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TaxPayers’ Alliance reveals £1.4m remuneration of top
education union bosses, with some threatening strikes over
pay.
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Campaign group estimates education unions could have received
up to £83.3m in taxpayer support via trade union facility
time.
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In response, Tory MP and former teacher Jonathan Gullis says
they’ve become an “embarrassment to the profession” and calls
for them to resign.
With teaching unions now threatening strike action over pay, the
TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has revealed that nine union leaders
received a combined remuneration of £1,397,042
across 2020-21.
Latest available data from trade union annual returns shows that
the joint heads of the National Education Union received
£293,358 in total remuneration. The highest paid
education union boss was the general secretary of the National
Association of Head Teachers, Paul Whiteman, who had a total
remuneration of £216,387. The general secretary
of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women
Teachers, which is demanding above inflation pay rises of 12 per
cent this year, received £185,111 up to December
2020. This included £28,482.43 for a ‘union
car’.
Following the recent admission from ministers that taxpayer
support for unions was “difficult to understand”, the TPA also
estimated educational institutions could be providing up to
£83.3 million of facility time support to
unions. Trade union facility time is paid time-off taken
by trade union representatives to carry out union duties. Cabinet
Office data shows education public bodies - such as schools and
universities - had at least 4,423 FTE trade union representatives
in 2020-21, but more than four in five bodies defy
government requirements to publish their facility time
information.
Key findings:
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The joint heads of the National Education Union received
£293,358 in total remuneration. Dr Mary
Bousted received £152,398, while Kevin
Courtney received £140,960 in the year up to
August 2021.
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The general secretary of the National Association of Head
Teachers, Paul Whiteman, had a total remuneration of
£216,387. This included a gross salary of
£165,036, employers national insurance contributions of
£22,378, pension contribution of £23,105 and a car allowance
of £5,868. This was the highest of all
teaching unions in the UK.
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Education public bodies - such as schools and universities -
had at least 4,423 FTE trade union
representatives in 2020-21, of which 57 spent 100 per cent of
their working hours on facility time. Five of these were at
the University of Bristol, the most in the country.
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64 trade union representatives spent between
51 and 99 per cent of their working hours on facility time.
The University of the Arts London had the most, at seven.
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The total cost of trade union facility time for the 497
education institutions who reported was
£14,986,117. There are over 32,000 schools
in the UK.
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With only 18 per cent of institutions
supplying data, the value of trade union facility time in
education could be up to £83.3
million.
Duncan Simpson, research director of the TaxPayers'
Alliance, said:
“Taxpayers are fed up with lectures and disruption from
loaded union leaders.
“Top teaching union officials, with their bumper earnings
backed up by the taxpayer, have become completely removed from
the people they are supposed to represent.
“Ministers should stand firm and instead stop taxpayer
support for the union bosses needlessly threatening to shut down
schools with strikes.”
Former teacher and trade unionist, , said:
"These top-paid teaching unions don't have a leg to stand
on.
"Education union barons are pushing their own political
agenda by threatening to go on strike, regardless of the life
chances of young people they will destroy, proving once again the
embarrassment they have become to the profession.
“Bousted and Courtney should do the honourable thing and
resign.”
