Now Government census wants to know what cars teachers drive

Published 12th Oct 2009

Ministers were last night accused of mounting a ‘Big Brother’ operation by asking schools to supply details of the cars driven by teachers.

The bizarre request for the make, model and registration number of vehicles is among a series of sensitive personal questions included in a new Government ‘census’ of school workers, which has been greeted with fury by teachers’ leaders.

Pilot trials of the census, ahead of the scheme’s roll-out next year by Education Secretary Ed Balls, have also included requests for staff passports, their mobile phone numbers and details of their ‘ethnicity’, ‘mother tongue’ and ‘disabilities’.

Mike Kent, the head teacher of Comber Grove Primary in Camberwell, South-East London, told yesterday how he had stared at the question in disbelief when the first census arrived in his office – and had refused to answer the most intrusive ones.

‘When my secretary saw it, her mouth dropped in astonishment,’ said Mr Kent.

‘There are ten screens, containing 83 questions, which have to be completed for every adult working in the school. They asked us questions right down to the colour and make of cars.

'It is completely ridiculous. I suspect some of the information is being sold on to marketing companies.’

The Government says it is introducing the online census – the first of its kind – because it will assist it ‘in its overall monitoring of and planning for the costs and supply of teachers and support staff . . . as the data collected is at an individual level, rather than at school or local authority level as previously, it will provide a detailed picture which has hitherto been unavailable’.
Enlarge The form also gives teachers the option of ticking 'not known' or 'not specified' under 'Gender', on the right, among other details

The form also gives teachers the option of ticking 'not known' or 'not specified' under 'Gender', on the right, among other details

Mr Kent added: ‘It is certainly thorough. Under “gender”, it even offered the tick-box option of “not known”.’

He added: ‘If my secretary had filled it all in for every member of staff it would have taken her days.

‘I told the local authority that I had no intention of asking her to waste her time unless the Education Department sent me a letter of explanation.

‘Or that we would fill them in, but we would say every teacher owns a Porsche, the average age of teachers is 105, everybody’s religion is Russian Orthodox
and staff have qualifications in Morris dancing.’

Last night, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) denied asking for car registration details and claimed that the questions must have been included by the school itself.

But a spokesman for the local authority, Southwark Council, confirmed that neither the council nor the school had added in the questions and said the form had arrived directly from Ed Balls’s department.

‘Southwark Council does not ask for extra information over what is required by the Government in the School Workforce Survey and has not asked teachers to submit car colours or registrations,’ the spokesman said.

The DCSF then issued a second statement, saying: ‘What might have happened is that the software provider of the survey has added these questions in for other schools at their request – many schools want to collect this data for their own purposes – and they’ve left them in accidentally.’

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: ‘The world has gone completely barmy. We have pointed out to the Government that this survey contains far more questions than is necessary. What are they trying to establish – how many teachers drive Jaguars?’

Source: ' Mail on Sunday '

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