Head Balls

Question: how many private sector workers in the UK do you suppose earn £200,000 a year, paid entirely in cash, with virtually iron-clad job security (backed by a trade union) and an index-linked pension. My best guess: none. Yet in an attempt to improve the education system by bringing in "private style" incentives, that seems to be the deal that Education Minister Ed Balls wants to offer to some head teachers.

This follows the perceived success of big boosts in salaries for heads of large NHS hospitals. One of these folk, the chief executive of Whipps Cross hospital in east London, made not far short of £400,000 last year, according to data disclosed to Parliament a few months back.

Now, I know Whipps Cross hospital very well, having grown up in the area. A few years ago it was a Victorian nightmare -- and I apologize to any Victorians out there who may be offended by that comparison. Whipps was actually much worse than that. Nowadays it's much improved, so the Chief Exec and his (her? -- I can't remember) staff have done a good job.

But that's not the point. One of the key elements of success for any private business is not paying more than you have to for anything, but Ed Balls and his Cabinet colleagues seem quite unaware of this. Who is competing against the NHS for the services of hospital administrators? Right. So why do you have to pay them so much? The person at Whipps would still turn up to do the job at a salary of £100,000 a year, and would no doubt be very glad of it. (I would make the same sort of argument about how much the BBC pays Jonathan Ross, but that's for another time).

The same goes for head teachers -- maybe even moreso, in fact. It's at least conceivable that a private sector manager from an unrelated field could make a go of hospital administration, but there's no chance of a non-teacher getting a headship. So you're going to pay a budget-busting amount to people who have already chosen to be in the profession, and entered it in full knowledge of the rewards and risks.

This Government simply does not understand the private sector practices that it seeks to emulate. City fat cats get paid big money, but large chunks of it are deferred and very possibly paid in the form of company stock, which may or may not be worth as much when it's finally handed over; they are subject to firing either because of their own failings or because problems elsewhere in the business have led to general cost-cutting; they have no trade union to fight their corner; and they have to provide their own pensions. If Ed Balls wants to replicate those conditions for head teachers, fair enough, but I don't think that's the plan, and if it were, I'd expect a lot of members of the profession to quit, because that's not what they signed up for.

We're hearing that class sizes in primary schools could reach 70 because of funding constraints. For the same reason, teaching assistants are replacing fully qualified teachers all over the place. If Ed Balls has wodges of cash to throw around, he should invest in solving those problems rather than make a few head teachers rich beyond their wildest dreams.