CAB129-78 — Page 308

Printed for the Cabinet. December 1955

Page 308

SECRET

C.P. (55) 211

30th December, 1955

CABINET

Copy No. 59

TEACHERS' SALARIES

MEMORANDUM BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION

"The price of many things is farre above, what they are bought and sold for. Life, and Health, which are both inestimable, we have of the Physician: As Learning, and Knowledge, the true tillage of the mind, from our Schoole-masters. But the fees of the one, or the salary of the other, never answer the value of what we received; but serv'd to gratifie their labours."

BEN JONSON-Discoveries.

My colleagues may like to be informed of the present position, since the row over the Superannuation Bill is really about salaries.

2. We are witnessing a demonstration against the drastic and continuing change in the pre-war relationship between salaries and wages (including overtime). The salaried middle class as a whole is feeling the pinch. The decline in their standards gives rise, in my view, to the most serious tension in our society to-day. Where industrial earnings are greatest, the teachers' protests are loudest, but there is strong dissatisfaction throughout the staffs of the maintained schools, and on the issue of salaries they have the public with them.

The Appendix to this paper gives figures to illustrate this grievance as the teachers see it. The tables are not intended as a pointer to what teachers' salaries should be. To judge of this the level of the salaries of other public servants would have to be taken into account.

3. Teachers' salaries are discussed in the Burnham Committee, which is composed of representatives of the teachers' associations and of the local education authorities, under the Chairmanship of Lord Percy of Newcastle. The Committee submits recommendations to the Minister of Education which he can approve or reject hitherto they have always been approved. This machinery is written into the Act of 1944. The Minister can neither fix salaries nor approve a rise to be dated retrospectively, but he can ask the Committee to take a particular circumstance into account.

4. The salary scales are due for a general revision in April, 1957. In the ordinary way discussions would start in the spring of 1956. However, last month, before the Superannuation Bill was introduced, the teachers brought a claim to the Burnham Committee for an interim rise in basic scales of 10 per cent. to operate from 1st April, 1956. They based this on changes in the cost of living, and did not adduce the additional 1 per cent. in pensions' contribution.

5. The local authorities, who had just given a 5 per cent. increase to their other employees, countered with a suggestion of a 5 per cent. interim increase for the teachers to start from 1st April, 1956, which happens to be the date from which the Superannuation Bill is to operate. Sir Ronald Gould, the present Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, asked for time to consider this informal offer. On 22nd December the Teachers' Panel met and decided to reject it, and to ask instead that negotiations should begin at once for revised scales (their bid is something like a 25 per cent. increase costing £50 million a year). They know

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