Being a teacher and being bankrupt?

whoopsydaisy

Hello! I had some very helpful advice from this forum the other day about my situation and phoned business debtline as advised. The lady I spoke to was lovely and gave some very good advice. BUT she mentioned that she was unsure if I could legally continue teaching as it was a job with a "position of trust". I asked her to check and she came back saying they were pretty sure of this fact.

I know that some of you on here are teachers. Is she wrong? Or should I not mention it to my employer, surely they will know from the nill tax code? and also teachers like to gossip about each other- it would be around the staff room in 2 seconds!

thank-you.

wherediditallgo

Unless your contract of employment has a clause about bankruptcy, you don't have to tell your employers that you're BR. Only certain professions are affected by BR, & it's as much about being involved with other people's money as it is about trust, if not more so. Your payroll dept may be informed that you're to be given a NT (Nil Tax) coding for your salary, but there are other reasons that can be given besides bankruptcy (eg if you've paid too much tax in a previous year), so seeing that code won't automatically tell them your BR status. Lastly, you're entitled to confidentiality, so if your payroll dept do discuss it with anyone other than you, they'd be in breach of their own contract of employment. Someone may see the tiny advert that appears in the local paper about it, but it's very unlikely. If anyone says anything to you, just tell them you're very willing to discuss your life with them as long as you & other people can discuss theirs in return, then walk away. Hope that helps.

rog2

I saw nothing in the Insolvency Service information that would prevent you from carrying on with your teaching job. The OR may write to your employers, and it will be published in the local papers, but, unless your job involves handling money, then I see no reason why it should affect you.
It may be best to mention, in confidence, your intentions, to your personnel department, or headmaster. They should respect your confidence.
As to 'gossip in the staff room' - that will soon be forgotten.

fermi

Being an undischarged bankrupt bars you from taking on or maintaining a position as a school governor.

Its sounds as if the lady from BDL has become confused on this point.

whoopsydaisy

Thank you both. I thought as much, that makes things much clearer. I have to say that the people on this site give soooo much advice that I was sure that I would have known that if it were the case! At that point in time i'd actually wished i'd had enough money to pay my union membership last year!!! i will definitely be paying that this year (Just in case!)

xx

Nenen

Before you do anything else about declaring yourself bankrupt I would strongly recommend you contact your LEA personnel department to double (and then triple) check the consequences of a teacher going bankrupt. I really hope that the PPs are correct that everything will be fine but I'd want it from the horse's mouth so to speak. You should be able to speak to someone at LEA headquarters in confidence. You could also contact one of the unions and ask if they can give you advice if you join up today (you can pay monthly just under £12 or less for p/t). I would imagine that the last thing you need right now would be to lose your teaching job or put yourself in the position whereby it would be difficult to apply for promotion or change jobs if you want to.

I am a teacher too and a few years ago my dh and I were in even more debt than you are now (admitedly there are two of us LOL). I know only too well how stupid you feel but one thing did console me somewhat... I happened to see a couple of adverts in the TES for companies offering to help teachers in debt (don't touch them with a bargepole btw they make things worse). However, I rang and spoke to a man who, when I told him how stupid I felt as a teacher (don't know why we should be immune to debt problems but somehow I guess everyone assumes we 'should know better') said well if you were the only teacher this happens to we wouldn't be bothering to take out an ad in the TES now would we! Somehow it made me feel a little better to know that I wasn't the only teacher in the entire world who had got herself into this kind of mess!
We decided not to go bankrupt but for me to go back to work full time (I'd been 0.6 previously as we had young children) and had great advice and support from the CAB in setting up a repayment programme with all creditors. This stopped them keep ringing and pestering us as CAB will intervene if they continue to do that. It has taken ten years to repay all we owed but at least we have now almost finished and things can only get better!
Best of luck!

whoopsydaisy

Thank-you for the support. I was a full time teacher up until my little one started school, and then I felt some kind of teacher/parent guilt about dropping my daughter off with a childminder at a ridiculous hour and then picking her up only to put her to bed, which is why I dropped to part-time and started my business. On the CAB note, I have tried to contact my local CAB for a few weeks now (have phoned about 10 times a day) but all I get is a recorded message about how busy they are asking to phone back later. Does anyone know if I could get the same advice over the phone generally with CAB?

philnicandamy

Have you tried any of the other Debt Charities? I tried the CAB back in Jan 07 when I started to struggle to pay stuff & to be honest they were a little overstretched and pretty hopeless at keeping in touch

see links below. Their services are free; they have no vested interest to serve; their advisors are professionally trained and the advice they give will be objective and in your best interests only. CCCS operate a system of telephone appointments that are designed to be flexible and don’t require you to attend an office based interview. At the CAB you will need to make an appointment with a specialist Financial Advisor; other advisors may not have the specialist knowledge you’ll need.
http://www.cccs.co.uk/
http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index.htm

PixiePie

I'm a teacher (or about to be again after a 'career break') and about to go BR and have been told by the charities (CCCS and Debtline) that it's not a problem for teachers. I can't ask my union as I'm not with one again yet ( I can't sign up until my contract starts on 1st Sept, and can't afford it now at any rate) and obviously not going to ask my new head teacher, so am going on that.

At the end of the day I will take them to court if this isn't the case as by BR has absolutely no bearing what so ever on my teaching ability or other duties I carry out as a teacher. Since the workload agreement we are legally not allowed to touch money anyway, so I don't see how this has bearing on my job and will fight all the way if they say otherwise (millitant hat going on there lol). As for changing jobs etc - you're only un-discharged for a year (unless you've been very very naughty indeed! (like fraud etc)), so unless you are on a short term contract this shouldn't be an issue. As far as I am aware so far, it's not a criminal thing at all, and therefore doesn't show on the CRB (haven't had this directly confirmed, but have been told by CCCS and Debtline that it's not a criminal thing at all, so I'm guessing by extension on the CRB), and unless they scan the London Gazette before interview (why would they do this? Do they not have lives?) etc I can't see how it would effect a job interview. And if it does? I don't want to work for a head that takes the fact I was BR into consideration as it has nothing to do with my teaching ability (I know beggars can't be choosers, but teaching isn't a totally hard to get a job if you're desperate really) I've never had a box to tick on a teaching job application that pertains to BR and if there was to be honest I would refuse to answer for the same reasons I refuse to answer whether I'm black, white or purple with pink spots.

As far as the staff room goes - next week they will have something else to gossip over, and as I'm in a HUGE school, if I'm the only BR there I would be very surprised indeed, and I haven't heard about any when I was in in June...

I'm not telling my school as I wasn't aware I had a legal obligation to let anyone I didn't owe money to know and therefore it's none of their business. If my tax code/when my tax code changes they will know about that, but it can be changed for other reasons that BR, so that's not a problem as I understand it. If you're worried about school knowing, can you ask the OR not to mention it to work - I really don't see why they might let your employer know if it's nothing to do with them from the pov of owing money, and being able to provide wage slips to prove you earn x amount of money (which the OR will be able to verify from the national wage brackets anyway).

Sorry if any of that sounds a bit ranty - I'm scared to sickness over going BR and the thought that anyone has the right to make me more scared or judge me for something they know nothing about (my personal circumstances) makes me mad grrrrr

Good luck, teachers can be just as bad with money as anyone else lol

EmmaMG

I'm a teacher too, went BR on 26th June. I was worried it would affect my job but decided to come clean with my head. She was wonderful; gave me time off for court and OR phone interview (she let me use her office for this). She assured me that it wouldn't affect job at all and that she doesn't have a clue about tax codes as all done at LEA.

I know what you mean though, I thought that people would think teachers should be more responsible. My biggest dread was a parent reading about the BR in the local paper but doesn't seem to have been a problem.

Everyone I told at school was very supportive and I certainly don't feel gossiped about.

Anyway, you'll be a better teacher when you're not worried about paying the bills 24/7!

rog2

EmmaMG wrote: »

Anyway, you'll be a better teacher when you're not worried about paying the bills 24/7!

Couldn't agree more, Emma. The stress of debt is bound to impact negatively on anyone's work.