Teaching assistants row - Cumbria council leader hits back at MPs

His defence follows a warning that the authority could face a ‘tidal wave of employment tribunals’ over its treatment of school support staff.

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron claimed the authority’s ‘stubborness and incompetence’ could lead to a bill for million of pounds in compensation.

Mr Farron is one of five Cumbrian MPs, representing the three main political parties, who signed a joint letter appealing to the authority to re-think its unpopular proposal.

They claimed the decision to reduce salaries by up to 30 per cent was out of step with the way other authorities have dealt with the implementation of new pay equality rules, known as Single Status.

Mr Farron, Conservative Rory Stewart (Penrith and the Border), Labour's John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness), Tony Cunningham (Workington) and Jamie Reed (Copeland) sent the letter to the council leader urging him to change tack.

The MPs said they asked other local authorities how they had managed to introduce single status without adversely affecting teaching assistants' salaries.

They said: "It is clear from (their) responses . . . that most local authorities have been able to arrive at a position in regards to the Single Status exercise which is perceived as fair and equitable by teaching assistants, the employers and trade unions.

"This further strengthens our view that it should be possible to offer teaching assistants a fair deal that will not risk an exodus of experienced and valuable staff members from the classroom.”

However, Coun Martin repudiated the MPs’ criticisms in a letter released on Monday, in which he described their attack as ‘disingenuous’ and accused them of quoting other authorities ‘selectively.

Coun Martin's letter to the MPs in full

I write in reply to your letter of 24th June in relation to Single Status and, in particular, the teaching assistants.

I note your comments. As you have circulated your letter widely I shall do likewise.

May I say, at the outset, how disappointed I am that you have attempted to party politicise the single status process by referring to the “Conservative – Labour coalition”.

Perhaps you are unaware that the Single Status Working Group, established many months ago by the county council to consider the details of this process, is an all-party group which has included the Leader of the Liberal Democrats and other senior Liberal Democrats.

I might also add that two Leaders of the Liberal Democrat group have also held the Cabinet portfolio for Organisational Development and HR.

During their long period of office I understand no progress was made in resolving Single Status.

However, this issue has never been a party political matter and I have no intention of allowing it to become so.

To intimate otherwise is, in my view, profoundly disingenuous.

Second, I full-well appreciate the concerns expressed by MPs of all persuasions and other people.

However, neither the MPs nor anyone else has a monopoly of compassion in this matter.

My colleagues and I (from all political parties) have expressed considerable concerns not dissimilar to yours and some of us have spent hundreds of hours attempting to arrive at an acceptable and affordable compromise.

We have robustly and assertively interrogated the professional advice and recommendations we have been given, such that we have been able to strike the best balance possible for all members of staff - including teaching assistants - when taking into account all of the different requirements of the law, and the reality of making sure the Council can continue to provide good quality, affordable, and viable services.

We have explored every possible approach to mitigate the effect of the pay reductions for those staff who will unfortunately be losing pay as a part of the process.

You will also be aware that the implementation of Single Status will cost the county council a further £10m at a time when we are faced with the most stringent financial cuts ever imposed by central government on local authorities.

However, if you are aware of a solution which would satisfy the legal imperatives and the rigours of employment law; that would satisfy the conditions of the 1997 agreement, and that would not give rise to legal challenge by failing to harmonise pay and conditions, I would be only too delighted to take your advice.

I would remind you that this Authority has already paid out more than £40milion in Equal Pay claims.

It would be irresponsible to allow Cumbrian people to be faced again with similar circumstances and I do not intend for it to happen.

The plain fact is that Teaching Assistants come under, and are regulated by, the ‘Green Book’ conditions no less than most other employees.

As most of the Teaching Assistants are school-based staff and accountable to their Head Teachers and School Governors, rather than county council line-managers, I do not think they should be so regulated.

It is most unfortunate, I believe, that your government disbanded the Schools Support Staff Negotiating Body last October; there is clearly a need to re-establish a similar forum at a national level, and you could be of considerable help to Teaching Assistants and indeed the County Council and schools, by using your influence to get this decision reversed.

However, whilst Teaching Assistants remain so regulated they fall under the terms of the Single Status Agreement made between the then Government and the Trade Unions in 1997, and must be considered in no less a manner than any other ‘Green Book’ employee; to do otherwise would clearly not result in equal and harmonised pay and conditions.

You claim that the process, which has taken years of analysis by qualified HR and job evaluation personnel, is flawed yet you produce no empirical evidence to support that allegation.

You also assert that the county council is under “much greater legal threat with the current, botched scheme”.

You may not have seen a recent letter from Unison to its members that suggests that the process is, indeed, NOT flawed and neither is the Authority “under a greater legal threat”.

Extracts from that letter include:- “On a positive note and on the information available to us and supplied by the County Council, the large majority of staff do not lose by the introduction of the scheme.

"It is pleasing to note that … we believe that over £1m has been added to the Council’s annual pay bill as the result of successful appeals.

"There is no easy legal route to force the Council to change its position.

"The legal issue becomes whether the employer has a fair reason for imposing the change.

"It is our advice that implementation of Single Status is likely to constitute a fair reason.

“Unison does not approve of extending the period of pay protection… because of the danger that pay protection perpetuates discrimination.”

“We do not believe… that when pay protection expires there will be many/any members having enforceable legal claims to recover their losses.”

You publicly accuse us of “botching” the process, yet you singularly fail to demonstrate how or why you arrive at that conclusion.

Given the complexity of single status and the difficulties in harmonising multiple pay structures, and terms and conditions which have evolved over many years, it would have been irresponsible of this Authority not to seek advice and guidance from as many sources as possible.

That we have, indeed, done.

When citing the examples of other Authorities your choices are not comprehensive and, indeed, are very selective.

You do not quote those which have experienced difficulties.

You should be aware that Cumbria County Council has also spoken with a large number of other Authorities in terms of their experiences of single status.

We have received and made use of much advice and information on how best to proceed.

In addition, I should add that the team dealing with single status here in Cumbria has a track record of having worked on these matters at both national and regional levels, as well as the effective implementation of single status in over a dozen other Local Authorities across the country.

As with colleagues in Warwickshire, from the outset the Council has been clear that this is not a cost saving exercise.

That is the reason why we have budgeted an additional £10M into the salary bill for core County Council staff  as a result of single status, and have also advised head teachers and school governors to anticipate and plan for the budgetary effects of single status.

Similarly, as with colleagues in Warwickshire and Somerset, the Council has reviewed its historical terms and conditions, introducing more modern and consistent terms and conditions for all staff.

We are harmonising working hours, annual leave and overtime arrangements, as well as removing benefits such as essential car user allowances that historically have only been received by certain staff.

These new terms and conditions give a far more modern basis for services to be delivered in a way that communities across Cumbria both expect and need - for example more offices and services being available on Saturdays.

They will also save money - but money that has been put straight back into pay so as to minimise the number of staff who would see their base pay reduced.

The national Single Status Agreement is clear that it expects Councils to seek to reach an agreement with the relevant trade unions on the proposed new pay arrangements.

As with colleagues in Gloucestershire County Council, we have invested significant time and effort in seeking to reach agreement on the changes proposed with the trade unions, and continue to co-ordinate and work with the trade unions as we move towards implementation.

You should perhaps ask the respective trade unions the reason for their inability to come to a collective agreement, and indeed the thinking behind their approach to single status since the conclusion of the negotiations in December 2010.

As a part of single status, Cumbria has already developed and negotiated with the Trade Unions a policy that will allow us to use market supplements, similar to that cited by Suffolk County Council.

Cumbria County Council already has a redeployment policy and a specialist central HR team responsible for the redeployment of staff where possible, similar to that cited by Devon County Council.

Clearly there are times where individual schools could be more pro-active in taking on staff through redeployment, so we would welcome the support of MPs in encouraging schools across Cumbria to adopt a more progressive approach to redeployment where possible.

We have been clear for many months now, that paying Teaching Assistants properly for all of the preparation and hours that they actually work, and looking at whether they could work more hours - and be paid for them, are approaches that we would fully support.

These measures – which are entirely at the discretion of Head Teachers and Governors - would considerably minimise the impact of any pay reductions that Teaching Assistant's are due to experience.

This is similar to the approach cited by the London Borough of Bromley and by Westminster City Council, but with the difference being that we believe this is a matter of choice best managed and agreed on a local basis between the member of staff and the Head Teacher.

The job of the Council is to ensure that the pay structures and terms and conditions used are equitable, not to dictate what hours individual members of staff work in each and every school.

So I am pleased to reflect that the extracts of information that you have highlighted in your letter are, in the main, already a part of the approach which Cumbria is taking to the single status process.

You have usefully provided me with a copy of all of the replies that you received. In your letter to me of 24th June you have quoted from a number of those responses.

Let me in turn highlight a number of responses that you chose not to reference, which I believe will help to put a more balanced picture of what the reality of single status is really like across the country, and indeed demonstrate that Cumbria is simply doing what many other Authorities have already had to do, and in a similar fashion.

Warwickshire County Council - "There may, of course, be a number of reasons why this experience is not replicated in Cumbria. We may have been paying less in Warwickshire before our review."

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames - "I understand from my enquiries that the nature of changes needed to ensure the implementation of single status for teaching assistants has varied significantly even within the London Boroughs. The complexity of the work is essentially driven by the amount of individual variety in terms and conditions, and also the size of any pay differentials to be dealt with.."

Bath & NE Somerset Council - "At the same times, the authority took the opportunity to rationalise terms and conditions of employment for all staff, including teaching assistants who, in some cases, received salaries and holiday entitlement which did not reflect their actual hours or their term time only working pattern."

Bristol City Council - "Like Cumbria County Council, one of the most challenging issues we faced related to Teaching Assistants who were in receipt of terms and conditions of employment akin to Teachers."

Westminster City Council - "One area of the agreement was to standardise the full time equivalent weekly hours of work of all staff. One such problem that was identified was that where some teaching assistants and all bursary nurses whose full time equivalent is 32.5 hours who for equality, needed to be raised to 36 hours per week which had the consequential effect of lowering their hourly rate of pay."

Essex County Council - "In the last year we have amended the pro-rata formula for holiday pay in response to an equal pay challenge."

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council - "In terms of teaching Assistants. they had been receiving payments for hours that they did not actually work. The Council chose to equalise their working week (i.e. in line with other staff they were paid only for the hours that they actually worked). In real terms this led to a drop in income but, in order to overcome this issue, many Head teachers elected to offer staff extra working hours in order to mitigate their financial loss - although clearly some staff did not wish to accept that offer."

Stockton on Tees Borough Council - "In respect of schools, approximately 2,500 support staff were affected. Their terms and conditions were also harmonised, including the issue of term time only."

Oxfordshire County Council - ".We managed to introduce single status without major loss of terms and conditions and without incurring major pay losses to the groups you mention. This was for a variety of reasons. Firstly our terms and conditions and pay scales had been tightly managed with an eye to equality issues prior to single status."

The letter responses you have provided me with indicate that there are still a number of Authorities that have yet to deal with the issues that Cumbria is addressing - and they have set out clearly that they know that they will have to do so, not that they believe there is a better or different way to go about it.

Devon County Council - "DCC is currently .. Undertaking a review of wider terms and conditions, over and above the basic pay and grading structure. This is being done under the wider equalities umbrella and in consultation with Trade Unions."

Newcastle City Council - "As you will be aware the current government has disbanded the SSSNB...In light of this the Council recognises the need to address the remaining and outstanding equal pay issue of our Single Status Agreement which is the pro rata of pay relating to Part Year Working for school support staff."

Derbyshire County Council - "As far as teaching assistants are concerned, our local UNISON branch has initiated an equal pay claim. Our principal defence will be that such employees are part-time workers by virtue of them working only 32 ½ hours per week for just 39 weeks a year."

I could give further examples but I might be accused of being selective.

I do not, therefore, accept your assertion that most local authorities have fared better with regards to single status than in Cumbria.

There are over 350 local authorities across England with responsibility for single status, 152 of which have responsibility for education and therefore the pay arrangements for school support staff.

The 49 responses you have shared with me paint a very mixed picture of how different Authorities have fared - many in fact are quite similar to Cumbria, as I have set out.

It is worth re-iterating that the full-time-equivalent salaries for the various Teaching Assistant roles currently used in Cumbria have in fact if anything slightly increased as a result of Single Status in Cumbria.

The recent benchmarking carried out by local journalists showed for all to see that the hourly rates of pay proposed compare well with the rates of pay in many other local authorities.

The reduction in pay for Teaching Assistants is as a result of harmonising their Terms and Conditions; full-time has to mean 37 hours for every member of staff across the Council, and annual leave allowances also have to be equal for all staff; hence its title: SINGLE Status.

During the course of the Single Status process a number of wider issues came to light for Teaching Assistants at all grades, such as deployment to "specified work", a multiplicity of grades, and career pathway progression.

It is our judgement that in a number of cases it is these matters that are equally significant.

The effective resolution of these issues - which are about broader organisational arrangements rather than about pay and grading in isolation - is where we strongly believe the collective effort now needs to be focussed.

The county council, through conversations with Head Teacher representatives, has suggested and instigated a process to address some of these issues across the family of schools in Cumbria.

The county council suggestion has been well received by unions representing TAs and by Head Teacher colleagues.

We expect that this work would result in new and up to date Job Profiles that could be re-evaluated for introduction from September 2012 to coincide with the end of pay protection under the Single Status scheme.

I should also remind you that, even if some Teaching Assistants (TAs) see a reduction in their pay, the overall funding to the school does not change.

In simple terms, if 10 TAs in one school lose £2000 each the school now has £20,000 to disburse at it wishes, including paying Teaching Assistants for preparation and/or for additional hours.

That is a decision for the Head Teacher and Governors, not the county council.

Single Status has been and remains a significant challenge in Cumbria - not just the more recent new pay proposals, but also the settlement of over 3,000 equal pay claims brought against the Council by the Trade Unions.

Your original letter of 20 May to a number of Council's across England contained the phrase "what measures were taken to protect staff from such radical changes to their pay and conditions."

This undoubtedly illustrates a profound misunderstanding of the reality of introducing equal pay across an organisation such as a Local Authority, indeed, any organisation.

I am sure that my officers would be willing to arrange a briefing for you if that would be of assistance.

In the meantime we continue to remain focussed on the importance of having equal pay arrangements in place for all of our staff, in line with the law and the principles that underpin it.

Whilst your letters have primarily concerned themselves with only one group of staff the Council has a responsibility for each and every one of its 16,500 staff across all services, and a duty to ensure that equal pay arrangements are in place all of them.

As Leader, I can and I will ensure that obligation is met.

Whilst I am extremely mindful of the financial implications of single status for Teaching Assistants (but as I have already set out, in collaboration with Head Teachers including the Primary Heads Association, we shall be reviewing the whole structure and approach for Teaching Assistants during the next 10 months or so) I cannot help but wonder when you will take up the cause of the many hundreds of other staff who are destined to face pay reductions such as social workers, solicitors, clerical staff, highways staff, and planning officers.

Similarly, I am sure you would wish to congratulate the county council in addressing, at long last, the under-payment of some of our other lowest-paid employees such as care workers, cleaners, and cooks.

Clearly, a Conservative-Labour-Independent administration does have its considerable merits for Cumbria.

Finally, I have managed to meet with all other Cumbrian MPs, some on several occasions, and hold wide-ranging discussions.

Despite my overtures and invitations to you we have been unable to meet but I offer again an opportunity to do so to discuss Single Status and the many other issues which Cumbria faces.

Yours sincerely, Coun Eddie Martin.