Union dispute at Newport comprehensive schools
Posted on Thursday 27th February 2020
Newport City Council is disappointed that the teaching union NASUWT has voted for strike action at some of our local schools. This is a very important time for year 11 and 13 learners and the loss of teaching days missed due to this strike action will inevitably disadvantage their outcomes.
We have offered to meet the union to discuss the perceived issues and this offer still stands.
Newport City Council has taken every step to protect and prioritise its school budgets and has delivered more advantageous funding to schools in comparison to its seven other service areas.
Earlier this month, Cabinet met to agree school funding for 2020/21 as part of the overall council budget. Last year £96.5 million was allocated to Newport schools. In 2020/21 a total of £106.5 million will be provided to Newport schools. This additional £10 million will positively support the stability of school finances, covering teacher pay increases, pensions and the costs of additional pupils within our expanding city.
However, diligent financial monitoring by Head Teachers and Governing Bodies is crucial. Schools with large overspend cannot continue to operate the same level of spending, despite these budget increases.
In 2019/20 Caerleon Comprehensive received £4.9 million, the third highest level of secondary school funding within Newport. Schools receiving higher levels of funding do so because of the number of pupils with special educational needs or entitled to free school meals.
The council does not believe that Caerleon Comprehensive staff have been placed in a position that is any different or any more demanding than other teachers across Wales or within Newport.
It is within the Governing Bodies’ delegated responsibilities to decide and implement a staffing restructure. As a council we accept the staffing restructure proposals at Caerleon Comprehensive and have helped mitigate any impact on staff by offering employee benefits including three years fully protected pay for affected staff; the option of voluntary redundancy and generous redundancy packages; and the offer to seek re-deployment for any employee at risk of compulsory redundancy.
To give context, to date there have been two proposed compulsory redundancies across the whole of the city among a school workforce of 1,438 teachers and 2,062 support staff.