Call for controls over principals' pay

Report goes to NI assembly members

A report into pay rises given to school principals in Northern Ireland has called for a tightening up of the system.

The Northern Ireland Audit Office has said that in a small number of cases, teachers had been made redundant from schools where the principal had had an excessive pay rise.

The report also called for greater oversight and control of school Boards of Governors by the province's Department of Education and local education boards, to assure themselves there was "consistency and reasonableness" in salary increases.

Chief executive of the North Eastern Education and Library Board, Gordon Topping said the Northern Ireland Assembly now needed to ensure that there was clear accountability.

"We would like to be able to have an approving role so that when the governors make a recommendation to us, we then approve that recommendation," he said.

"What we want to do is to make sure that there's accountability and there's control of public money and that there's fairness and equity in the system."

Since educational reforms in 1993, school boards of governors have had responsibility for "pay flexibility" for principals and vice-principals.

In his report to assembly members, John McDowdall highlighted a number of cases in which he questioned pay awards made by school boards.

'Salary increases'

He cited the example of the principal of a secondary school who was moved one point up the pay scale, putting him nine points above that recommended for the school.

Mr McDowdall said: "In the same year the school had experienced two teacher redundancies and a budget deficit. In the subsequent year, three further redundancies were required because of an increased deficit."

In another secondary school the governors recommended an award one point above the applicable range for the size and circumstances of the school.

"This resulted in a salary increase in excess of £7,300 - at the same time the governors proposed to reduce the school's teaching staff."

In a primary school, the principal had been given a rise of six points up the pay scale - taking him above the maximum relevant pay band.

Pay flexibility report

But in the same year the school required a budget supplement and made two teachers redundant.

The pay flexibility report said the vast majority of principals and vice-principals did not make annual progress up the salary scale.

It said that where pay flexibility was used boards of governors must have regard to the statutory criteria covering the responsibilities of the post, the socio-economic circumstances of the school, any difficulty in filling the post and the post-holder's performance.

But the Audit Office found that "in a significant proportion of the cases" it examined "Boards of Governors needed to demonstrate with greater clarity that the salary award met the requirements".

The report cited the governors of a primary school who, when challenged by the local education board about an above-range pay award, responded that the matter had been "fully discussed and agreed by the appropriate committee in the school and no further comment would be made".

The Department of Education, which is headed by Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, said it was considering the report and would respond fully in due course.