Confederation of School Trusts Chief Executive Leora Cruddas CBE said: "Academies can currently choose whether to follow a national framework for pay and conditions for school support staff, so making it a legal requirement to do so would be a significant change.
"School trusts do not all operate in the same way, and we must ensure that schools in all types of structures can benefit from the flexibility to deploy support staff in the ways that most benefits pupils, particularly some of our most vulnerable pupils. The reforms so desperately needed to our special educational needs system rely on this, for example.
"Much of the detail of the new requirements will be set out in secondary legislation. We will work closely with government to ensure that the final legislation both supports fair employment terms for these vital colleagues and protects the flexibility that we have seen is crucial to the ongoing work of trusts to improve children's education."
- Research by CST conducted this summer found that nearly two-thirds of trusts reported they had struggled to fill teaching assistant vacancies this year, with more than 40% reporting difficulty recruiting SEND specialists and general support staff.
- Pay and conditions for maintained school support staff is currently negotiated alongside other local authority staff, known as the NJC Green Book. Currently 94% of school trusts voluntarily follow these provisions for support staff in academies. All non-teaching staff employed directly by school trusts are eligible to join the Local Government Pension Scheme.
- The Department for Education has engaged with the prospective members of the SSSNB. This includes CST, along with staff trade unions, the Local Government Association, the Catholic Education Service in England and Wales and Church of England Education Service.
