Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what benefits she is seeking through amendment of the provision of teachers' pay and conditions warning notices.

The Education and Adoption Bill proposes to amend the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to improve the warning notice process, both for those given on teachers’ pay and conditions grounds, as well as those on performance, leadership or safety grounds.

Under the bill, the current fixed 15 day warning notice compliance period will be replaced with a variable compliance period. This will give local authorities, and where applicable regional schools commissioners, more scope in terms of the requirements which they can place on a school’s governing body. They will no longer be constrained by what the governing body can reasonably achieve within just 15 days.

These changes apply to all forms of warning notices. Unlike warning notices on performance, leadership or safety grounds, which will be able to be issued by both local authorities and regional schools commissioners on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, teachers’ pay and conditions warning notices will only be available to local authorities.