Published at 11:08, Thursday, 15 March 2012

PAY CUTS for Cumbria’s 3,500 teaching assistants will be less severe than they originally feared.

Coun Liz Mallinson: ‘Significant improvements’

The group were big losers under Cumbria County Council’s single-status review with some facing pay cuts of 20 per cent or more from October.

The proposals provoked an outcry and led the council to set up a working group to review teaching assistants’ roles and responsibilities.

Its findings, published on Monday, have lessened the pay cuts although most teaching assistants will still be worse off.

Senior teaching assistants, the largest group, were facing a 23.1 per cent pay cut. It will now be 7.75 per cent.

The working group, which included teachers and trades unions, has also come up with a new career structure. The grades of classroom assistant and principal teaching assistant will go leaving teaching assistants, senior and higher-level teaching assistants.

The council has pledged to help staff move up through the grades. Schools also have the option to pay teaching assistants for work outside school hours such as running breakfast or after-school clubs. This could wipe out the pay cuts and allow some staff to get a modest pay rise.

The working group believes the new structure better reflects the professional contribution of teaching assistants and identifies new areas of responsibility.

Deborah Hamilton, branch secretary for the public-sector union Unison, expressed disappointment that the lowest paid teaching assistants were still facing a 16.2 per cent pay cut.

She added: “Unison members campaigned rigorously to make the council see sense and review its scores under job evaluation and the results [of this review] show that they were right – they had been undervalued.”

Speaking for headteachers, Viv Young, head of Ennerdale and Kinniside Primary, said she was “delighted” with the outcome.

And Councillor Liz Mallinson, the county council Cabinet member for organisational development, said: “We have achieved significant improvements for teaching assistants in terms of career structure and pay.”

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk