Stewards attended a meeting with the service this morning where they laid out their plans to cut classroom assistant posts.
The cuts are:
- All 23 secondary schools will no longer have a classroom assistant. Currently each secondary school has 30 hours of classroom assistant time
- All 120 primary schools will have one classroom assistant (25 hours). Some primaries already only have one, some have up to 4
- We expect 198 will be deleted. This may effect more people than that because of part time hours etc.
Head teachers will be informed later today and will meet with staff form Monday onwards.
Affected schools have been asked to identify who is surplus. The process will be the same as the last time:
- They will ask for volunteers to take redeployment
- If not enough volunteers, the matrix will be used to determine who goes into redeployment.
Redeployment
At least 91ASNA posts are being created in Early Years. These will only be open to classroom assistants. The service also say there are many vacancies in ASANA in primary and secondary sectors, but couldn’t give us a definite number. Vacancies are also being identified in other areas.
The service plan to train all staff redeployed to ASNA posts and have said there will be opportunities for some people to qualify as early years practitioners (NLC9)
The council have committed to minimise geographical moves i.e. will try to keep people in their existing localities.
Voluntary Severance
The Council will ask all classroom assistants, not only those affected if they wish to be considered for VRS but it must be noted that there is no guarantee that it would be accepted.
Timescale
Head teacher discussions with staff from Monday 22nd May
Redeployment decision back to service by Thursday 25th May
All affected staff members to attend redeployment meeting around 2nd June
The service wants to have this implemented by start of new term – August 2017
Next Steps for UNISON
We will hold a members meeting on Tuesday 23rd May at 6.30pm in Airdrie Academy
We will have regular meetings with the service during the process and keep you up to date
We were also informed that all breakfast clubs will be closing as per the savings plan. We understand that some of you will also be affected by this and although we have no additional information at this time but as soon as we do, we will share this with you.
Marie Quigley
Branch Secretary