Last year, while ranting about private companies seeking to run “back office services”, I pointed out that school office staff do a lot more than they are given credit for (Protecting the ‘back office’, SecEd, November 2016: http://bit.ly/2r4GWSN).
The subsequent laughable suggestion by right-wing think-tank Reform that receptionists could be replaced by automated entry systems (yeah, all they do is sit there and let people in and out...) pushed me to request a survey of school office staff so we could highlight the valuable work they do.
This is increasingly important, as in January the Department for Education (DfE) mapped out where it thinks potential savings could come from.
Around £750 million (out of the £3 billion it expects schools to find) would be from “other staff costs” (i.e. not classroom-based staff). The DfE also suggests in its recent guidance on school workforce planning, that schools might consider sharing or merging “non-classroom” posts.
We also know that when pushed on where they might find savings, senior leaders identify this group of staff at the top of the list and indeed there is a host of job cuts taking place. In the context of austerity something has to be top of heads’ lists, but the approach of different headteachers and academy trust CEO ranges from thought-through action planning to knee-jerk easy option.
So what would schools and pupils miss if school office staff go? More than 1,400 office staff responded to our survey showing the frontline tasks they do: 88 per cent deal directly with parent concerns, 74 per cent do school trip admin, 71 per cent run ID checks, 65 per cent manage attendance, 63 per cent are involved in pupil welfare, 62 per cent monitor medical records, and 56 per cent help parents to fill in forms.
And of great interest: 55 per cent administer medicines and 53 per cent perform first aid.
Asked what impact they felt they had in the schools, 76 per cent said they reduced teacher workload, 75 per cent helped with school-parent relationships, 51 per cent saved the school money, 46 per cent supported pupil health needs and 31 per cent said they made vulnerable learners safer. Furthermore, office staff say they regularly work additional unpaid hours each week (74 per cent).
One respondent sums things up nicely: “I’m frustrated that the workload has increased but pay remains the same. Jobs that redundant colleagues used to do have ended up on my desk and my job description says they can be done by me even though they were someone else’s responsibility. Management makes teaching staff the priority with little thought to the admin/support staff.”
Ignorance of the work office staff do has become increasingly evident. We have recently declared disputes with several national multi-academy trusts as they attempted to push through ill-judged cuts to school office and facilities staff to save money.
As these proceeded we have had to correct numerous inaccuracies and assumptions. Two of these disputes ended up at ACAS after joint union campaigns supported by staff, governors and parents, and only here was a sensible agreement reached. Our sister unions have been very supportive as they know when a school office worker is made redundant someone else will have to pick up their work.
Of course this will all be sorted soon – the election manifestos suggest everyone was feeling generous towards education, no doubt prompted by the great campaigns run by parent groups and school unions.
The least generous offer was from the Conservatives, but even they said they would dig out an extra billion, which means real-term cuts should only be 2.6 per cent per-pupil by 2022 – so that’s okay then...
Cutting office staff is not easy and for the DfE to suggest billions of pounds of cuts are possible without an impact on outcomes is fantasy land.
- Jon Richards is UNISON’s national secretary for education. Visit www.unison.org.uk/education