School heads to ballot for first national strike

National Association of Head Teachers general secretary predicts 'mass exodus' in row over pensions

Headteachers have set themselves on a collision course with the education secretary, Michael Gove, and the coalition government after voting overwhelmingly to ballot for their first national strike.

At their annual conference in Brighton, members of Britain's biggest headteachers' union ? the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) ? agreed to vote on whether to take industrial action in protest at proposed changes to their pensions. Of the 386 voters, 99.6% wanted a ballot, while 0.4% abstained.

It is now highly likely, according to the NAHT, that heads will vote in favour of a strike ? a move that would close thousands of primary and secondary schools in England and Wales and affect millions of children.

It comes after two of the country's main teaching unions voted to ballot members for a national strike over the proposals last month.

The National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers are likely to strike in June and again in the autumn. Lecturers staged a walkout over the same issue in March.

The NAHT is generally known to take a moderate stance so its decision to ballot will be all the more difficult for ministers. The union said the ballot would be held in the autumn.

A government-commissioned report in March by the former Labour minister Lord Hutton called for final salary pension schemes to be scrapped and replaced with career averages for public sector workers. He recommended that public sector staff should pay higher monthly contributions and called for a rise in the retirement age to 68 ? most heads now retire aged 60 to 65.

The government has forecast that the cost of teachers' pensions will rise from about �5bn in 2005 to almost �10bn by 2015 as more staff retire and life expectancy increases.

Russell Hobby, the NAHT's general secretary, said the proposed pension reforms would amount to a major pay cut and encouraged his 28,000 members to vote in favour of a strike. The NAHT said Hutton's proposals would mean a head earning �50,000 would have to pay an extra �1,700 in pension contributions each year and a head retiring aged 55 would lose 42% of his or her pension.

Hobby said it was essential that the existing pension arrangements remained, and predicted a "mass exodus" from the profession if it did not. When the teachers' pension scheme was changed in 2007, there was a spike in the number of retirements.

Heads argue that the teachers' pension scheme is not in deficit, unlike some other public sector workers' schemes, and so does not need to be changed.

Speaking to the NAHT conference, Gove said public sector pensions had to be reformed given the "dire economic situation the government has inherited". However, he said he recognised that teachers had a "unique compact" with the government under which their pension compensated for earning less than if they had chosen another profession.

"We will consult openly with you ? and I will be a champion for the interests of educational professionals," he said. "We acknowledge that one size doesn't fit when it comes to pensions.

"There has been an unspoken compact between teachers and the state which balances the way that pensions and pay operates."

The government is expected to announce its proposals for pensions in the autumn following negotiations with the Trades Union Congress.

The Department for Education said teachers' pensions needed to be reformed because, in the early 1970s, 60-year-olds were expected to live for another 18 years but that had now risen to about 28 years.

But headteachers threatened to refuse to co-operate with the government ? and possibly stage strikes ? unless their pensions were protected.

Chris Hill, headteacher of Hounslow Town primary in London, said heads should look into refusing to co-operate with the government over new initiatives if the changes went ahead. "We can be very effective in getting our way," he said.

Chris Howard, headteacher of Lewis secondary school in Caerphilly, said a pension was an "integral part of the pay bargain that every public sector worker makes with the government".

"The bargain we make is that we give ourselves and our service as public servants for our life and, in the end, we expect some time where we can accrue public benefit for that. If the government proceeds down this path of pension changes then the bargain will be broken and our society will be the poorer for it."

Stephen Kirkpatrick, a 36-year-old deputy headteacher in Salford, said that although he loved teaching, he would be prepared to quit if the changes went ahead. "That is a mindset common to people who are young in the profession."

Gove also told the conference that heads would be able to fire incompetent teachers more quickly under plans to be published by the government next month.

At the moment, it takes heads at least two years to sack weak teachers and much longer if they claim they have been bullied or go on long-term leave for stress.

"Our proposals will make it easier and quicker to get rid of underperforming teachers," Gove said. "We are going to make the process faster and simpler and we will deal with some of the most notorious dodges which have been used by teachers."

Jessica Shepherd

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds