Published at 11:30, Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Few issues of public sector restructuring have caused more bitter acrimony than the county council’s plans to slash teaching assistants’ pay.

Furious protests and angry marches met the announcement of a single status review which would have left some facing wage cuts of 20 per cent or more from October.

The row has rumbled on for a long time, without any support for those affected seeming to lessen. Now a working party, set up to examine the initial controversial plans, appears to have reached a compromise solution. Most teaching assistants will still be worse off – but less severely than initially envisaged.

The council’s cabinet member for organisational development, Liz Mallinson is pleased that improvements have been found and believes they demonstrate what can be achieved when all parties work together with a common aim.

That’s inarguably true. The pity is that all parties couldn’t have worked more closely together sooner, to avoid a bitterness which has left a stain on working relationships.

An outcome of the working group’s review has been to reassess and recognise the value of contributions made by teaching assistants to school life and learning.

Unfortunately this has come too late for those who, in distress, have left their jobs and others who, convinced of having been undervalued, were still planning to do so before this belated compromise was reached.

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