracting the best people for the role and the responsibility it carries. You need that level of expertise to be able to do the job competently.
“So, yes, I think NAHT needs to push for school business leaders to be seen as a full member of the leadership team within schools in every sense of the word, and that includes salary.”
CASE STUDY
ROSE-MARIE SMITH is school business manager at Long Furlong Primary School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
“The first thing to be clear on is that I don’t begrudge teachers their pay. They are on the front line; they do an amazing job. But I think it is fair to say that many school business leaders are also now on the front line.
“My school is a medium-sized, one-form entry, primary school. So not only do I do the finances, premises, health and safety, and all of those things but I am also on the front line of dealing with parents and all colleagues in the school. So, there is a huge remit there. We are handling, managing and running budgets of millions of pounds, and that is quite a responsibility. And I do think it is time that was recognised and reflected in salaries.
“My full-time equivalent salary is just a fraction over £30,000 a year, which obviously I am grateful for, but it is nearly £10,000 less than what is considered the SBL average. Despite the increasing responsibilities and workload during the time I’ve been in the role, there’s absolutely no scope for pay negotiation at a local level.
“A lot of us will have built up the experience and put in the time to gain extra qualifications. It is just disappointing to think that it is not on a par with a teacher who has been teaching for a good number of years on perhaps an upper pay level or a leadership salary. It just seems unequal.
“Frankly, I feel we need to agitate more and make our feelings known. Individual members can get in touch with other members in their area to develop more of a collective voice. We need to take responsibility and make our voice heard, not just rely on other people or organisations to do it for us.”
‘APPROXIMATELY EQUIVALENT TO A UPS 2 TEACHER’
Finance consultant Hilary Goldsmith’s survey last autumn of school business leaders illustrates just how difficult, and corrosive, an issue SBLs’ pay is already becoming, even before you take into account the possible effect of a £30,000 NQT starting salary.
The average salary for SBLs was £38,938 (FTE £41,927), approximately equivalent to a UPS 2 teacher with no teaching and learning responsibility, her survey of 324 SBLs and chief financial or operating officers concluded. This chimes with NAHT’s survey of members, conducted in 2018, which found the average salary for an SBL is £40,000 a year. Although this was up 9% from our 2016 survey, it is still substantially below that of the rest of the leadership team –the average leadership salary in England is £58,881 (School Workforce Statistics, 2018).
At the same time, their role and responsibilities have been expanding markedly, the survey found. SBLs are having to cope with funding cuts, deal with issues such as the General Data Protection Regulation, handle increased financial reporting requirements and manage rising supply chain and materials costs.
More than six out of 10 SBLs (62%) reported feeling underpaid and undervalued. Of these, 52% felt they were being paid up to £10,000 less than they should be, and the remaining 10% believed their underpayment was even higher. Drilling down, 69% of primary SBLs felt they were “significantly” underpaid along with 46% of secondary SBLs.
Despite this, a total of 14% were not considered part of their senior leadership team, even though they had responsibility for financial and operational business matters, and 16% were considered “occasional” or ad hoc members. A total of 37% did not even attend governing body or trust board meetings, the survey found.
A total of 14% conceded their job description needed “a total rewrite”, and 4% admitted they were operating without a formal job description at all. Four out of 10 (42%) were on term-time only contracts and did not get paid school holidays. Again, this fits with NAHT’s research, which found only 46% of SBLs had a pay review in the last three years. However, when they did have the review, the vast majority (85%) reported those reviews had resulted in an increase in pay.
POSITION AND WHAT WE’RE DOING TO HELP MEMBERS
NAHT believes there should be a national framework that defines the roles and sets out the pay and conditions of all those employed in a national, publicly funded education system, including SBLs. This should position the SBL role on the leadership scale, with comparable remuneration to other school leadership roles, such as deputy and assistant heads.
NAHT continues to make attempts, through the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), to get the creation of such a national framework, and we made an extensive case in our latest submission, which is available on our website (www.naht.org.uk).
Alongside this work, we continue to promote the work of SBLs in schools and ensure other school leadership roles, as well as governors, have a clear understanding of the role.
At a local level, we support individual members with their cases for pay reviews. We have also developed advice for members around school business leaders’ pay and grading (again, available on our website: www.naht.org.uk).
