Suffolk
Division NUT Suffolk
Division NUT Executive Committee (17:30 - 18:45)
and
June 8th 2000
at STOWMARKET High School, Onehouse Road, STOWMARKET
Section A: National Matters and HQ Correspondence
| Date | Description | Venue |
| 30 June - 2 July 2000 | National Education Conference | Stoke Rochford Hall |
| 4 November 2000 | Equal Opportunities Conference | |
| 2 December 2000 | "Pride in Education" Conference | |
| 11-13 Oct 2000 | Division Secretaries' briefing | Stoke Rochford |
| 6-8 Dec 2000 | Using the Media: Training for Local Officers |
| The Union successfully defended a member at St Joseph's College, Ipswich selected for redundancy. But, after the Hearing the Governors said they had only adjourned and now want to re-open the case now that they had sorted their evidence out! Watch this space. |
| Hollesley: A member volunteered, but they then selected another .3 by reducing one contract from 0.2 to 0.1 and made another 0.2 post redundant. All involved are members. |
| Dell Primary: resolved by voluntary means. |
| Advisory Service: Members involved in Art and Drama. Art resolved (at the 11th hour) by a volunteer, and Drama similarly, but there were some problems with the resulting internal redeployment. No NUT member selected for compulsory redundancy. |
| Halesworth Middle: Secretary objected to a fait accompli approach, similar to the Holbrook consortium redundancy last year. The Union has reluctantly agreed to a non-renewal of FTC instead of a full Section 188 situation because of late declaration and undertakings given. We are concerned that the non-renewal of a FTC where that post is not actually redundant can stop a worthy teacher from volunteering for early retirement. Head is ignoring NUT objections and request for talks and LEA has responded in his stead. |
| The Union supports and applauds the work that the Council has put in to this important area of equal opportunities and pledges support for the role of schools in combating racism and celebrating cultural diversity .... The Union would like to see positive measures to underscore these principles by recruiting, and retaining, more teachers and other education workers (in Community Education and the Psychological / Welfare services) from diverse ethnic origins into mainstream teaching positions, not just EMTAG work and allied specialisms. |
| We have been urging the LEA for some time to include teachers in the monitoring process for equal opportunities. At the moment, only advisory teachers and those directly employed by the Authority are asked to complete the Council's equal opportunities monitoring form. It is not therefore possible to include meaningful targets for teaching employees to emulate those given in the appendices for all other employees in the council's employ. The statistics are simply not available. ..... |
| We believe that the proportion of black and ethnic minority teachers and other professionals in our schools should be considered one of the most important performance indicators in countering the potential for "institutional racism". Not only is the teaching force the largest single group of SCC employees, it is also the group which has greatest contact with children, young adults and parents on a day-to-day basis. A hidden message that could be given to ethnic minority children and their families: that Suffolk schools employ predominantly white teachers, even in the most multi-ethnic catchment areas..... |
| 451 - 000 cc | 1000 - 1199 cc | 1200 + | |
| Pence per mile | 27.5 (25.9) | 31.2 (28.8) | 37.8 (35.1) |
| 1. DfEE to
take the opportunity of its current review to simplify the LEA Code of
Practice, with clear definition of roles and responsibilities 2. DfEE to clarify and simplify/ the role of governing bodies, recognising that their key priority is to appoint, monitor and support the performance of an effective head teacher; 3. DfEE to carry out a fundamental simplification of governing bodies' secondary duties as set out in statute and guidance; 4. DfEE to extend the current pilot scheme for improving governor recruitment and develop new initiatives to attract high calibre governors to struggling schools; 5. DfEE to reduce the size of larger governing bodies, whilst maintaining accountability to parents and local communities. 6. the Government to review all streams of school funding, considering radical options for reform in its green paper on local authority funding and in its current 3-year public spending review. In particular we call for greater flexibility and delegation to successful schools and a move to 3 year school budgets, while taking care not to discriminate against schools serving the most deprived communities; 7. DfEE to take early action to simplify and clarify the bidding process so that all schools feel able to participate where such bids might be relevant to their needs; 8. the Government to rationalise the school auditing function; 9. the Government should review the role of the LEAs in the funding of schools to simplify and avoid duplication but it should think carefully about the implications of excluding them from the process; 10. DfEE to work with OFSTED and LEAs to simplify data requested from schools by the pooling of data between agencies, and by accelerating the use of ICTs for data collection and creation of a central database of school information; 1 |
11.
DfEE to work with the Local Government Association to limit the amount of
information LEAs send to schools pending the establishment of a central
database and to minimise and standardise remaining LEA information requests
following this; 12. DfEE and OFSTED to work with LEAs to pool data to remove the need for a lengthy pre-inspection form and to improve the information available to OFSTED whilst allowing a further reduction in the notice given for inspections; 13. OFSTED to be more targeted about the length, focus and follow-up to inspections in less successful schools; 14. DfEE to work with OFSTED and the Local Government Association to eliminate any duplication between the roles of OFSTED and LEAs in monitoring school performance and intervening in struggling schools arising from the above recommendation; 15. OFSTED to simplify inspection reports so that they can be more easily understood by parents; 16. DfEE to work with the Local Government Association to ensure that LEAs provide support services to small schools in the least bureaucratic manner; 17. DfEE to work with the Local Government Association to promote a wider role for administrative staff and management systems in schools. This should increase the use of ICTs for management purposes and expand the role of shared bursars in small schools; 18. the Government should clarify the role of LEAs, avoiding duplication with other bodies; 19. the Government should take early action to simplify education legislation in line with our recommendations; and 20. DfEE to establish and implement an effective ICT strategy for the management of schools. The Task Force ask that in responding to the report the government set out an action plan for addressing its wide-ranging recommendations |
| Category 1: Special measures | This is a school which OFSTED reports as "failing or likely to fail to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education". |
| Category 2: Serious Weaknesses | This is a school where OFSTED reports that "although giving its pupils, in general, an acceptable standard of education it has significant weaknesses in one or more areas of its activities. |
| Category 3: Underachieving | This is a new OFSTED definition defined in the Framework for Inspection, introduced January 2000. |
| Category 4: Of concerm to the LEA | These are schools which, by reference to OFSTED criteria, the LEA considers to be at risk of falling into Categories 1,2 or 3 at the next Inspection |
| Category 5: With difficulties | These are school experiencing specific difficulties which are likely toaffect pupil attainment if left unaddressed. (eg. leadership, management, governance, finance, staffing, relationships or pupil behaviour/welfare.) |
| September 21st 2000 | Bury St Edmunds |
| October 19th 2000 | Ipswich |
| November 30th 2000 | Ipswich |
| January 18th 2001 | Ipswich |
| February 15th 2001 | Ipswich |
| March 22nd 2001 (AGM) | Ipswich |
| May 10th 2001 | Bury St Edmunds |
| June 7th 2001 | Stowmarket |
| July 12th 2001 | Leiston |
| Tuesday 3rd July 2001 | Membership Meeting, Whitehouse Infants |
There will be a short break between the sessions, but timings could be altered to suit the timing of business, as determined by the Executive Committee, subject to the agreement of the Division Council.
Part 2B: Discussion and Decision making (20:00 - 21:00)
NEXT MEETING: July 6th 2000, Leiston Middle School
Stop Press: Apologies: Glenys Shepherd, Sharon Cozens
New Correspondence and information items:
a) National
| This was the first meeting of the new Executive. An amendment to standing orders, in order to allow an extra executive member to be elected to both the Co-ordinating and Financial Committee and the Campaign Sub-Committee, with the aim of promoting greater consensus was carried. As was a motion to ban noisy mobile 'phones |
| . An urgency report from the Campaign Sub-Committee was debated and carried with an amendment that arrangements be put in place to deal with 'threshold' related grievances. Another amendment that there should be a ballot for a one-day strike this term was lost 25-14. I am enclosing a copy of the main urgency report, which I supported. (The General Secretary's letter has been sent out and explains the reasoning behind the decisions taken. |
| Balloting took place for committees etc., requiring representatives from the Executive. |
| The Treasurer reported increased income compared with the same period last year. Membership is still increasing. |
| The General Secretary spoke of TUC matters including the Employment Relations Act and the recognition that not all workers are employees. This will apply to agency teachers. |
| He also reported on the successful test case brought by the NUT to the European Court improving pension rights for Part-time women teachers. The current situation regarding the Judicial Review was that an initial reaction to the Government responses reinforced the strong case of the NUT. |
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United in opposition, WORKLOAD: Under the auspices of the TUC, the NUT intends to cooperate closely with the NASUWT to build a campaign against excessive workload, including that arising from the Government`s pay scheme. The NASUWT is balloting members to protect them from excessive workload and working time. The NUT has the protection of a ballot still in place and there is no need to conduct a further ballot at this stage. Guidance will be circulated to NUT members on limiting workload and working hours, while not disrupting the education of pupils. |
| NO ONEDAY STRIKE: The National Executive has decided that there will be no ballot for a oneday strike this term. NUT members, alone, would have been taking strike action. This division in the profession and the probability that a significant number of NUT members would vote `No` in a ballot would enable the Government to claim that only a minority of teachers were opposed to performance related pay, payment by results. |
| CAMPAIGN OF OPPOSITION: The NUT remains opposed to performance related pay, payment by results. The imposed scheme will be divisive. It will neither motivate teachers nor retain them in teaching. It will not encourage students and others to become teachers. It is wrong to link teachers` pay to pupils` results. General Secretary, Doug McAvoy, says "The joint campaign with the NASUWT will strengthen the NUT`s campaign against performance related pay, payment by results. The Government`s scheme is unfair, unjust and educationally unsound. Although in place, it will continue to be opposed by the teaching profession. To achieve our objectives, the profession must be united, parents must be supportive and the public must be sympathetic." |
| Performance Related Pay :The meeting of the Executive was dominated by a debate on the decision of Conference to hold a ballot for a national oneday strike in the summer term. A timetable for the ballot had been drawn up that met the terms of the Conference decision. The General Secretary updated the Executive on events, relevant to the decision of Conference, but which postdated the decision itself. He reported on the initial exchanges with the NASUWT and the TUC, following which there would be a meeting on 6 June to discuss possible joint common action and campaigning. The outlook was positive and could lead to ATL and UCAC subsequently being invited to participate. | |
| The Executive welcomed progress, which accorded with the strong support given by Conference, that the Union should work with other unions to achieve its objectives. Unity was considered to be of high importance and crucial to the success of the campaign. The Executive noted the decision of NASUWT to ballot its members for action `with a halo`. That ballot would open on 2 June. It would bring the NASUWT to the same point as the Union in its campaign in support of reducing bureaucratic burdens on teachers. The NUT`s ballot, held in 1998, is still live the advice to members remains relevant. The NUT continues to support members who face unreasonable demands. | |
| The Executive considered the implications of having contiguous ballots, with the NUT balloting for one day strike action and the NASUWT for action `with a halo` short of strike action. The Executive took the view that such a position could only harm the Union`s campaign and its long term objectives in the face of teachers, parents and the public generally. | |
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The General Secretary reported on the latest position with regard to the NUT`s successful application for a judicial review. The Government had submitted its written response but only at the absolute deadline established by the court. A cursory examination of one element of that submission gave added confidence to the Union, notwithstanding the vagaries of the law. |
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The Executive considered the position of members in Wales, the different and later timetable imposed in relation to threshold application, the implications of the NUT`s case against the Secretary of State and the effect of an imminent ballot for national one day strike on the Union`s campaign as far as it would affect participation in the ballot and subsequent action. |
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| The Executive agreed that the gesture of a one day strike in the summer term, whilst superficially attractive would damage the NUT`s campaign to defeat performance related pay, payment by results. In the best interests of the NUT, therefore, it was agreed there should be no ballot for a one day strike this term. The Executive will receive in June a report of the discussions with the NASUWT and the TUC and further consideration will be given to the issue in September. In a recorded vote, with 14 votes FOR and 24 votes against the Executive rejected an objection to require a ballot to be held this term. A letter will be sent to all members explaining the reasons for the deferral of the ballot. | |
| Threshold Assessment:Arrangements are in preparation to ensure that advice and support is provided to members whose applications to cross the threshold are refused and, in particular where there are potential grievances or potential Employment Tribunal cases. The Executive agreed that the Action SubCommittee should have referred to it cases of disputes of a collective nature regarding threshold assessment arising in individual schools, which cannot be resolved by negotiation and the intervention of the regional office or in Wales, the NUT Wales office, NUT Cymru. Where appropriate ballots for action, up to and including strike action, will be organised to give support to members in such circumstances. | |
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Early Day Motion: The General Secretary reported that the Early Day Motion, in the name of Phil Willis, had gathered 65 signatures. An amendment to the EDM had been tabled to add to terms of the EDM `and to respect the wishes of the National Assembly of Wales not to implement such a scheme and to enable Wales to adopt policies in this matter which are in line with the wishes of parents, unions and of the National Assembly`. Divisions, particularly in Wales, will be asked to seek support for the amendment from their MPS. |
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| TUC Matters: | The General Secretary reported that the TUC Executive Committee had discussed a significant document on `Manufacturing Strategy`. The timing was influenced by the problems in the car industry. The document was relevant to other sectors of manufacturing industry in the UK facing competition and the prospect of threatened unemployment. The aim of the TUC is to influence the various strategies of Government. One of the most difficult areas for the TUC concerned the exchange rate and European Monetary Union. TUC policy was balanced in favour or joining EMU, but with some of the larger affiliates being antipathetic to that view. |
| The Executive Committee had considered constitutional and organisational matters, particularly in respect of Congress. Limited changes are to be recommended to Congress which would increase from seven places to eight the number of seats available to affiliates with fewer than 100,000 members. A difficult area of consideration related to the position of the separate TUC conferences, such as the Women`s Conference, the Black Workers` Conference, the Lesbian and Gay Conference and the trades councils conferences, and the suggestion that they should be able to place motions before Congress. A paper will be prepared for consideration by the General Council. | |
| The General Secretary reported that regulations pertaining to the Employment Relations Act were before Parliament and it was hoped many would be agreed by the end of July. These regulations covered trade union recognition. It was expected that the Central Arbitration Committee would shortly make an announcement about the means by which applications for recognition could be made. This would be critical to the Union in furtherance of the Conference resolution on `An Unacceptable Duty`. In an important and beneficial concession, the Government had allowed the use of the term `worker` rather than `employee` to be used in some of the regulations. This did not fully address the situation of agency teachers and there would be a separate debate with government on agency workers during which the NUT will promote the changes it wishes that will be of advantage to its members employed through agencies. | |
| The TUC has welcomed its success in the parental rights case, supported by Cherie Booth QC, but has criticised the Government for refusing to accept defeat and forcing the case to go through the European Court of Human Rights. The case could take two years and regrettably the judgement did not require that an assumption be made that the European Court would uphold the rights of parents and therefore they should be implemented immediately. | |
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Primary and Secondary Surveys: The Executive condemned Labour MPS who hissed and booed when references were made to the NUT`s surveys during a debate in the House, initiated by the Opposition Spokesperson for Education. Division Secretaries will be asked to approach their MPS on this matter and to question them about their behaviour during the debate. |
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| School Year:The General Secretary reported on the evidence given by the Union to the LGA Commission on the Organisation of the School Year. The NUT made clear that it opposed any shortening of the summer break. The Union`s evidence had reinforced the resolution carried unanimously at Conference. | |
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Supporting disabled teachers: - a new resource toolbag A trade union movement first for the NUT. An on-line Pack for disabled teachers and school representatives. Visit this new initiative, where you can you can download print off the Pack. |
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| L00/34 | Report on the outcomes of Ofsted inspections of Suffolk schools in 1998-99 |
| L00/35 | Changes in teachers' Pay structure from Sept 200 |
| L00/33 | The LEA's Role in targeted school improvement |
| L00/32 | Community Education, Future Developments |
| E00/84 | Woodbridge Primary: possible relocation |
| Secretary has seen the report on the harassment enquiry and is considering the Governors' response and action plan. It is possible to appeal but there may be sufficient value in the report's findings to satisfy the member concerned. |
| The team for the enquiry into the school has been formed. The remit has been agreed by the Governors. There was consultation with the staff and, via the regional deputation, with the Union. |
| There will be a meeting with members at the school on Friday 9th. John Dixon to report further. |
d) Local Associations: Three motions submitted by Ipswich Association, below, for part 2 of the meeting.
Motions for Part 2 of the Meeting
Campaign against PRP :Motion from Ipswich Association: "Suffolk Division condemns the decision of the National Executive Committee to overturn the NUT Annual Conference decision on balloting for a 1 day National strike in the summer term. We express our grave concern that other action strategies, in pursuit of the Salary objectives for 2001 agreed at Harrogate, will be similarly rejected by the NEC . We are particularly appalled given that the General Secretary had stated at the briefing preceeding the Lobby of Parliament that the Annual Conference would decide future policy and action, and that in her election address Glenys Shepherd had claimed as her top priority in 'campaigning' was her opposition to PRP."
In support of Asylum Seekers: Motion from Ipswich Association: "Suffolk Division endorses the statement originating in the NUJ Annual Conference 2000 in support of asylum seekers and against the abuse from the media concerning their plight. We particularly reject the way in which both the government and Tory party have vied with each other to appear 'strong' about the issue of asylum. We welcome the initiative locally for a Public Forum on Asylum in Ipswich on June 12th. Furthermore, we wish to encourage members to participate in the National Demonstration on June 24th in London. We agree to pay £25 towards the cost of the transport organised for that event and request that the Division Council is kept informed about activity in support of Asylum Seekers within the County.
Motion from Ipswich Association: IMF/World Bank Meeting in Prague at the end of September. "Suffolk Division notes that the IMF/World Bank plans to meet in Prague in September and that a peaceful protest is planned to coincide with this. Suffolk Division, in line with various initiatives of the National Union, in particular its affiliation to Jubilee 2000, commits itself to seeking to encourage member participation in a non-violent protest. Accordingly, it agrees to make a nominal contribution towards sponsoring a delegation and invites members of that delegation to seek further sponsorship and support from as many other trades unions, campaigning groups and individuals locally as possible, to highlight the negative effects of IMF decisions on countries, including on the education of its young people.