GS Report

The General Secretary reported:

• Proud of activists/reps efforts to deliver the indicative ballot result as part of the industrial arm of our pay campaign
• High levels of member engagement – over six thousand member-meetings held since the new year; over twenty thousand workplace conversations since the preliminary ballots opened
• they confirm the merits of our workplace orientation – the presence of a rep, member-meetings and workplace conversations all doubling turnout
• Our indicative ballot has clearly unsettled the Secretary of State – who’s written asking us to abandon the ballot
• Our determination and agreed campaign strategy is to do everything we can to win pay restoration and to push education matters into the public discourse and high on the agenda for the General Election campaign
• Proud to lead a union which organises and mobilises members to make a difference
• Absolutely have to keep on fighting – and it is vital to put an incoming Government on notice that investment in education must be a priority
• A confidential paper from the General Secretary set out advice on potential next steps in the union’s pay and funding campaign.
• This week’s NFER report into recruitment and retention indicate that the downward trends continue with 10 of 17 targets missed; for every six teachers we fail to retain in the profession, we need to recruit ten;
• Top reason for the haemorrhage from the profession is workload; driven by the accountability regime and all exacerbated by the funding crisis within the sector
• Call for a Houghton moment – in 1974 against double-digit inflation and with a GE looming, the Houghton Commission recommended an immediate 25% uplift to teachers’ salaries across the board
• Have met the threshold in 6FC sector
• Task and Finish Group will meet after Easter and consider the next steps in our Support Staff strategy in the light of Conference Resolutions. 

Finally, the General Secretary reported that he and the President would be speaking at the PSC Conference on 23 March and would be encouraging a high turnout for the London demonstration on 30 March.  The next day of action will be held on 1 May which would focus on the crisis in Palestine and also defending the right to protest and to strike.

Pay and funding ballot

Recommendation 1

That every level of the Union – workplace, branches, regions and national; activists and staff – must remain focussed on maximising turnout before the teachers’ ballots close on Thursday 28 March. Likewise for the support staff ballots that close on Friday 19 April.

To that end, over and above the grid of member and rep communication activities reported to it, the Committee recommends the following further activities for the closing week of the teachers’ ballot:

• Local district/branch officers prioritise one more ring round of reps in their district/branch, focussing first on those with the largest number of target member non-voters;
• Local district/branch officers are invited to join field staff to help out on the national phone bank of reps in target branches;
• General Secretary video-short ‘call to arms’ for reps and activists to cascade to members via social media/advert;
• Executive committee members support these activities through a final ring round of their district and branch secretaries.

Recommendation 2

That, as already agreed by Executive, mindful that every previous formal ballot turnout typically lags at least 10 percentage points behind their preliminary, any move to a formal ballot of teachers in state-funded schools must be likely to be successful and meet the legislative requirements. The focus set out in 1 is our best hope of achieving that goal.  Therefore, any increases made with this improved activity should be factored into the discussion at the Special Executive, and not just limit our decision to the total figure on the teacher ballot.

Recommendation 3

That in the eventuality that it is possible to proceed to a formal ballot, the Special Executive should propose an Emergency Motion to annual conference that sets out a timetable for a formal ballot during the summer term.

Recommendation 4

That in the eventuality that it is not possible to proceed to a formal ballot, the Special Executive should propose an Emergency Motion to annual conference that sets out alternative tactics to prosecute our pay and funding campaign, up to and beyond the upcoming General Election.

Recommendation 5

For the final phase of the indicative ballots, our communications need to clearly and boldly explain what we mean by increased staffing, this could include:

• A teaching assistant in every class, with additional support for students with Special Educational Needs
• Adequate staffing to bring down average class sizes to be in line with Scotland
• The necessary funding for schools to provide teachers with 20% PPA

That these be communicated to reps through a video from the General Secretary, social media tiles (with an ask for these to be set as profile pictures until the end of the ballot period) and a staff room poster emailed out to all reps to display until end of ballot period and any other methods to sharpen messaging.  Data be collected on the impact of messaging on rise in turnout, to be reported to the Special Executive prior to Conference.

The Executive also endorsed all Strategy Committee reports from March and agreed:

• noted the Finance Report with a surplus of £150,887 as the actual surplus is £6,738,478 against a budget of £6,587,591. The total National Subscription income received during the period was £37,478,394 against a budget of £37,332,250 creating a positive variance of £146,144
• noted the estimated expenditure on the indicative and formal ballots and agreed that £338,200 be allocated from the Pay Campaign contingency to the relevant budget headings to reflect spending to date
• Agreed an alternative process to the existing exhaustive ballot is adopted for Executive elections whereby all members have votes equivalent to the number of elected places and each candidate is voted on in turn; the candidates polling top equating to the number of elected places are elected; this system to be reviewed after 6 months.  The votes remain by show of hands
•  Amendments to Standing Orders to allow, where the subject matter of the general motion is not confined to one Strategy or Executive committee or merits debate before the full Executive, OSG/the President can decide to refer the motion directly to the full Executive
• Carly Slingsby, Kate Taylor and Michaela Wilde were elected to the Support Staff Task and Finish Group (alongside the President, Senior Vice President, Chair BNC, Chair US, Support staff seat holder)
• Emma Brady was elected unopposed to the Professional Conduct (Criminal Convictions) Committee
• Kate Taylor was elected unopposed to the Professional Unity Committee:
• The Executive agreed to donate £10,000 to Education Support; £1,000 to Banner Theatre and £20,000 to Love Music: Hate Racism towards a float at Notting Hill Carnival
• To send an emergency motion to Conference, in the name of the Executive:

Impact of racist language and violence on schools and communities

Conference notes: –

1. The racist, misogynistic comments by Frank Hester, the Conservative Party’s biggest donor, about Dianne Abbot MP
2. That Hester’s comment that an MP “should be shot” normalises violence against women
3. The 2022 internal Labour Party Forde report identified “overt and underlying racism and sexism” towards Abbott and other Black MPs 
4. That former Home Secretary Suella Braverman claimed “Islamists” are “in charge” of Britain. 
5. That Lee Anderson MP, former Conservative Party Deputy Chair, claimed that Islamists are ‘in control of London’.
6. That Braverman’s speech about migration being a threat to British Values was praised by fascist organisations including the BNP and Britain First.
    

Conference believes that the: –

1.  language and behaviour of certain elected politicians actively encourages and emboldens the far right and encourages and normalises harassment, discrimination and violence.
2. growth of racist, far right and fascist groups will have serious consequences in schools and colleges; and deter women, LGBT+ and Black candidates from standing for public office.
3. the Government is not doing enough to help schools and colleges challenge racism or to respond to poverty and deprivation in their communities.
4. the Prevent policy undermines effective safeguarding and compounds discrimination against Muslim students and staff.

Conference expresses full solidarity with Diane Abbott and instructs the Executive: 

i) To support and publicise mobilisations against racism and far right and fascist groups called by organisations, to which we are affiliated

ii) To work with partners to produce anti racism curriculum materials supporting critical thinking skills and digital literacy.

iii) To produce General Election campaign materials against racism and fascism and work with organisations such as Stand up To Racism to do so (in line with political fund rules) and briefings for members and wider audiences explaining why Prevent doesn’t achieve effective safeguarding but does fuel discriminatory stereotypes

iv) To campaign for awareness of the Union’s current advice around avoiding disproportionate Prevent referrals; and for Prevent to be abolished.