Pension Campaign: Latest

Deputy General Secretary, Kevin Courtney, reported in detail on the current pensions negotiations, and preparations for the Strike ballot- papers for which will go to members homes from the 17th May.

Negotiations continue with us and other TUC Public Sector unions on the pensions issue, and, while these are ongoing, they are due to end in June, and there are no grounds to suspect that any significant ground will be gained on the demand for massively increased contributions, without any valuation of our scheme which is already affordable. The increase in pension age and the move from RPI to CPI inflation calculation remain immovable positions for Government. They still want us to work longer, pay more and get less.

Details of what a career-average calculation scheme would look like remain subject of discussion, but Kevin was able to confirm that nothing that has currently been proposed could be described as a redistributive scheme- and every indication that the career average schemes would make members considerably worse off.

The campaign builds- while only we, the ATL and UCU are balloting (or balloted) for strike action this term, there is significant joint campaigning activity amongst all of the teachers' unions. The NAHT has voted for the first strike ballot in its history, and the NASUWT appears willing to ballot in the Autumn term. The joint poster going out next week will be joint campaigning with ASCL and the NAHT.

We were reminded of the excellent PENSIONS CALCULATOR on the NUT website, which shows how much money you stand to lose over your retirement. Please do everything you can to urge members to use this- one Executive member suggested that you could have your school union meeting in an ICT room, and get members to try it there and then !

We were urged to continue with reps briefings and school meetings. The powerpoint presentation online is up to date, and the video of about 9 minutes is an excellent resource to use if members are not confident in speaking to a meeting. You can view the video at the bottom of this post.

Huge amounts of mailing material have already been printed and are being distributed. Telephoning of reps, and use of phone, e-mail and text will continue to urge members to turnout and vote YES in the ballot.

There will be joint rallies and demonstrations up and down the country if there is a strike day, and Kevin urged us to co-ordinate locally with ATL and also the PCS and UCU unions who are likely to be taking action at the same time.

You can download all of the pensions campaign material, and keep up with the latest news and information, by visiting the campaign site here.

Executive Report: May 2011

The Full Executive met on Thursday May 11th

As members would expect, the pension campaign was top of the agenda, and we received a detailed briefing from Deputy General Secretary, Kevin Courtney. This is reported in the separate article, above.

The executive was asked to nominate a new Trustee of the Union, to replace Barbara Lloyd who has resigned. Former President, Mary Compton, was agreed as the new Trustee, to serve a five year term.

Following the elevation of Nina Franklin to the Presidency, we were asked to nominate a new member for the NUT's place on the council of our sister union UCU. Following a show of hands, our immediate past president, Gill Goodswen was elected to this position.

The Treasurer, Ian Murch, gave a detailed report on the current budget position- I will not, or course, publish details here, but I am happy to report to local Division and Association meetings.

Christine commented on the extremely good news from the Local Elections in Stoke on Trent, where all of the BNP councillors were defeated: she paid tribute to the work that was done by local NUT activist Jason Hill, who was presented with the Blair Peach Award at our Annual Conference. Following the results, Christine reminded us that we need to use our best endeavours to work with the newly elected councillors across the political spectrum- especially where there have been changes in political control, and new administrations are in place.

Christine commented on what a good Annual Conference we had just enjoyed, especially the high quality and diversity of the policy debates. She has especially enjoyed the short opening session on the Friday:sometimes in the past people had asked why we have it. This year proved that when there are excellent and inspiring speakers it is well worth while. Christine was delighted at the number of excellent speeches that were made by young and first-time delegates- a far wider range of people speaking at Conference than had been the case in the past. She congratulated the head office staff for their dedicated hard work in preparing for Conference.

Christine has been elected as the new vice-chair of Justice for Columbia. The TUC has also been a significant sponsor of this important international campaign, and it links well with our work with Education International to defend teachers and teacher trade unionists.

Christine praised our links with Show Racism the Red Card which does fantastic work and, of course the union is a strong and long-established supporter. She recently attended the National Awards in Newcastle upon Tyne- and strongly urged all members to encourage their schools to enter the competitions, and celebrate their fantastic anti-racist work. She reminded us that Show Racism the Red Card provide very good and cost effective resources on fighting Racism and Islamophobia, and are just launching new material on tackling Homophobia.

Christine reported that there have been two opportunities to meet with Government minsters. We met, alongside other TUC unions, to discuss general policy direction with Oliver Letwin and Michael Gove, and this meeting was particularly welcomed by the support staff unions, given the government's hasty and misguided decision to abolish the Support Staff Negotiating Body.

The other opportunity came following the recent international conference of Ministers and teacher trade unionists organised by the OECD and Education International. This meeting was to look at the wider and broad CPD needs of teachers, given the pressures that had been placed on schools to only deliver CPD on those narrow areas that the schools are currently pursuing ("CPD linked to the School Development Plan" has been extremely narrowly interpreted.) This was led by Mary Boustead of ATL: Michael Gove is suggesting a similar meeting on the issue of Curriculum, which Christine welcomed.

Christine was disappointed that not many concessions on the Education Bill had been won, despite a huge lobbying campaign. The one significant move appears to be the agreement from Government that LEA and Staff Governors will be required on Governing Bodies of Academies. Unfortunately due to the amount of time that was lost debating other amendments (such as right-wing Tories wanting to reopen old debates about Grammar schools !) the amendments requiring Qualified Teacher Status in Free Schools were not reached, and the opposition attempt to save the Education Maintenance Allowance was unsuccessful.

There is some cause for optimism that certain changes (including the requirement for QTS) may be reintroduced when the Bill goes to the House of Lords.

Finally, Christine drew our attention to a speech from TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber made to the CBI, that referred to the fact that, while the Government bang on daily about the deficit and government debt, there is a constant understatement of "private debt" through issues like student debt and individuals getting further into personal debt. Christine believes that this speech is due to be posted on the TUC website, or False Economy- watch this space.

Given the apparent change of policy from the NASUWT at their conference this year regarding Qualified Teachers (although they had signed the Workforce Agreement with the previous government that allowed Teaching Assistants etc. to cover whole classes, their conference this year passed strong policy that only teachers should be teaching.) I asked Christine whether there was now the opportunity to do some joint lobbying with the NASUWT on getting a requirement for QTS into Free Schools when the Bill gets to the House of Lords.

Following Christine's report, reports were received from the Committees of the Union.

Jerry Glazier, on behalf of the Action committee reported on the increase in the number of requests for sustained (paid) strike action over Change of Employer (academy conversion) and over Compulsory Redundancy. He reiterated the Union's determination to support members who wished to take action over their jobs and conditions.

It was agreed to nominate Christine to the Regional seat on the Commonwealth Teachers' Group- a section of Education International.

EEPD:"Shambles" at the Department for Education

It was reported to the committee that MPs had crititicised the "shambolic" nature at the Department for Education. In particular, Ministers had admitted that more than 4,500 letters from MPs had not been answered within the appropriate timescale (readers of Brighton and Hove's Supply Matters will recall that Caroline Lucas MP's letter took MONTHS) Also, only 10% of Parliamentary Questions were being answered on time. Michael Gove was urged to take control of his "shambolic and chaotic" department.

Incidentally, it was also reported that in excess of 100 DfE Civil Servants were now engaged in working on the Free Schools project- costing millions in salaries. Priorities ?

EEPD: Behaviour and Discipline in Schools: Dfe Consultation

The committee received information about consultation on new DfE Guidelines for Behaviour and Discipline in schools. The union had already submitted initial evidence to the consultation.

There are things in the new guidance we would welcome. Some elements pick up on recommendations from the Steer Report which we supported. However, we have concerns about a number of issues, particularly in the equalities area:

• There is NOTHING in the new guidance that talks about the need to reward good behaviour (this is prominent in the old guidance which it replaces)


• There are seemingly NO references to the obligations of schools and governing bodies under the Equality Act (or its predecessors such as the Disability Discrimination Act)


• The old guidance required staff to receive suitably accredited training in the use of any restraint or positive handling of students. The new document makes no such stipulation about quality of training.


• The section on dealing with bullying highlights homophobia and bullying on the grounds of disability, which is very welcome. It does not, however, refer to racist or gender-driven bullying.


• The section dealing with allegations against teachers contains some welcome points- although it was noted in the meeting that this is simply guidance, not even the oddly-named "statutory guidance." We welcome the fact that the guidance makes clear that there should not be a policy of automatic suspension of teachers whenever an allegation is made- this has been commonplace in some schools in recent years. We also welcome that the guidance reminds schools of their general duty of care towards staff in this position.

The new document appears to focus very much on more punishment and more power to schools. The NUT has always tried to take a more holistic approach to rewards and behaviour policies, and we noted that it seemed a pity that most of the pastoral references from previous guidance were missing.

You can have your say in the Government's consultation until 30th May. The document and feedback form are online, and can be accessed by clicking here.

EEPD: LGBT Committee Report

The committee received the report from the LGBT Working Party, which I chaired in April. A number of recommendations from this group were agreed. These were:-

• That the Union furthers its work with LGBT youth organisations and supports the Paul Patrick Awards.


• The Union seeks advice from relevant organisations on how best to ask members about their gender identity.


• The Advisory Committee be provided with information on the number of discrimination cases that the Union is working on currently and that the Assistant Secretary from the Union’s Legal Department be invited to speak about the Union’s work on this area.


• The Union should give greater consideration to using new technology to reach out to all its LGBT members.

The proposal to consider returning to a two-day programme for the Union's annual LGBT Conference would be looked at by the appropriate departments.

There was discussion about the inconsistent use of "prefer not to say" for some of the equality monitoring questions, and an acknowledgement that there should be a consistency of its use. These are being reviewed across the Union.

There was a vigorous discussion about the imposed decision not to enter a float in this year's London Pride. It was particularly disappointing to the LGBT Working Party that there had been little if any consultation on this decision, given the success of our participation in 2010. The EEPD committee agreed to refer this decision back to the union's Strategy and Finance Committee (which is responsible for financial decisions) for urgent reconsideration.

EEPD: Disability Working Party Report

The committee received the report of the March meeting of the Disability Working Party, which I chaired.

A number of recommendations from the committee were agreed. These were:-

• That the Union produces an education pack for Disability History Month 2011 (December) to be available online and in a printed version by October.


• That there should be a response by the Union to the Secretary of State for Health on the Government Mental Health Strategy.


• That the new Advisory Committee for Disability should continue to focus on mental health.


• That John Illingworth be invited to represent the Union at the TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference.


• That the individual circumstances of the disabled person who does not fit the criteria of being an ‘in-service’ teacher be taken into consideration as a reasonable adjustment when they are seeking election to the Advisory Committee.


• That the Union monitors the uptake of the Model Disability Leave Procedure by Local Authorities both in terms of intention (how has the uptake been promoted?) and outcome (has the procedure been adopted?).

A number of other recommendations from that meeting were noted, and will be passed to the appropriate departments or committees for further consideration. These were:-

• That the Union organise a disability seminar in 2011 at Stoke Rochford Hall with a view to moving the disability conference to the venue in the autumn term of 2012. (Further investigation regarding cost, access and wishes of disabled members to be sought)


• That the Union website form for equalities monitoring be amended to make it clear that this is also a way to indicate that the respondent wishes to be seen as part of a constituency and that the definition of disability on the form be updated to allow members to indicate type of impairment.


• That the black, disabled and LGBT constituency seat holders serve on all three equality advisory committees. (It was made clear that this would be an invitation, and would not be a requirement of that member's job role)

A request for a joint equalities fringe meeting at Annual Conference 2011 could not be actioned because of time.

The committee noted the willingness that was expressed for a consideration of co-option to the new Advisory Committee from Susannah Billeter, Tony Dooley, Jim Schofield, Ian Simpson, Vic Goodwin, and Richard Rieser.