Introduction

The DfES offers guidance on minimising paperwork and reducing bureaucracy in their publication, Bureaucracy Cutting Toolkit: Organisation and Management (2003). The online version of this can be found on the TeacherNet Web site. The toolkit suggests some quite simple strategies which are excellent ideas – although difficult, possibly costly and probably time-consuming. They are, however, essential for all schools to do. The implications behind the points they are trying to make is that schools need to look closely as well as creatively at what they do.
They suggest that schools think about the following four types of activity:

• activities which do not appear to relate directly to delivering an effective education to pupils
• activities carried out more frequently than strictly necessary, inefficiently or in unnecessary detail
• administrative activities carried out by teachers which could better be done by support staff
• activities which could benefit from the use of ICT.

It is obvious that there is a direct link between making decisions about these activities and the complexity of workforce reform. The Bureaucracy Cutting Toolkit has close links with teachers’ conditions of service and the National Workload Agreement. It makes it clear, for example, that if teachers are carrying out routine administrative tasks then it is important to take action that prevents them from having to continue doing them. They suggest four strategies:

• stop doing some things that are unnecessary
• redesign the way you do things
• ensure that you match staff to activities
• make the best use of ICT.

In the previous section, there are many practical suggestions related to implementing the National Workload Agreement. It is important that when you are reviewing the activities that produce paperwork and bureaucracy you think in terms of your school, your activities, your staff and your feelings towards unnecessary work. In reviewing workload – which includes bureaucracy and paperwork – you will have identified areas that need changing. They could include issues similar to those already suggested, for example:

• arrangements for collecting cash for visits, lunch money, etc
• the organisation of supply cover
• the input of pupil data
• annual report-writing for parents
• exam and test administration, etc.

It is important not to think that everything can be done at once. It is better to acknowledge that there has to be a starting point. The rest of this section takes you through a process for reducing paperwork.