The McCrone Report is being described as the most comprehensive review of Scottish teaching for a generation.

The inquiry committee, set up by the Scottish Executive last year to help head off industrial action by teachers, has put forward a number of suggestions for overhauling the profession.

Here are the report's main recommendations.

New career structure:

• Four main grades based on: a main classroom grade; a middle management grade including principal teachers; a senior grade called depute head teacher and the retention of the head teacher grade

• A twin-track career structure based on "chartered" status for teachers, which will involve personal achievement rather than a post

• Chartered status to be introduced by April 2002 and an "advanced chartered teacher" status would also be introduced

New working conditions:

• Contractual working week of 35 hours

• 30 hours to be spent on "core" activities like class teaching, preparation and correction

• Remaining five hours for school-wide collectiive activities

• Same working week in primary and secondary schools

• Working year increased to 200 days to cover extra training

• System of "performance management" to include appraisal

• National standards on capability and a new system for discipline and dismissal in cases of capability and conduct.

Pay:

• Pay structures designed to "recruit, retain and motivate", creating a "transparent and flexible" pay structure that "rewards and recognises excellence in the classroom"

• All teachers to get salary increases of between 8% and 12% in 2001

• Starting salary of �17,000

• Maximum salary for classroom teachers of �26,000; chartered teachers up to �29,000; advanced chartered teachers up to �34,000

• Principal teachers up to �34,000, deputy heads up to �44,000, heads up to �61,5000

• Heads to be able to make extra discretionary payments of up to �1,000 for teachers who undertake special responsibilities (this could be paid hourly in smaller schools)

Future deals:

• Pay to be determined by free collective bargaining through a national negotiating committee

• Committee to work on an annual cycle, but with the ability to strike deals of up to three years

• Flexibility for local negotiation on core conditions, subject to approval at national level

• Headteachers' organisations and the Scottish Executive to be represented

• Small independent body to report every three years on the value of teachers' salaries compared with other professions and other key data

Other recommendations:

• Substantial increase in classroom assistants in primary schools, and introduction of "para-professionals" in secondaries - especially in the first two years

• Teacher workload to be monitored, including a "bureaucracy audit"

• More investigation of possibilities for early retirement and the "winding down" of careers

• Research needed into effects of class sizes on pupil attainment

• Review of initial teacher training

• Stable employment contracts for probationer teachers

• Limits to temporary contracts

• One-term sabbaticals every 10 years

• Bursars (senior administrative officers) for larger schools or clusters of smaller ones

• Social inclusion to be adequately resourced; pupil indiscipline to be tackled.

Remit and membership

The McCrone Committee was established in September last year with the following terms of reference.

The committee is requested to inquire widely into:

a) How teachers' pay, promotion structures and conditions of service should be changed in order to ensure a committed, professional and flexible teaching force which will secure high and improving standards of school education for all children in Scotland into the new Millennium; and

b) The future arrangements for determining teachers' pay and conditions in Scotland following the removal of the statutory basis of the Scottish Joint Negotiating Committee (School Education) now proposed by the Scottish Executive; and to make recommendations.

The membership of the committee is:

Professor Gavin McCrone - visiting professor Edinburgh University Management School;

Alan Campbell - chief executive, Aberdeenshire Council

Campbell Christie - former general secretary of the Scottish Trade Union Congress

Professor Bob Elliot - professor of economics, Aberdeen University

David Hutchinson - president of the Scottish School Boards Association

Patricia McColl - headteacher, Campie Primary School, Musselburgh

Norrie McLeod - general manager (Personnel) Standard Life Assurance Company since 1991

Anne Mulgrew - headteacher, St Andrew's High School, East Kilbride.