EIS President Urges SNP Delegates to Deliver SNP Teacher Workload Manifesto Promise

The President of the EIS has used his speech at an SNP Conference Fringe event to warn the Scottish Government of the pressing need to deliver its 2021 Manifesto commitment to tackle teacher workload by reducing teachers’ maximum class contact time to 21 hours per week or it will face industrial action across all of Scotland’s schools.

Addressing the meeting in Aberdeen, EIS President Adam Sutcliffe, a Principal Teacher of Modern Languages in Aberdeenshire, said, “You must be aware that the SNP promised to reduce weekly class contact time by 90 minutes and to employ 3,500 extra teachers and staff to implement it.”

“The workload crisis must be addressed, and the first step is affording the full 90 minutes from reducing weekly class contact time to teachers so that they can carry out the fundamental preparation of learning, teaching and assessment within their contractual working week.” 

“On Tuesday this week the EIS Executive met and decided to move to a statutory ballot on getting the job done – reducing workload by reducing our weekly class contact hours by 90 minutes as promised by the SNP manifesto of 2021.”

“We don’t want to go on strike or carry out industrial action short of strike action. We don’t want to disrupt the learning and teaching of children and young people, but what else can we do when promises, accepted by the electorate including teachers in good faith have not been met, or are not showing tangible progress towards being met.”  

“That is what we are asking for, meaningful progress to meet a promise by the government to address the workload of teachers…teachers are fed up. Our patience has run out.”

The EIS statutory ballot will open on 12 November and close on 14 January. As a consequence of UK trade union laws, the statutory ballot will be a postal ballot only.

This release contains extracts of the President’s speech. The full text is available from the EIS website.

Background to the Workload Dispute

Following several years of discussions at SNCT with no progress made on the implementation of the Scottish Government’s 2021 manifesto commitment to reduce weekly class contact time to 21 hours, an agreement was reached between the Scottish Government and COSLA, in December 2024, which included a commitment that both would work together ‘at pace’ to make meaningful progress on the commitment.
Mindful of disappointment on previous commitments to make progress, the SNCT Teachers’ Panel set a deadline of Monday 3rd February 2025, for a tangible plan for implementation to be tabled at SNCT in relation to reducing class contact time. Despite assurances, from the Scottish Government that the deadline would be met, no such plan was tabled.
The SNCT Teachers’ Panel declared a formal dispute on 7th February 2025. The formal dispute was lodged on two grounds:
- The lack of progress on the reduction of class contact time to 21 hours.
- The lack of agreement on the use of time within the contractual 35-hour working week.
The second of the above is the basis of a long-standing red line of the SNCT Teachers’ Side: that the time resulting from a reduction in weekly class contact time to 21 hours is allocated, in full, to the ‘preparation and correction’ component of the contract, in order to make progress in addressing unsustainable, unhealthy and unfair levels of workload.
Initially, discussions regarding the dispute took place through meetings of the SNCT Joint Chairs and were moved, by the request of the Teachers’ Side, to a distinct SNCT working group.

The early meetings, both of SNCT Joint Chairs and the working group, failed to produce any progress, with COSLA and the Scottish Government progressing their own discussions through a separate working group that excluded the Teachers’ Side of the SNCT. The SG-COSLA promise to produce a report for the wider SNCT by June was not met.

EIS Consultative Ballot

On 9th May 2025, EIS Council approved the opening of a consultative ballot in response to the lack of substantive progress at SNCT. The ballot was conducted between 6th June 2025 and 18th August 2025, with EIS members indicating strong support for action:
- Yes to Strike Action: 83%.
- Yes to Action Short of Strike: 92%.
A full meeting of the SNCT was held on 20th August 2025, just ahead of the conclusion of the EIS consultative ballot, at which the Scottish Government tabled a proposed work plan to be taken forward in the SNCT class contact time working group, involving all three sides.
The EIS Salaries Committee took the position that in order for such discussion to take place, a potential request to hold a statutory ballot would be paused.
The EIS indicated publicly, and directly to both the Scottish and COSLA, that the meetings of the SNCT working group scheduled for 18th September and 30th September would act as a measure of their joint commitment to making the promised swift and meaningful progress.

EIS Efforts to Progress Negotiations

In an effort to effect progress within negotiations towards agreement, the Teachers’ Side tabled a discussion paper at the SNCT working group meeting held on 18th September 2025.
The Scottish Government and COSLA both responded positively to the tabled paper at the meeting, and agreed to give its content further consideration prior to the further meeting of the SNCT working group scheduled to take place on 30th September 2025.
At the SNCT working group meeting on 30th September 2025, 12 days after it had been tabled, neither the Scottish Government nor COSLA were able or willing to respond formally to the previously tabled Teachers’ Side paper.
In the case of COSLA, there was admission that the work required had simply not been undertaken, while Scottish Government officials were still awaiting a view from ministerial level. Furthermore, neither the Scottish Government nor COSLA were able to provide any timescales in which formal responses could be given.

EIS Salaries Committee decision & Subsequent Executive Committee decision

The EIS Salaries Committee considered the lack of meaningful progress in negotiations at a special meeting on 3rd October 2025. At this meeting it was unanimously agreed to request a statutory ballot for industrial action in pursuit of an acceptable outcome to the SNCT dispute on reducing weekly class contact time to 21 hours. This request for a statutory ballot has now been unanimously agreed by the EIS Executive Committee.