Schools shun plan for £15,000 bonus in inner cities

A flagship "golden handcuffs" scheme to pay the country's top teachers an extra £15,000 to work in inner-city areas has been ignored by all but a handful of schools who qualify.

David Miliband, the minister for schools, said yesterday that only three per cent of schools had taken advantage of the scheme – under which they can pay an extra £5,000-a-year recruitment and retention package to staff for a maximum of three years if they agree to stay in their post for that period.

However, Mr Miliband told a conference in London that the Government was planning a new drive to lure the best teachers into inner-city schools.

"All pupils need good teachers," he said. "But pupils in tough areas need the best. That is why the Government is supporting the recruitment of and retention of outstanding teachers in the toughest schools.

"If we can get our best teachers into challenging schools, we will add huge value to the nation. It can be the difference between a life with a career, a family, prosperity and life on the margins."

Headteachers at the conference, held to present awards to newly qualified heads, said schools had boycotted the plan because it was "divisive".

Kenny Frederick, head of George Green school in Tower Hamlets, east London, said: "I want to appoint people who want to come and work here because they like the school. We've been fast-tracking teachers and good teachers could soon get a head of department's job but it is divisive to just give £5,000 to recruit someone."

John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, added that heads were reluctant to use the bonuses because they "distorted" existing salary structures.

Mr Miliband said that Gordon Brown's comprehensive spending review – due to be announced next week – would include measures to help education in deprived communities.

The Chancellor would be setting special "floor targets" – minimum standards for schools and pupils in deprived areas.

"We need to raise performance at the bottom as well as in the middle and at the top," Mr Miliband added. "I am ambitious for children in deprived areas because I know they have the brains, I'm convinced they've got the potential but they don't have the chances."

Meanwhile, a report from the education standards watchdog reveals that flagship government schemes to improve inner-city education are putting too much of a management burden on headteachers.

David Bell, the new chief schools inspector, told a London conference yesterday that the Ofsted report – on the Government's education action zones and excellence in the cities plan – revealed "a management cost" to schools involved in the scheme. He also urged schools and governing bodies to say "no" to schemes if they were too time-consuming.