Dear Colleague,
Prepare for our pay ballot. That’s the main message that will be circulated in the next period.
Members Defence
I probably keep coming back to the same themes but, as usual, this part of the report is about the Committee I sit on and, as usual, I keep coming back to the subject of Safeguarding in relation to education staff. Increasingly there are cases where “safeguarding” becomes a disciplinary matter and where a member can be suspended.
For example, there is an allegation against a staff member and the allegation is sent to the LADO- the Local Authority Designated Officer. The Safeguarding process was part of a series of reforms to protect children that has grown over the years but there was a landmark document called “Keeping Children Safe in Education” which marked an important turning point. The focus of this document though is about children rather than adults. And whilst safeguarding of children is paramount there are issues where things that happen outside of the classroom or out of school have resulted in a suspension and where the important principle of safeguarding children has been misapplied.
In many cases an issue is referred to the LADO and the LADO comes back with a definitive answer that a safeguarding breach has taken place or hasn’t. That is straightforward. But more often than not the LADO hands the case back to the school and some school leaders err on the side of caution and decide to suspend or initiate disciplinary action even where the LADO hasn’t said that this is a safeguarding case. Other rogue leaders initiate disciplinary action because they may want to shift the blame from themselves to a staff member. This Committee is constantly looking at ways to defend members in this climate of potential abuse of safeguarding procedures. Also we have seen “Safeguarding” sometimes used in a way to punish members for things they do outside of the school which have nothing to do with Safeguarding.
Some members may also be involved in a case where they may have breached Union rules or Teachers’ Standards and if and how the Union provides support is called into question. There is going to be a review of how we as Union deal with the grey areas in how and when we provide support. Under what circumstances do we withdraw Union support? How up-to date is the advice do we give to our reps in relation to giving legal support from the Union? This is quite a technical and complicated area, but basically we are always trying to revise the way we deliver services, particularly legal services, to members.
Advice Line Report
In November 4,300 calls were received by the Advice Line – 68% answered successfully up from last year. In December- 3,500 calls were received and 64% were answered successfully but this includes school holidays and so the Advice Line was probably more successful. Advice Line closes from Christmas Eve to 2nd January.
There is a document circulating: “CREATING A MODERN FRAMEWORK FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS -NATIONAL EDUCATION UNION RESPONSE TO GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION”
This is a consultation exercise on employment relations- and of course we welcome collective bargaining, transparency etc. But the NEU also want to see movement on a number of issues such as secondary action. We also are looking at changing Fire and Rehire. Employers shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily vary contracts.
Daniel Kebede spoke about underfunding in our schools and the lack of funding for pay rises. According to Daniel, the Secretary of State, Bridgette Phillipson, understands many of the problems we have raised but the main obstacle to significant progress remains the economic policy of the Government which is about freezing or even cutting public expenditure.
There was a discussion about Academies and our demand to see all schools governed by the Burgundy Book. https://neu.org.uk/latest/library/burgundy-book
Also it seems that Labour will be looking at putting a cap on School or Academy CEO pay. I asked Daniel if we could highlight the pay of CEOs as a major propaganda point when talking with Labour ministers in an effort to push them further on eliminating greedy bosses from education. A tiny Academy chain in Liverpool, Northern Schools Trust, for example, pays six leaders over £100,000 a year with the top Executive “earning” £250,000 year. This is a scandal and Labour could divert these vast sums of money directly into schools. Stopping the CEO pay rip-off is a win-win for Government, NEU and children.
There is now an end to the presumption that all new schools must be Academies which is good news. There is an all parliamentary group on schools assessment. The Chair is Peter Swallow a former NEU member. The NEU is also using our political muscle in working on amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing Bill.
There was a discussion about sex workers and donations to antiracist and antifascist organisations. There was a motion to give Stand Up to Racism a donation of £100,000 that was approved. Although we need to fund organisations that oppose the Far Right, I didn’t support this level of donation, a huge amount, which far outstrips money donated from members for other causes. For one thing, it’s not easy to work out who runs this organisation and where the money goes. For example if you go on the website it’s difficult to see who holds responsibility, and who runs SUTR! If you have better luck than me in finding out then let me know!
Best wishes,
Pete