States Meeting Transcript - 28th September 2016

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT

WEDNESDAY, 28th SEPTEMBER 2016

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption ...............................................................3

1. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition For 2017 – 2019 (P.68/2016) – amendment (P.68/2016 Amd.) – resumption.............................................3

1. Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier:................................................3

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour:......................................................3
2. Deputy A.D. Lewis of St. Helier:........................................................4
3. Connétable C.H. Taylor of St. John : .....................................................5
4. Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity :............................................................6
5. Deputy S.M. Brée of St. Clement:........................................................6
6. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier:........................................................7
7. Senator A.K.F. Green: ...................................................................9
8. Deputy R. Labey of St. Helier:...........................................................9
9. Deputy P.D. McLinton of St. Saviour:..................................................10
10. Deputy T.A. Vallois of St. John : ....................................................10
11. Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier:....................................................11
12. Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier:..................................................12
13. Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement:..............................................12
14. Deputy R.J. Renouf of St. Ouen : ....................................................13
15. Senator S.C. Ferguson:..............................................................13
16. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf : ...............................................................13
17. Senator I.J. Gorst : ...................................................................15
18. Connétable S.A. Le Sueur -Rennard of St. Saviour:..................................16
19. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier:..................................................17

2. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition for 2017-2019 (P.68/2016) - fourth amendment (P.68/2016 Amd.(4))........................................................19

1. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré of St. Lawrence : .............................................19
2. Deputy R.G. Bryans of St. Helier:......................................................23
3. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................26
4. Connétable J. Gallichan of St. Mary : ...................................................28
5. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................29
6. Connétable M.P.S. Le Troquer of St. Martin:...........................................31
7. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................32

8. Connétable J.E. Le Maistre of Grouville :...............................................32
9. Connétable D.W. Mezbourian of St. Lawrence:........................................33
10. The Deputy of Trinity : ..............................................................33
11. Deputy S.M. Brée: ..................................................................35
12. Deputy G.P. Southern : ..............................................................35
13. Deputy P.D. McLinton:..............................................................36
14. Deputy R. Labey :....................................................................36
15. Deputy S.M. Wickenden of St. Helier : ..............................................36

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................37 The Connétable of St. Clement:..............................................................38

Deputy M. Tadier : ............................................................................38

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................38

16. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :.................................................................38
17. Deputy M.R.Higgins:...............................................................39
18. Deputy J.M. Maçon:.................................................................39
19. Deputy K.L. Moore of St. Peter:.....................................................40
20. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf : ...............................................................40
21. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré: ...........................................................41

3. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition for 2017 to 2019 (P.68/2016) - tenth amendment (P.68/2016 Amd. (10)).....................................................44

1. Senator S.C. Ferguson:.................................................................44
2. Deputy S.G. Luce of St. Martin : ........................................................47
3. The Connétable of St. John:............................................................49
4. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................50
5. Deputy M.J. Norton of St. Brelade:.....................................................51
6. Deputy G.J. Truscott of St. Brelade : ....................................................51
7. Connétable S.W. Pallett of St. Brelade:.................................................52
8. Senator S.C. Ferguson:.................................................................54

4. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition for 2017 – 2019 (P.68/2016) – eleventh amendment (P.68/2016 Amd.(11)) - as amended (P.68/2016 Amd.(11) Amd)..........55

1. Deputy K.C. Lewis :....................................................................56
2. The Connétable of St. Peter:............................................................59
3. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré:..............................................................60
4. The Deputy of St. Ouen:................................................................66
5. Deputy D. Johnson of St. Mary:........................................................68
6. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................68
7. Senator A.J.H. Maclean:................................................................68
8. Deputy E.J. Noel of St. Lawrence:......................................................73
9. The Connétable of St. Saviour:.........................................................73
10. Deputy R. Labey :....................................................................73
11. The Connétable of St. Martin : .......................................................73
12. The Deputy of St. Martin : ...........................................................74
13. Deputy K.C. Lewis : .................................................................75

5. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition for 2017-2019 (P.68/2016) - third amendment (P.68/2016 Amd.(3))........................................................78

1. Deputy G.P. Southern :..................................................................78
2. Deputy S.J. Pinel of St. Clement:.......................................................80
3. Deputy S.Y. Mézec :....................................................................82
4. Deputy J.M. Maçon:....................................................................83
5. Deputy S.M. Wickenden:...............................................................84
6. Deputy M. Tadier :......................................................................84
7. Senator A.K.F. Green: ..................................................................86

8. Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré:..............................................................87
9. Senator L.J. Farnham :..................................................................87
10. The Deputy of St. John:..............................................................88

[9:30]

The Roll was called and the Greffier of the States led the Assembly in Prayer. PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

1. Draft Medium Term Financial Plan Addition For 2017 – 2019 (P.68/2016) – amendment (P.68/2016 Amd.) – resumption

1. Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier :

I must say that I am against micromanaging the budgets of Ministers in a Medium Term Financial Plan. We elect them to do a job, we elect the Council of Ministers to do a job, and I think to take a relatively small amount of money and tell a Minister what to do with it is not the best way to proceed and we could be here for not just days, but weeks, if we do that. There is, of course, in this particular amendment time to scrutinise further the allocation of the revenue budget of Education towards their staff. This is not a cut which is going to take immediate effect. Indeed, there is even time to propose an alternative Minister for Education before the cut does take effect. Having said that, the Medium Term Financial Plan is about the messages that we send out from this Assembly. In yesterday's debate, we sent out a message rejecting Senator Ferguson's call for an independent review of our fiscal policy because we felt that we have enough reviews, Scrutiny, the Fiscal Policy Panel and so on going on. In accepting Deputy Tadier 's proposition yesterday, we sent out a message that we think our native language is important, it has been neglected, and we want resources to be allocated to preserving Jèrriais. What message will we send out today, I ask my fellow Members, when the States is proposing to spend £55 million on 2 schools, but we are saying we are going to cut the payment to teachers by £250,000? I suggest that that sends out a very poor message to teachers who may feel, certainly in Jersey as well as the United Kingdom, that their status as professionals is lower than it should be. It is certainly lower than it is in Europe and in North America. I believe that it is important we reassure the teaching staff of the Island that we do value what they do, we are not going to see their budgets cut, even notionally at this stage, and therefore I urge Members to support the amendment.

1. Deputy J.M. Maçon of St. Saviour :

With this amendment, I am wondering where we are process-wise. While this amendment seeks to put money back into the budget of Education, my understanding is that the policies about employment are done through the States Employment Board. Therefore, like when we have a planning application that comes into this Assembly and you then get a 49-member Planning Application Panel, is this amendment trying to seek for this Assembly to be a 49-member States Employment Board? The point there is we elect the States Employment Board to carry out a function and it is their responsibility in order to do that. If we are not happy with the States Employment Board doing that function then it is our job, as States Members, to get rid of that committee and start again. But this amendment I am struggling with process-wise, because I have come to the conclusion: what is the difference going to be? For example, if the States Employment Board follow the policy, because we will not be changing the policy for the States Employment Board to follow .. if the States Employment Board choose to go beneath a pay scale for teachers, this amendment will not change that. For example, if we support Deputy Southern and put the money back into Education, the States Employment Board can follow that policy and, therefore, through the vacancy management process, Education will then hand back that money to the Treasury. If we do not support Deputy Southern 's amendment and, for example, say the Education Department goes out with these new figures and find that they cannot recruit, they then have to go back to Treasury, through contingency funding, to get more money in order to be able to get those posts. I ask the question: if we go one way or another what exactly would we achieve? This is why I am struggling with this amendment, because it does not change the policy. What I would like to

know from members of the States Employment Board, however, is: is this now going to be the attitude which is going to be rolling across the whole States? What I mean by that is, because it is an employers' market at the moment, are we going to be, for every States position, which is what many of the public will call for the States Assembly to do, taking on a more corporate approach when looking at wages to try and take advantage of an employers' market and try and get the lowest level of pay that we can attract at the moment? If someone from the States Employment Board can confirm that that is the policy that the States Employment Board is now adopting, I would be grateful for that. In doing so, could those members also illustrate that is also going to be applied to all sectors of the public sector, including chief officers, because I am very concerned that what we are doing through this policy is targeting one group of frontline staff and not fairly applying it across the board. I do not think that is right. I do agree with the point that Deputy Southern raised previously, that while these are not currently members of staff, however, the unions do have a role to play in this. We have been here before in the States where we have taken money away and that has really handicapped the negotiating abilities of the unions and that has brought the States into a very difficult situation. It did a lot of damage to the reputation of the States and that is why I am minded to support Deputy Southern to allow the States Employment Board to do its role and let them negotiate and do their job in what they do. If they are successful in renegotiating those contracts and getting those levels, then the money will be handed back to the centre. Therefore, while we are arguing one way or another, what difference will it actually make? So if someone could clarify that for me I would be grateful.

2. Deputy A.D. Lewis of St. Helier :

The first debate on this amendment affected me somewhat. I would like to cast Members' minds back, those who were in the House in the early 2000s. KPMG were commissioned to do a benchmarking report and it was a very interesting report. I was chairman of the Institute of Directors at the time and there was a huge outcry about public sector pay and it is a cry that continues today. What happened, if we go back even further to the 1980s and 1990s, is that Jersey was doing rather well. We were bringing in a lot of money, the finance industry was doing very well, cash receipts were fantastic and we were very generous to our public sector workers, which was great when we had the money. So the gap grew between public sector workers and public sector workers in other places, hence the benchmarking report. That gap was particularly evident in teaching, I believe prison officers, police officers. It was quite huge and it was marvellous because our public sector workers, who did a fantastic job, were paid extremely well at a time when we were doing extremely well as well. Those times are over and we have to cut our cloth correctly.

[9:45]

This is what this amendment does not necessarily observe or acknowledge. We are not going to be penalising, if this were to go through, those who are in post at the moment. We are simply looking at the marketplace and doing what all good governments should do and spending the money wisely. I do not believe this is going to detract from attracting teachers, particularly in the primary sector. The evidence we have suggests that is the case, so it is market forces. What we absolutely have to do is adjust our spending to the money that we have and to the markets that we spend that money in, the labour market. This does that; this suggestion from the Council of Ministers does absolutely that. If we do not do it, we are basically building up more and more and more cost in our public sector that simply is not going to go away. So, if the public want to see serious tax rises that is what is going to happen unless we cut our cloth accordingly, and this is one such thing that we should be doing in this particular segment of public sector pay. It is also going to be happening in the police service and I am sure the Minister responsible in that area will be telling us more about that sometime soon, where we also have a big gap between the pay of police officers here and police officers elsewhere, particularly in the U.K. (United Kingdom). This absolutely has to

happen if we are to have balanced books and an efficient public sector, so this is our opportunity to do exactly that. The one thing that has not been mentioned a great deal is the attraction back of graduates that we have paid for in some way or form, whether it be a grant, or their parents have paid for education in the U.K., to become qualified teachers. That is a leakage; if they do not come back and teach in Jersey it is leakage. A lot do, but a lot do not. What we should be doing is providing an incentive for those to come back, a golden handshake, if you like, to come back and teach in Jersey, because we have spent on their education already, so it would be wonderful if more of them would come back and teach in our schools. That is perhaps an exception. Mention has been made also about differential pay: how can you have a business, in this case a school, whereby some people are on different rates of pay? Well, that is life. People earn different rates of pay for doing different jobs, having been recruited at different times in the economic cycle. That is normal life. So we have to acknowledge that when you do not have the funds, you cannot pay these somewhat inflated wages. We have to cut our cloth appropriately, so I am afraid, as painful as it is to the Deputy sitting behind me, whose actions here today are absolutely laudable, he feels very strongly that there should be consultation with the unions and perhaps he feels this should not

happen at all, these are the sort of things that we absolutely need to do. I will just caveat that by saying there is a big opportunity here to do something more, Minister for Education, to attract back our own graduates who have qualified as teachers, give them the incentive to come back. Something else that has not been mentioned is tax. It is in the Minister's comments. The tax differential between a teacher earning a good salary in the U.K. and in Jersey is significant. You are talking an average marginal rate here of probably 12 or 13 per cent, and maybe as low as 10, and in the U.K. 30 to 40 per cent, depending on where they are teaching, what subject they are teaching and what department they are heading up. So it is significant. V.A.T. (value added tax) is 20 per cent and it is 5 per cent in Jersey. I accept the cost of living here is higher, I accept the cost of living in London is higher, perhaps even higher than Jersey now. Senator Bailhache very eloquently stated this huge differential yesterday and that was quite compelling. We are still going to have a big differential as well, but this is our opportunity, as an Assembly, to spend public money wisely. That benchmarking exercise was done back in the early 2000s and we still have not acted on that, so it has taken nearly 20 years, or certainly 16 years, to act on a benchmarking report that was done by KPMG 16 years ago and now we are finally doing it, in this case, for teachers. I believe it is going to happen with police officers, as well, and it has already happened in some other segments of our public sector, and it absolutely has to happen. We cannot afford to provide the quality of services that we need to provide at the current rates of pay in some segments of our public sector. There are other segments where we are not paying enough, and that has been recognised as well, to attract the best, because we still want the best. So I would urge Members, as seductive as this may be as an amendment, to vote against it because if you want balanced books in the future, you are building up more and more and more cost in our education system where we do not have to. We need to put that to good use for specialist teachers, highly qualified teachers in certain subjects where the market is very competitive and the price of those teachers is going up in sciences, languages, mathematics and so on. That is where we need to deploy that extra money, not with newly qualified teachers, who are already going to be paid significantly higher than their counterparts in Guernsey and other places that were mentioned, other Crown Dependencies and the

U.K. So I would urge Members, as well intended as this is, to vote against it.

3. Connétable C.H. Taylor of St. John :

Mèrcie bein des fais, Monsieur le Deputé-Bailli. I can speak Jersey French; I just do not know what it means. [Laughter] This Assembly is not the States Employment Board and we do not interfere with what we give people responsibilities to do. For that reason, I am very strongly minded to oppose this. However, learning comes from good teachers, not well designed classrooms and fancy new buildings. It is the teacher. That is where investment in education is needed. I read somewhere among all these 3,000 pages of information I have, or thereabouts, I may be exaggerating, that the Education Scrutiny Panel claims there is a reduction in finance and investment into education over the period of this M.T.F.P. (Medium Term Financial Plan) and so it is for that reason that perhaps a little extra money here could be given to education. It is for the reason that this is more money going to education rather than to wages on teachers that I support this amendment.

4. Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity :

I would like to think that all of us in this Assembly aspire to give our children the very best education possible, education that will take them into the real world and enable them to reach their full potential and take their place quite rightly in society. That is a priority of the Council of Ministers and staff are valued. But time evolves, situations change, and when newly qualified teachers were not coming to Jersey many years ago, encouragement was needed and with that was a very good pay scale. Its structure, as we have heard, was above London, Guernsey and the rest of the U.K. and it has been successful, but now we must attract teachers in other subjects, such as maths and sciences, to come here and teach our children. As in anything, teaching specialist subjects is essential, so the Minister very wisely wants to use some of that money from the starting salary and supplement salaries for teachers in those shortage subjects. That is good for our children's education, but what of the N.Q.T.s (newly qualified teachers)? The proposed starting salary is still above the U.K. levels and Guernsey, still attractive. Terms and conditions are better here in Jersey, shorter days and fewer teaching days, and, very importantly, it would not be retrospective. It would start, if approved, after negotiations with the unions and the S.E.B. (States Employment Board), in 2018. Much has been said about the different levels of pay. The N.Q.T.s here start at level 3, which is just over £38,000. Over the last 4 to 5 years no N.Q.T. has gone below that level. They have all come out with 2 degrees. In Guernsey the starting level is £29,000, so you can see the difference. Mention was made about difficulty in getting N.Q.T.s. Well, as the Minister said, there are 29 total this year, 14 in primary, 14 in secondary, and one, I am very pleased to say, in special needs. Most of those are locals returning here. Our N.Q.T.s do start on level 3, they do have an Honours degree, and we should be very proud of that. This proposal does make sense: investing in our children's education in areas that really need it and using taxpayers' money wisely. I urge Members to reject Deputy Southern 's proposition and to allow the

department to go forward and begin the negotiations.

5. Deputy S.M. Brée of St. Clement :

A lot has been said during this debate from various sides of the argument, but I believe that there is a basic principle at stake here. Is this the correct arena for debating pay scales of a particular group of civil servants? I would suggest, no, it is not. The establishment of the States Employment Board was to remove the potential for any kind of political interference and yet, because this debate has been forced on us by ill-thought-out policies from the Minister, that is exactly what we are doing and we cannot avoid that fact. It is not our place to be debating what we think newly qualified teachers should be paid. Any changes to pay structures should follow a recognised path, which is the States Employment Board negotiating with the representative body of whatever that civil service group may be. For us to start believing that we know better, that we are all experts on this area, I think is a road to disaster because where will it stop? However, if you do think that: "No, it is my role to decide who gets paid what" then I would just question whether or not this move by the Minister for Education does adhere to the Chief Minister's often stated mantra of "investment in education". What makes a good school is not a brand new building, it is not the physical structure, it is the teaching staff and perhaps we have lost sight of that. So for 2 reasons we should support this amendment. The first one is it is not our place to be discussing this. Should the States Employment Board, under direction from the Minister, come back and say: "We have renegotiated a new pay scale for newly qualified teachers" then, marvellous, we will see the Minister being able to present that to this Assembly as an efficiency, but for us to dictate what the States Employment Board can offer is totally wrong. Academic standards in state schools in the Island are falling, we have to look at investment in teaching staff, and I would suggest that for both those reasons we should support this amendment.

6. Deputy S.Y. Mézec of St. Helier :

It is my view that the policy that is being pursued by the Minister for Education is not just ill-thought-out, insensitive and counterproductive, but it is a systematic attempt to degrade what is a noble profession and it is taking advantage of people who enter this particular profession, not out of some sort of motivation to be paid well, but motivated by the idea of helping children.

[10:00]

Let us be clear about its purpose. It is not being done because of some logical or necessary realignment of a broken wages system. It is being done to fill a deficit created by the Council of Ministers, who now attempt to portray it as investment despite the fact, as the Education Scrutiny Panel's comments show, it is no such thing. They are merely continuing to fund what they are required by statute to fund anyway but it is being made more expensive on a day-to-day basis because of the growing population that causes strain on our schools. Another policy that the Council of Ministers has completely failed to get to grips with. What is perhaps most perverse about it, is the argument they expect the public to believe, which is that we can somehow support an agenda to raise educational standards while slashing the salaries of the people we expect to deliver those higher standards. I think that the Minister's performance in this Assembly yesterday was an embarrassment. He stood here and attempted to persuade Members, using figures that were completely inappropriate and out of context. To exaggerate the wage difference, he compared the wages of the lowest qualified teachers in England to the highest qualified new teachers in Jersey. That was completely misleading and is not the way you should be attempting to persuade people of one argument. I thought it was equally embarrassing to see Senator Bailhache repeating the same point, seemingly completely oblivious to the reality behind the figures he was using, and that is particularly worrying, given that he is an Assistant Minister in that department. As a member of the Education Scrutiny Panel, I have taken part in the quarterly public hearings with the Minister where we brought up the issue of N.Q.T. recruitment several times months before we even had the slightest inkling that it was going to be something that featured in the M.T.F.P. We were told by both the Minister and the Director of the Education Department that there were problems with recruitment and they said part of the problem was down to a dodgy online application system. Well, let me tell them that no computer system, application system, however good it is, will do anything to repair the damage that they will be causing to recruitment for newly qualified teachers by slashing their starting salaries by £8,000. It will be the least of their problems. They said that the savings give them the leeway they would need to improve the salaries for those teaching particular subjects where they have specific problems with recruitment. They are cutting salaries so they can raise salaries; as you can see, clearly a very logical argument there. But, of course, the problem is that while you might be able to shift the pay from one group of teachers to another to stop one shortage, you may well inadvertently create another shortage in another area, so it is completely counterproductive. The Scrutiny Panel looked at these proposals in depth and have issued comments, including a report by Professor John Howson from RealGroup, which examined the proposals and made observations on the factors governing the supply of teachers. The first point, which is a point that nobody in this debate has mentioned so far, is that while N.Q.T.s do get paid more in Jersey, that is because they work more hours than their counterparts in the U.K. and without any suggestion of a readjustment of the working hours, cutting salaries becomes even more flawed. The report then looks at the effect of the extra student debt that teachers come out, bearing

in mind that to become a teacher you have to study for 4 years rather than the standard 3-year degree that most other careers require. In a previous debate in this Assembly on the minimum wage a few months ago, I referenced a report called Is Britain Fairer? which was produced by the U.K. Equality and Human Rights Commission, which demonstrated the reduced standard of living that young people in particular have had to put up with over the past few years. Part of that is due to the massive increase in tuition fees at U.K. universities, introduced by their Tory Government with the connivance of the Liberal Democrats. It is only now that people are graduating with £40,000 of debt rather than the £15,000 of debt they would have had previously. I said in that debate that the role of the Government should be to reverse the trend of decreasing standards of living for young people, but the policy of this Minister for Education will do nothing but serve to accelerate that decreasing standard by taking these young, newly qualified teachers and slashing their pay, slashing their ability to pay off their student debt, their ability to save up for a deposit on a property, and all round have the effect of making teaching a less attractive career option. The less attractive career option it is the less it will attract those with the most skill and talent who could otherwise go for other careers and make more money, and surely that cannot possibly be in the best interests of children. One of the points that particularly concerns Deputy Southern and Rob Ward , the president of the local branch of the National Union of Teachers, is the effects this proposal will have on the so-called negotiations on workforce modernisation and terms and conditions. A running theme that I have noticed with all of the public sector workers who I have spoken to over the past 2 years, be they the T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) manual workers, the teachers or the civil servants, is they all feel that the negotiations with the States Employment Board have been a complete sham. They are not treated seriously and they think the Ministers are completely disregarding them. The Minister is claiming that the proposals are not set in stone, they are just an idea, and that is blatantly complete nonsense because, if this amendment is rejected, the S.E.B. will be entering negotiations with their hands tied behind their backs. The teachers' representatives, who are all saying that this will be bad for the profession and exacerbate the problems we already have with teacher recruitment, will have no ability to get the S.E.B. to agree to

a more sensible arrangement because the spending limits will be set. That, I think, is the point here. If there is some more sensible payment arrangement that can exist for teachers, you do not set the spending parameters before you come to that arrangement. It has to be open so that you can have meaningful negotiations, not continue on with the sham that is being perpetuated at the moment. It has also been said that this will only affect new teachers, not those already teaching, but what it will do is create a 2-tier system. How good will it be for morale in the teaching profession in 5 years' time when the teachers, who signed up this year, are in the tearoom chatting to their colleagues, who qualify next year, and are on £8,000 a year less than them for doing exactly the same job? I am sure that they will all get on very, very well indeed in that circumstance. In his speech yesterday, the Minister asked us to remember our favourite teachers from school. Since it was not that long ago that I was at school here in Jersey I remember most of mine pretty well. I remember one teacher who spent hours with my best friend giving him extra support, both educationally and emotionally, after his stepdad died of cancer just a few weeks before his exams. I had another teacher who managed to pick up on signs that another one of my friends was having problems at home, which had affected him so badly he decided to give up on any hope of going to higher education. This teacher took my friend aside, worked with him for hours after school closed to make sure he got his university U.C.A.S. (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) application in and this friend went to university, got a first class degree and is now heading back to do a PhD. I have got friends now, who are newly qualified teachers, who are so unbelievably committed to the children they teach and who work far more hours than they will ever get given credit for. Teachers do not just teach kids how to pass exams. The best teachers build their students' self-esteem, they are there for them when they are going through tough times and they inspire them to want to better themselves so that they can make the most out of their lives. Maybe there is a better pay arrangement for teacher salaries that exists, so let us enter honest negotiations to find it, but I ask Members please support the amendment being proposed by Deputy Southern . Education is too important and it is morally wrong to risk degrading such a noble profession on the basis of flawed figures, no evidence and the outright opposition of those working on the frontline, who know the impact it will have far better than any of us in this Assembly. Let us do things properly and let us not go for this ideologically dogmatic cut-cut-cut approach with no evidence to back it up, because the people who will pay the price for it will be Jersey's children and that surely must be wrong. [Approbation]

7. Senator A.K.F. Green:

I am pleased to follow Deputy Mézec , because we agree on lots of things. We agree that we have outstanding teachers here in Jersey. One thing that we do not agree on, and it was a point more made by Deputy Brée, is that standards are falling. Standards are not falling. This Minister and his officers have made it their mantra really to improve standards and all the G.C.S.E. (General Certificate of Secondary Education) and A-level results and all the other vocational training stuff, which is just as important to me, show that standards are increasing. But the world changes and I have to say that I do not think this is the right place to be discussing the wage levels of any staff, be it teachers, doctors, nurses, manual workers, technicians, all of whom make a considerable contribution to this Island, [Approbation] all of whom are valued, but this is not the right place. This should be done, led by policies of the S.E.B. with the Human Resources Department and the Chief Executive, obviously with staff representatives and the staff themselves. We are going through a workforce modernisation and realignment of pay. Do not take realignment to mean cuts. Some staff are not being rewarded appropriately and they need to come up and some staff, for historical reasons that might have been absolutely right at the moment, in the wrong grade, are paid at the wrong level, and that is something that we need to put right and it is not easy. As Deputy Lewis said, in the real world you will have a situation where, because of change, one staff member receives better benefits, or pay, than another. We have seen it ourselves with the pension scheme. I have worked with people who had a much better pension scheme than I was able to enjoy and then later on people joined the workforce and had a lesser deal than I had. That is the real world. This is not about doing teachers down; this is not about trying to make unreasonable cuts in education. This is about being fair to the whole workforce to ensure that somebody with an equal amount of training, and degree in education, will have a similar recognition when they first start to somebody with similar qualifications and training, say, in health. This is what this is about, but this is entirely the wrong place to be discussing individual areas of staff wages. I urge Members, even if they think they need to go back to the drawing board, that we need to work quite closely, and closer, with trade unions, to reject this proposition. It is utterly wrong and, by the way, we are investing in education. The whole mantra of the M.T.F.P. is more for education and more for

health, so I urge Members not to get involved in micromanagement.

8. Deputy R. Labey of St. Helier :

I was hoping to get in before another member of the States Employment Board might speak in this debate, because I am just troubled by something that the Constable of St. Martin said in his speech. To paraphrase him, he said he could not envisage circumstances where any new appointee would need to negotiate, and that strikes me as very odd. I have been responsible for employing hundreds, if not thousands, of people over the last 2 decades in London for some of the biggest, and some of the smallest, production companies in the U.K. The negotiations start when the candidate says either yes or no to the job. It is very silly to not leave wriggle room, because you can miss out on the best appointee for the sake of a few hundred pounds and there are myriad reasons why they might want to negotiate. They might be on better pay already, but want to do this job. For their family reasons they might not be able to afford it, and so on. They might have been offered another job at exactly the same time and so you are in a bit of a bidding war if they are a good candidate. I do not know if there is anybody from the States Employment Board who is going to speak on this debate, but I would like to hear their opinions on this, because if we are cutting off negotiations I think that would be ridiculous. I listen to the debate with interest because I find this one is a very difficult decision because the cost of running this Island is too high and we have to do something about it. We have to do something about it, but the message that we are sending out with this debate worries me because it is saying to everybody: "We are starting with the teachers, we are starting with those essential staff at the bottom rung of the ladder who are desperately important." That is the message that this is sending out, which really troubles me. I would also like to know, having been handed the table this morning of the comparison salaries between teachers in Jersey to inner London to England and Wales and so on, is that a blueprint?

[10:15]

Are we going to be applying this to other areas of the public sector and which ones and when? What is the timetable for that? Are we going to do this with the police? Is it always going to be the people at the lower end that Ministers might not meet in the boardrooms day-to-day, because it is uncomfortable to have to tell the people on the higher grades that in fact those are going to be capped as well, or reduced? I did ask a question when this was brought up in question time, I do not know how many weeks ago, of the Chief Minister and I said: "If we are going to do this with teachers, seriously what about when it is time to appoint the next chief executive officer of the Jersey States? Does that position have to be in excess of £200,000?" Of course everyone laughed and I did not get an answer, but those are the questions that I would like answers to.

9. Deputy P.D. McLinton of St. Saviour :

Thoughts really. I must say, having had a remarkable 5 children myself, the admiration I feel for teachers particularly - no offence meant to any of the secondary teachers that have taught my children - for primary school teachers who mould this little person into somebody who can read and write and think is quite remarkable and so they should have the utmost respect in all that we say. I just want to draw your attention to one of the Minister's comments: "There is currently an oversupply of new teachers at primary level in Jersey, indicating there is no longer a need for such a large financial incentive in this sector." Could it be that we are storing up for a paragraph in the future which reads: "There is currently an undersupply of new teachers at primary level in Jersey. There is a need for a larger financial incentive in this sector"? We have them now, we take from them; are they likely to rock up on our Island in the future to teach our children so wonderfully? Scrutiny Report: "The debt level of new teachers is substantially higher than in the past. One guide has calculated that a teacher starting on a salary of £25,000 would repay more than £38,000 in debt and take 23 years to pay off their loans." Another paragraph: "If teaching does not maintain an attractive starting salary after training, then it may not attract sufficient candidates into the profession. Students leaving school in Jersey may decide not to train as a teacher if the starting salary appears less competitive than other careers where only a 3-year degree course is required. In this case, the States of Jersey would be more dependent upon recruiting teachers from England. However, in recent years the supply of new entrants into the profession in England has not met the expected demand modelled by the Department for Education." The point that I am trying to make is that what we have here, I think, potentially, and I would like the Minister to clear it up, is low- hanging fruit. I rather fear that there is a snake in that tree, it is going to bite us and we are not going to have the antidote down the years when we stop getting a steady supply of newly qualified teachers. What I do find a very compelling argument is that Deputy Doublet , who has recently been through this life experience, has asked Members to support this proposition. The Minister is

in a position to convince me otherwise but right now I am on the balance here.

10. Deputy T.A. Vallois of St. John :

I will try not to repeat everything that has been said. Many of the speeches today are absolutely right in terms of the issues surrounding pay in the States, whether you see it from one side or another. My issue comes in the way that again the Council of Ministers have put the M.T.F.P. addition forward, the way it is worded, the way it is being asked of us to agree certain elements. Just for the benefit of that, I will be supporting Deputy Southern 's amendment and the reason why is that we are being asked by Education to basically change the starting salary for newly qualified teachers, but there is nothing in here for any other department and yet we are being asked to agree Summary Table C which sets out contingency allocations. If anyone understands what "contingency" means, it is a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty. If this is going to go forward with negotiations by the States Employment Board, who we do appoint, other than the Chief Minister, who automatically takes that role, then why are we being asked to put it in the base budget now, because it is not certain, because we do not know what is going to happen in those negotiations, if they are going to go ahead? We are being told that they will. Why is it not, like everything else we have been told about public sector reform, sitting within the contingency allocation that is specifically allocated under "Pay, P.E.C.R.S. (Public Employees Contributory Retirement Scheme) and Workforce Modernisation"? Why is that money not sitting there so that Education have the money until those negotiations have taken place and it is agreed between the relevant bodies who can have proper conversations with the real data, the real facts and the real life experiences of both sides; they can have those proper negotiations? We can all assume we know. Unless we have been in the position, like Deputy Doublet has been and Deputy McLinton has just very well stated that it is current life experience, that is what they have seen, but we do not know. We have not experienced that, we have not seen it. I have a son who goes to school and the teachers are fantastic, absolutely brilliant teachers, but that is not the argument here. It is about the newly qualified teacher pay and whether we are looking to put proper pay scales in place for the public sector. The States Employment Board should be appropriately negotiating it, based on proper job descriptions, ensuring that there are proper things in place to ensure that we get the right service delivery for the public of the Island. I am supporting Deputy Southern 's amendment because that money should be there in the Education Department until those negotiations have taken place, at which point, if it is decided and agreed that the newly qualified teacher starting salary should be dropped, then that can come out of what we will be agreeing in the central allocation of the workforce modernisation in Summary Table C on the

M.T.F.P. Addition.

11. Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :

It is always a pleasure to follow the Deputy of St. John. She made some really good points. I would like to go back to where Deputy Southern is. He is not stating what the teachers should be paid and, worryingly, none of the members of the States Employment Board support money in your pocket to have a negotiation with. It is a foregone conclusion. Let me say something about the figures presented: London against Jersey. Many teachers who teach in central London do not live in central London, they live in the leafy suburbs where you can buy a 3-bedroom house for £300,000. Do not compare apples and pears; they are not the same. If I hear one more comment that this is not the place to discuss education, I absolutely give up. We are all elected individually and on manifestos that do have probably half a page of what we would like to see in education. We have then 10 people who have come back and said this is the way they want to do it: "Do not dare question me. We must be right. We have looked at this glass. We have looked at it half empty, we have looked at it half full. This is the only way we are going to let you have it." No, absolutely wrong. I do disagree, people who have stood up .. and, as I say, worryingly the States Employment Board do not want to negotiate. Where is the thinking? I went with the Deputy of St. Peter when I was the Assistant Minister and it was then Deputy Bryans, he was not in Education, with Brighter Futures, to a conference about investing and it is not just the first 1,000 days.

Children, the younger they are, they will soak up everything you give to them and you need the best to give to them. If you cannot teach a child to read and do arithmetic before the age of 5, 6 or 7, forget getting the best teacher when they are 14; it does not work. So what do we do here? This is not the place to discuss the finest piece of education, our teachers? I do not agree. This amendment is a no-brainer. It is not saying spend the money. It is saying give more money to the people who we have given the job, whether you agree that they should be the ones having the job but they are, or give them the money there to negotiate the best teachers. Do not compare people that are M.P.S. (Main Pay Scale) 3s to M.P.S. 1s and tell me you are going to employ the same people who last year passed with an Honours degree and they do not have to be the same qualified teachers this year, because they always have been. You are not comparing the same. Like the Deputy of St. John has just said, it is contingency. Take this out, you are tying the hands of many people, you will affect our young children and you will, like Deputy McLinton said, narrow that pool very quickly. People will not come here. People will look at all the other options and say: "Cost of living in Jersey. Where can I live? Housing? No." You need to keep that money there to negotiate. If you can get the same quality for a better price, I am not one to chuck money away, do it, but put the money there, let the people negotiate with the money and let us get on with it. We do not agree with the Minister, we do not agree that he should tie the States Employment Board's hands, so we vote with Deputy Southern . Let them see, as Deputy Brée said, if they can do it for cheaper. If they can get the same quality for cheaper, if they are going to teach our children excellence, so be it, but please support this amendment.

12. Deputy M.R. Higgins of St. Helier :

One of the Council of Ministers' objectives is to improve productivity and to achieve higher economic growth in the Island. One of the elements in achieving this objective is a well-educated workforce. I believe that the proposals being put forward by the Council of Ministers are counterproductive, divisive and wrong. They are counterproductive, because it will demoralise the teaching profession, who are doing an exceptionally hard job. I know this, because I was a lecturer for 18 years and I know fully the workload and the stress levels that teachers are working under. We are being told it is only going to affect new teachers. It will permeate through the profession because they will be thinking: "What is next?" They realise that they are picking away at the new teachers and: "They are going to come for us in another way." I can tell you morale in the teaching profession goes up and down and this will definitely put it in a downer. What it is telling teachers is we do not value them and, as I say, whether this measure directly affects them or not, they will feel that we do not value them. I believe it is divisive, because I believe the teachers doing the same job should be paid the same rate. Not paying new teachers the same rate will cause resentment and will lead many of the new entrants to leave the profession before they have really got into it. Remember, the workload of the new teachers will be the same as the existing teachers and if they are paid considerably less it will cause resentment and divisiveness in the schools. I also find it rather strange that many Members of this Assembly, especially the Council of Ministers, who are ardent believers in free enterprise and free markets, do not believe that when it comes to wage negotiation. We heard on Monday, for example, that the States Employment Board would not go to arbitration with civil servants because if the arbitration resulted in a higher wage award they would not have the money to do it. In other words, they have got a capped figure, in the same way that the Council of Ministers are trying to cap the amount of money that teachers can have now. If they believe in free enterprise and they believe that they can get teachers for less money, then they should put it to the test. We should not be taking money out of the pot, withholding it from the States Employment Board; let them negotiate. I will be supporting Deputy Southern on this proposition and I hope other Members will. If you go down this route that they are proposing

we are going to have lots of disputes in the future. I can guarantee it.

13. Connétable L. Norman of St. Clement :

Just briefly, I shall not be supporting the amendment. I am sure Members will not be surprised. [10:30]

If we are paying employees over the odds, if we are paying above the market rate, then really we have a duty to our constituents, to the taxpayers, to think about doing something about it. I am consoled by the comments of the Council of Ministers who make it quite clear that this change, if implemented after negotiations, would only apply to staff joining the service in future. It would not be retrospective and current teachers would not be affected. That is good, that is proper, that is a responsible employer's attitude. I am now beginning to think it is a pity that we did not have the same attitude, the same moral compass if you like, when dealing with single parents on income support from whom we have taken away £2,000 a year, who had been getting it. We are not taking anything away from existing teachers but we are quite happy to do it for single parents on income support.

14. Deputy R.J. Renouf of St. Ouen :

I shall not be supporting Deputy Southern 's amendment. The advantage I see of the plans put forward by the Minister for Education is that it creates flexibility where we do need that, where we can use these efficiencies to grant a premium where there are shortages of teachers in specific subjects. In answer to the query will we not just create shortages by diminishing the pay rates, the flexibility can then be built into the new system that should shortages arise in any subject area in the future pay can be adjusted. Clearly we are in a changed situation and the situation that might have existed years ago when the present pay structure was created, created a very rigid structure. Everybody was paid at the same rate. The profession is now very different and clearly there needs to be that flexibility if we are to recruit the best teachers. We cannot always get the best teachers if we maintain this rigid system, because we cannot grant those premiums. Let us face it, it seems to me that if we were creating an education system afresh we could not afford the present rates of pay. There is a need to limit expenditure across the public sector. We do not see the results in all areas as yet, but we have to make a start; here is a proposal. There is a need to limit that cost and negotiations will take place, a new system, a new structure should be created. I think we should give the Education Department the flexibility to create its education system, and to employ the best teachers that we need. Therefore, I cannot give support to this amendment, which seems to lock in the rigidity we have and which we suffer from.

15. Senator S.C. Ferguson:

I am curious as to when the workforce and the unions learnt of these proposals. Was this just dropped on them from a dizzy height during the announcement of the M.T.F.P.? Nobody likes to have change dropped on them from a dizzy height. I spent my formative years in the electrical industry in Manchester which, as Deputy Southern knows, had very active unions and the only way to deal with them sensibly was to bring them on board well in advance of changes you needed to make. As I understand it, it seems as if these have been dropped from a dizzy height, but I would be glad if somebody would explain to me what the sequence of events was.

16. Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

I should perhaps declare an interest that my late mother was a teacher, my sister is in teaching and my partner is a teacher in the United Kingdom. My twin, who lives in the U.K. and has worked overseas in teaching, happily spends her summers in Jersey at our family home and there are many mornings during the summer when I come down for breakfast to be greeted by many of her old university friends, who I know too, who are teachers and they are there mainly with their partners who are teachers. Politicians like talking about politics. I can tell you, teachers like talking about teaching and certainly over the many years I have lived in this other world of teaching and I enjoy listening to them and learning. I agree that it is absolutely important that teachers should be

recognised for what they do and be more valued, but it is not just about pay. The inspiration that teachers can give to young lives transforms, but we are not really going to solve that by having salary systems that are not right. Over the years it has been clear to me that when the teachers from the U.K. mainly, from all over the U.K., some of them head teachers, one a super head, have been looking at copies of the J.E.P. (Jersey Evening Post) and they have looked at the teacher salaries in Jersey, they have expressed, frankly, astonishment at what the starting salaries for teachers in Jersey have been. I have heard this for years. The fact is that all teachers appointed in the last 4 years in Jersey started on the 3 level scale, which is the figure, as I understand it, that is £38,296. What Education are saying is not misleading. It is factual and the normal starting scale in England, and Members have got the actual figures, is point 1, and in Guernsey they have got the numbers. The figures that have been circulated this morning by Deputy Southern - I think it was Deputy Southern - do need to be looked at very carefully. The starting salary in Jersey for teachers with a 2.2 degree is £38,000; in England it is £22,000; inner London £28,000 and Guernsey £29,000. Now, people can shake their heads, but those are the facts, those are the actual facts and those are facts - I am sorry, I can see people; if people want to interrupt and give evidence that is different - from the Education Department and from H.R. (Human Resources) and I have had them checked this morning. If somebody wants me to give way, I am happy if they have got evidence, but those are the facts. Nobody wanted me to give way, so I assume they do not have anything else to say. Those are the facts. Our teaching entry-level salaries are high and this has been an issue which has been around for a long time. Now, I am sorry Deputy Martin is not in the Assembly. I spend quite a bit of time in London and my partner is a teacher and I have to say to Deputy Martin, you would have to spend a long time on a commute, which would probably cost you about £8,000, to find a house at £300,000, so I am afraid the comparisons are not quite right about this Atlantis, that somehow London teachers are better off. Of course there are things that we should be doing. There are things like key workers' accommodation, which is something that the Minister for Housing has seized upon for our nursing profession and we certainly need to encourage home ownership and key worker accommodation for teachers, who should be more valued, and nurses and other things is certainly something that we should look at it. I did not hear Deputy Doublet on the radio this morning, but I do not also think it is the case to say that we have got 50 per cent of teachers leaving the profession in Jersey within 5 years. It appears from the information I have received this morning from the Education Department, which I have asked for, is that in fact the attrition rate is lower. It is not right for Members also, I think, to say that our teachers are unhappy. Teachers in Jersey are in a system, which is the result of this Assembly's decisions over many years. Yes, there are important issues of standards which the Minister and his Director are working on, I think in a way that has been wanted for a long, long time. I think the Minister is doing a fantastic job and I know how much aspiration and hope there is among Jersey schools and their parents in the changes that are being made. In Jersey we have smaller classes; we have, to some extent, shorter terms; there is better pay; there is better terms and conditions; our teachers work in better buildings and facilities, with one or 2 exceptions, which are being fixed by this Medium Term Financial Plan and the capital allocation. St. Martin: a fantastic new school. My niece in Trinity is going to see a school that is having more classrooms put in there. We have better facilities, and I have been to a lot of schools in the U.K. We have a professional support and accountability system, which is not Ofsted. In a recent survey, it was in fact the case that 87 per cent of Jersey teachers said that they are happy in their job. I thought that was a pretty outstanding real fact about what teachers are thinking about their jobs. Now, Members are criticising the Council of Ministers for putting forward this amendment, but this is an anomaly, and in fact it is

disingenuous to say that this issue .. The Deputy Bailiff :

I am sorry, Senator, you cannot use the expression "disingenuous." It carries with it a connotation of being dishonest.

Senator P.F.C. Ozouf :

All right, okay. I withdraw that. I think it is inappropriate to say that this money should be put into contingencies when there is clearly evidence that there is not a recruitment issue at this level and that the starting entry for teacher salaries in Jersey is much, much higher than in comparative places. Now, I am afraid sometimes this Assembly has to do the responsible thing and has to back a responsible department and a responsible Minister doing the right thing. I do not know what word to use: to send a message that somehow we think that we know better than the education experts and our H.R. people and that we know better than the data. The result of supporting this amendment will say: "Fine, carry on. We can carry on paying our entry-level teachers much, much, much higher salaries." That is not fair. Now, there may be other scales in the teaching scales in terms of heads and others that may need to be tackled in a different way, but this is wrong and it has been wrong for years. I know this. I have heard it at the breakfast table during the summer when I have seen them, and I can say that with absolute sincerity. These debates are difficult, but they need to be made on facts. There are difficult decisions on finance and there are, in many cases, Ministers and this Assembly having to right, perhaps, the abundant decisions of the past and fixing things that were not fixed before. This is something that stands out. There are other issues in salary scales across other services which are being dealt with in the workforce modernisation and I would not disagree at all that there are other things that need to be dealt with by the Deputy of St. John, but I wonder how she can, when faced with this evidence about this particular issue, say that this money should somehow be allocated to Education, giving the impression that we are simply going to carry on paying something that is clearly out of kilter with the market. It is wrong and I would ask Members to look at the evidence and think about whether or not they are willing to press their buttons and say: "That is fine. Let us carry on paying our entry-level teachers at a level which is well above what the market rate is in the U.K. and elsewhere." I passionately believe .. and I see people who teach, and what a better world we are for clever people dedicating their lives to teaching and they should be remunerated properly and we should support our education system, but this, at this entry-level salary, is wrong. I urge Members to come to some sensible, proper conclusion and vote against this amendment, despite the emotional pleas to say that a vote against this will somehow be a strike against our teachers and a strike against education. No, look at the evidence: these entry salaries are an anomaly and they

have got to be fixed and we should back our Minister for Education.

17. Senator I.J. Gorst :

I sense that we are coming to the end of this debate and I am pleased to follow Senator Ozouf . [10:45]

I know many Members have talked about their own experience of teaching and their own families' experience of teaching, particularly if they are currently encountering that, and I do not think that this amendment and the proposal of the Education Department should be viewed in that light, because I have got nothing other than praise for the teachers who are currently teaching in our system. I am pleased that we have a Minister - as controversial as it is with current educational theory and policy - that is concerned about standards, because I think that every parent is concerned that their child reaches the very best possible standard that they can achieve. Sometimes children say to parents: "Daddy, you want me to be perfect." No, we just want our children to reach their full potential, and that is a very important differential. I believe that our teachers and our schools are teaching that, helping pupils to reach their full potential. I am personally grateful for those teachers who are doing so with my own family. But this is an anomaly. Every single department

has had to look for savings and efficiencies. We have not let any department off. We have not said: "We have got an ageing demographic and the costs of health care are increasing, therefore we should not ask Health to think about their efficiency levels and deliver services differently." That would be irresponsible. It would not be what taxpayers expect and therefore we have asked Health, while we are still giving them extra money, to also think about the way that they are delivering their service and drive efficiencies where they can. The same with Education, and I see from the Education Scrutiny Report that they are not - I think the word is - overly happy with the fact that we have asked Education themselves to think about how they can deliver their service more efficiently. They have done some netting off and no doubt we will come on to that later in the debate. They have removed money for demographic growth; they have suggested that after you add in the savings that we have asked the department to make that they are not having an investment. But it is right that every department of government seeks to deliver efficiencies and deliver their services to the public in the very best way that they can. As Senator Ozouf eloquently said, there is an anomaly here. The department have been open about where their savings can be made. They have found it very difficult and we are going to come on to another debate in some minutes' time where they have also found challenges. But they are trying, they are trying to deal with anomalies and change the way that they deliver education for the benefit of the community. I am grateful to Deputy Southern for sending around his figures, because I think they do help to clarify his position and the department's position, because over the last 4 years, every N.Q.T. that has been employed in Jersey, they have a threshold, I think it is, requiring a 2.2 or above, has been employed on the Jersey level, that is £38,000. Let us just be clear about that: every N.Q.T. in Guernsey, our nearest comparable jurisdiction, who also are looking at the way they deliver education - and I perhaps will not comment on that in any more detail than that - have employed and employ their teachers on their level, on level 1. So that is the comparison we have got to make. That is exactly the comparison that we have got to make and their level 1 is £29,000, so they start their teachers at £29,000 and we start ours at £38,000. That is the anomaly that this M.T.F.P. allows the department and the States Employment Board to go away and address. I know it is difficult, I am not doubting that for a minute, but it is the right thing for the department and the States Employment Board to be allowed to do that. The inference of the amendment is that there is not an anomaly and that it should be covered from contingency and not be dealt with. I would say to Deputy McLinton, who gave an excellent speech, and he is right to be concerned about difficulties in the future, by addressing this anomaly and allowing the department and the States Employment Board to do so, it will alleviate, in future, his concerns. The challenge will be if the department are not allowed to do that, then his concerns may be realised, because the department will not have the flexibility in their funding to manage this budget in a way which will allow them to pay extra for where there are those blockages. It is the other way around. If it carries on as it is, there is no flexibility to deal with those issues. I know there are difficult decisions in parts of this M.T.F.P., but some of these issues, I think as Deputy Lewis of St. Helier said, have been needing to be addressed for a number of years. Perhaps previous Ministers beat up the Council of the Ministers because they have not done it sooner. We are used to it. That does not mean to say we should not allow the department and the States Employment Board to do it going forward. So I ask Members, as attractive as it might be to accept Deputy Southern 's amendment and put it off, I ask them to grasp the nettle and to allow the department to address the issues that they need to, to deliver a more efficient service for our community, because that is what they want to do, they want to drive up standards for every child. They need flexibility to do that and this is an area where that

can be delivered.

18. Connétable S.A. Le Sueur -Rennard of St. Saviour :

Sorry, I will be very quick. I am very uncomfortable with what is going on this morning, to be honest with you. I am not here to negotiate people's wages; I am here for us to make sure we get the staff we require and I find this whole thing .. I do not know. I am very, very uncomfortable with what is being said, so much so that I am almost going to abstain. I just feel very uncomfortable to negotiate people's wages when we have a department who are doing that and I just feel very sorry about the whole thing. If we were negotiating everyone's wages in all the different departments, then I would feel a little bit more comfortable with it, but we are not. We seem to have just picked out one group of people. As I say, I am not happy and I am a bit disappointed. It is now nearly 11.00 a.m., we have been going since 9.30 a.m., and I feel very uncomfortable, and I just thought I would like everybody to know, whether they are bothered or not, but I think I will abstain, because we are not negotiating everyone's wages, we are just negotiating a tiny amount of people and I think it is very upsetting, I am sorry.

The Deputy Bailiff :

Does any other Member wish to speak on the amendment? I call upon Deputy Southern to reply.

19. Deputy G.P. Southern of St. Helier :

Thank you to Members for restoring my faith in the debating prowess in this Chamber, because I left the Chamber last night very sad and depressed about the level of issues that were going on and the statements - unintentional, no doubt - that the proper thing to do was to compare people on entry point 3, which we use, with entry point 1, used elsewhere. That is not like for like. The fact is that graduates, Honours graduates, wherever they are, will be likely to be offered entry point 3 and that is the proper place to make the comparison. I will return to that in a minute. But today I am refreshed again, because I have heard a really good quality of argument from many people as they have contributed to this important debate. What they have said is one of 2 things, I think: first, we should not be negotiating people's salaries; we have got a body that does that, it is the States Employment Board, and we have got a union committed to negotiating workforce modernisation, so if we wish to deliver what the Education Department says, that can be negotiated in the proper way, no problem with that. But what we have got here is the Education Department taking a second bite at that by saying not only: "Will you negotiate this?" but: "You must" because they have put the constraint in and this is the context: "We are going to limit what you can offer." Now, how that is arrived at, what you are doing is denying negotiation and that should not be happening. That was said last night very briefly by the Deputy of St. Mary and he was absolutely correct. Why are we discussing teachers' pay? We should not. If the Chief Minister had come with a change in policy: "One of the ways we are going to save money is on the public sector and we are going to reduce everybody's wages by £8,000", then fine. I would still be arguing with it, but as a policy, then fine, bring it to the States and let us debate it. But that is not happening here: "Let us pick on one particular group and reduce their starting salary by £8,000." Now, the problem with debating this in the context of the M.T.F.P. is that all we can talk about is the money. That is all we can do. We cannot talk about policy, we talk about the money, put it in the pot or do not put it in the pot, put it in the Contingency Fund, validly said, and then you can freely negotiate what you can get. You might arrive at the very solution that the Minister suggests is the one he wants. You might well, because honest negotiation may arrive exactly there, or in negotiation you may compromise one place or another place, and if not here, then over here, you are prepared to put up with this, whatever. That could be anything from class sizes to salaries to numbers of teachers, numbers of assistants. Workplace modernisation, it is going to take place. The union is committed to it, it will take place. Part of that, they end up exactly where the Minister for Education wants. It could be, but no, the Minister for Education wants to constrain that negotiation and say: "You must deliver this." Speaker after speaker this morning .. and I will praise Deputy Brée in particular, if I can find his comments, where he said: "We should not interfere with this negotiating process." What we are

talking about is an investment in education, and that is an investment in the quality of education. How would you deliver that? As many people have said, you deliver it through the quality of teaching. That is how you do it, the quality of your teachers.

[11:00]

Deputy Mézec too gave a good speech again and talked about this being a denigration of the workforce. I believe it is. They mentioned also the extra hours that our teachers do and that would be presumably in the negotiation; why not? He also talked about the fact that teachers, in returning to the Island or in coming to the Island, are bringing with them increasing levels of debt. Now, if you want to return to the Island with your degree, you might look alongside you at what other people with degrees are doing. You might observe that those who go into banking and finance, for example, are getting greater salaries than you and membership of Bupa and whatever, so you make that comparison and you say: "Is it worth me going into teaching or shall I follow the crowd and go into finance?" If we lose those teachers, those potential good-quality teachers, and we are losing them .. and perhaps I ought to give some praise, as I have tried to often, to Senator Ozouf , because not only was the quality of debate around this morning much higher, but Senator Ozouf showed himself to be an expert on education, on salaries, on house prices around London, et cetera, as he always does. It made me smile. But he kept saying: "These are the facts and look at the evidence" and I want Members just to briefly look at the evidence. One has to ask why the full figures were not in the comments of the department. The actual facts are in order to get this figure of £16,000 - and every time I say the word "misleading" Members are sure I mean unintentionally, incidentally, accidently misleading every time I use it - if one looks at the figures, they are misleading, because to get the figure of £16,000 more in Jersey than in the U.K., you have to compare entry point 3, ours £38,000, with the lowest point, entry point 1, £22,000 in England in Wales. That produces a figure of £16,000 more pay here, but compare it with the entry point 3, like with like, and it is reduced. If you then take off £8,000 from our starting point, where do you end up? The department says: "If we remove £8,000, that would leave the starting salary for Jersey still 19 per cent higher than the rate for teachers in inner London" but not if you compare like with like. On the bottom of my chart, if Members would pay attention to it, what we get is £38,200 here compared with £30,800 on the equivalent starting point, level 3, which is £8,000 difference. Take away the £8,000 and we end up under the inner London rate. So when it comes to competing for good graduates to join our teaching force and not elsewhere, do we have an incentive in that? No, we do not. If also we look at the England and Wales figure, the final column, and put in the known fact - thank you, Senator Ozouf , the known fact - produced by our own Statistics Department that the cost of living in Jersey, including housing, is 20 per cent higher than in the average in the U.K., then again what we get is a figure, if you look at the comparative cost of living, of £31,000, which again, if you take £8,000 off our salaries, we are below that in England and Wales again. There is a shortage and somebody said - I think the Minister - that shortage is recovering. It is not. I do not know where that evidence came from; where are the facts? There are still shortages in many areas, in fact, in most areas, just simply not producing graduates who stick at teaching. We are still competing with those, then we have lost the whole incentive to come here, so realistically we are going to be saying to people: "Come here and teach here. It will be 20 per cent more expensive than living in the U.K., but by the time we have taken £8,000, we have got zero incentive to make sure you come." So are we going to get the quality of teachers? I think it was Deputy McLinton who said: "I fear there is a risk that sometime in the future with the quality of the teachers, it will be the fact that we will be returning to say: We need an incentive'." This debate is not about the incentive, it is not about a change in policy overall, it is about a second go, it is putting up a barrier to honest negotiation of modernisation. That, I do not believe, should be happening. I thank the