CAB129-78 — Page 312

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT

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Printed for the Cabinet. December 1955

SECRET

C.P. (55) 212

30th December, 1955

CABINET

Copy No. 59

TEACHERS' SALARIES IN SCOTLAND

MEMORANDUM BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND

I circulate for consideration with the memorandum by the Minister of Education (C.P. (55) 211) about teachers' salaries some notes on the position in Scotland.

2. In Scotland, as in England, the teachers are protesting violently against the Teachers' (Superannuation) Bill and some of them are backing their protests by claiming that their real grievance is about the low level of their salaries. But I suspect that, in so far as teachers have switched from direct attacks on the Bill to complaints of being generally underpaid, it is because they think that the salaries' issue is a more favourable one to fight on and I feel that their salary grievances are being aired so insistently because the most effective way of attacking the Bill seems to them to be to represent it as a cut in salaries which are already inadequate. It is also to be noted that there is still among Scottish teachers a great deal of criticism of the Bill because it does not provide for a widows' pension scheme at least partly financed by their employers.

3. I attach to this memorandum an appendix comparable to that attached to C.P. (55) 211, showing how Scottish teachers' salaries have moved compared with average weekly earnings in industry. In 1938 teachers' salaries in Scotland tended to be rather lower than those in England and since the War they have risen rather more than English salaries. But by and large Scottish teachers' salaries, like those in England, have not kept pace with the increases in industrial earnings.

4. Scottish teachers' salaries are discussed in a National Joint Council composed of representatives of the Educational Institute of Scotland and of education authorities sitting under an independent chairman appointed by me and recognised by me under Section 79 (2) of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1946. The recommendations of this body are not binding on me, but in making salaries' regulations I am required to have regard to them and in practice it would not be easy to depart materially from them.

5. I received from the Council in December recommendations for increases in the basic salaries of graduate teachers and for the creation of new posts of special responsibility in senior secondary schools attracting the payment of allowances. These recommendations were based on the consideration by the Council of the Appleton Report on the shortage of mathematics and science teachers and I propose to give effect to them in regulations which will be published in draft on 4th January and come into force on 1st April. Their effect on honours graduates' salaries is shown in the appendix.

6. Scottish teachers' salaries are due for a general revision to take effect from April 1957, and I have already asked the National Joint Council to give me their recommendations by November 1956. Meanwhile the Council have begun to consider a claim by the teachers' side for a flat rate increase of £100 for all teachers, which is the counterpart of the English teachers claim in November for a 10 per cent. rise in basic scales. The education authorities' side have so far made no counter offer to this claim and are unlikely to do so until they are reasonably clear about what the Burnham Committee are going to recommend.

Scottish Office, S.W. 1,

29th December, 1955.

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