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Recruitment and retention

 
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School leaders are driven by an ambition to provide opportunities for young people to reach their full potential. To fulfil that ambition, teaching must attract and retain a high-quality, well-trained and properly rewarded workforce. 

Through our work with members, NAHT is documenting and communicating the unfolding recruitment and retention crisis taking place in our schools to policymakers at the highest levels. 

NAHT is campaigning to:

Ensure all schools can recruit and retain excellent teachers and leaders

  • Lobby for change and reform of key macro issues affecting recruitment and retention: pay, accountability, funding and workload and identify key actions to be taken to improve these
  • Press for the development of a range of flexible leadership and non-leadership pathways to support recruitment and retention, including new opportunities that will retain the experience and expertise of mid to late career leaders
  • Build on the opportunities offered by the Early Career Framework to press for similar support for new heads, deputies and assistants, and school business leaders
  • Maintain a watching brief on the impact of Brexit on teacher supply
  • Lobby the DfE for practical measures to address the workload of school leaders, including protection of strategic leadership time
  • Campaign for a staged real term, restorative pay award for teachers and school leaders
  • Develop a position on the role of CEOs and other posts outside the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) including a position on which roles should have a requirement for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)
  • Lobby for a review of the pay system, including the STPCD
  • Press government to maintain and enhance the teacher's pension scheme and/or Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS)
  • Support work to ensure the profession represents a diverse workforce, including those with protected characteristics
  • Support effective partnerships between school leaders and governors with clarity of roles and responsibilities across different school structures.

Create a safe working environment for school leaders and their staff

  • Lobby the DfE to take concrete steps to tackle verbal and physical abuse and aggression against school staff, including harassment online and through social media.  

Ensure professional recognition of school business leaders (SBLs)

  • Lobby the DfE for SBLs to be included within a new national framework of terms and conditions for school staff
  • Promote the professional standards framework for all SBLs
  • Raise the profile and understanding of the SBL role across the school sector, including with governors.  

 

Read our latest report on the school leader retention crisis (December 2022)
 
Read the latest updates in our pay hub
 
Read the latest updates in our pensions hub
 
Find out more about our campaign to Restore Pay in Education
 
Find out more about NAHT's work for school business leaders
 

Treasury responds to consultation on public service pensions cost control mechanism

The government has published its response to the recent consultation on the cost control mechanism (CCM).

What is the cost control mechanism?

The Independent Public Service Pensions Commission recommended in 2011 that the new public service pension schemes should include an employer cost control mechanism to protect taxpayers from unforeseen increases in scheme costs. While the commission recommended a mechanism to protect the taxpayer from increased cost, the final negotiated mechanism is symmetrical and so also maintains the value of pensions to members when costs fall.

Why was there a consultation on it?

In light of the impact of the McCloud judgement, and previous outcomes from the mechanism, the government launched a consultation seeking views on three possible changes to the mechanism, which NAHT submitted a response to.

Consultation outcome

In its response to the consultation, the Treasury confirmed it would be taking forward the three reform proposals outlined in the consultation.

  • The first was moving to a "reformed scheme-only design". This means that the mechanism will only considers past and future service in the reformed schemes; with costs related to legacy schemes excluded.
  • The second was widening the corridor from plus/minus 2 per cent of pensionable pay to plus/minus 3 per cent, with the aim being to ensure consistency between the benefits being assessed and the set potentially being adjusted, thereby creating more consistency in the system.
  • The third was the introduction of an "economic check" in order that the cost-control mechanism is able to reflect the actual cost to the government of providing pension benefits. Under this system, a breach of the mechanism "would only be implemented if it would still have occurred had any changes in the long-term economic assumptions have been considered", the government's consultation explained.

NAHT response

NAHT opposed the review of the mechanism, pressing for no alterations to be made and that all public servants be offered access to the career average sections of public sector pension schemes in the ordinary way post 1 April 2022. Within this, we outlined our fundamental opposition to the proposal to introduce an economic check into the mechanism.

NAHT will continue to engage with government on the alterations, through our role on the pension scheme advisory board.

What's the timeline for this?

The Treasury is aiming to implement all three proposals in time for the 2020 public sector scheme valuations.

First published 20 October 2021

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