THE appeals process against a decision to reduce teaching assistants’ pay was ‘flawed from start to finish’, Cumbria County Council has been told.

School support staff who are seeing their pay cut by hundreds of pounds a month under new Single Status rules, had their jobs re-evaluated without any real chance of a successful appeal, school administrator Helen Fothergill told the authority’s monthly meeting on Thursday.

Ms Fothergill, who works at Dean Barwick School, Witherslack, said: “I and others would question the legitimacy of an appeals process when not one individual has been successful.”

She was invited to address the council after it received a number of petitions with thousands of signatures opposing cuts in the pay of teaching assistants and other council workers.

Ms Fothergill said teaching assistants had become ‘demoralised’ by the process and that jobs had been re-evaluated ‘without any proper consulation’.

“Staff at one local and very well established nursery are set to lose £200 to £350 per month and considering most of these people only earn around £1,000 per month now, that is going to have a huge effect on their household budgets . . .”

Ms Fothergill said her own salary would drop by £2,460 a year and she knew of a school bursar who ‘is set to lose £4,000 per year’.

“It beggars believe that the diverse responsibilities held by a teaching assistant can be fairly compared (with) and deemed equal to that of an assistant driver, cleaner or janitor.

“Many school based staff and care workers have already seen their hours greatly reduced. If this continues, these particular workers will leave their chosen professions as they will not be able to afford to continue.

“The people who will then suffer the greatest are the children, young adults and elderly of Cumbria and standards will almost certainly fall.

“The council’s plan for the next three year is to protect the vulnerable in our society, but attacking dedicated, well-trained, qualified and caring staff will leave the most vulnerable in our society without the support they need.”

Ms Fothergill criticised the council for ‘hounding numerous employees’ to sign new contracts ‘within days of receipt’.

“Some of these contracts have included wrong positions, wrong salary details and contain many errors.”

She added: “Single Status has been implemented in many other counties with nowhere near the detrimental effect it is having on certain gropups of council employees in Cumbria. We urge you as county councillors to look at these issues and the entire process which has dedmoralised many groups of workers and individuals alike.”

Liberal Democrat group leader Coun Ian Stewart criticised ‘the flawed manner and management of these processes’.

However, cabinet member for organisational development, Elizabeth Mallinson, said the authority was trying to sort Single Status out ‘on the back of £40m of equal pay claim settlements’ and that ‘we are trying to be fair to all our staff’.

*Hundreds of teaching assistants are expected to take part in a protest march through Kendal town centre on Saturday, July 2.