Classroom Teaching Assistants (Cumbria)

Rory Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Cunningham]

I wholeheartedly agree; I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Let me read out what an assistant teacher in a special needs school has said:

“Children with complex needs have to be changed because of incontinence, and then physiotherapy is needed and leg splints applied, then hoisted onto the standers. After one hour they need taking out of their standers, tubes put in place and connected for feeding, after feeding medication is given. Children need this every day, plus hydrotherapy once a week. Children with challenging behaviour need assistance with Makaton (This uses signs, symbols and speech to help people with learning and communication difficulties to communicate.)…Children with learning difficulties need a lot of time, encouragement and resources like Makaton to enable them to achieve objectives and enjoy their lessons.

These are only a few of the duties I do with our children. I love my job, but a reduction in my wage will make it very difficult to carry on working in this school. Our children are the only reason we love to go to work”.

Is anyone going to tell me that that classroom assistant deserves the loss of a third of her salary?

If one asks the teachers and school governors what they think, they will say that the assistants do a great job and thoroughly deserve the pay that they get. They do not earn a lot; a full-time teaching assistant earns around £14,700 for a 32.5 hour week. The cuts will reduce their salary to £11,140. The council justifies the pay cuts by arguing that teaching assistants have a shorter working week and longer holidays than other staff. The council claims that teaching assistants get paid for 37 hours a week and receive 14 weeks’ paid holiday.

[Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue. Will he clarify the single status aspects of the issue? To what extent does he think that the situation is part of national law, or is Cumbria doing something different from other county councils? What might the other options have been, within the legislation?

[Tony Cunningham]

If the previous Government’s policy had been continued, those classroom assistants would not have fallen within the single status process. That is the reality. It is not too late to change that; there are opportunities to do so. My figures are only rough but, interestingly, in Cumbria teaching assistants get something like £8.60 an hour, whereas in Lancashire they get £11-something an hour. It is not as though Cumbria has to, or is forced to, do what it is doing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

Is not the answer, then, to define a single status which gives the right salary, the right respect and the right position to teaching assistants, rather than grading them below where they should be?

[Tim Farron]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Someone without much human resources experience could see at first glance that the county council had botched the exercise by putting teaching assistants alongside talented, able, hard-working people who do a completely different job. It stands to reason that at the very least a different family needs to be created for teaching assistants to belong to. It is wrong to equate people who do teaching assistant jobs to a position that is on fixed hours.

Teaching assistants at the school my children go to in Milnthorpe are there helping with preparation at least half an hour before their working day begins. They are there afterwards if a child is in need or upset. They help with extracurricular work and child development. Crucially, from the point of view of the child, who will not differentiate, a teaching assistant is part of their teaching team. They should absolutely have a band of their own.

I want to quote a teaching assistant from Kendal in my constituency to point out the very different and intensive nature of the role that puts it beyond that of a regular fixed hourly job:

“I have been working with a child with severe autism. I support him every second of the day. He cannot be left unattended. I prepare all his activities and research different strategies to implement with him on a daily basis, often working late into the night. I have always felt valued by my school, but not now by my employer, Cumbria county council.”

That sums up the situation for many people in Cumbria.

The hon. Member for Workington rightly pointed out the issue of appeals. The county council, which is overwhelmed with appeals, says that it will look at only some of them. I am sorry, but it should either deal with them all, as a matter of justice, or get the message from the fact there are hundreds of appeals that they have got the banding badly wrong.

I understand that the Minister will probably say that that is a local government matter, but the issue is clearly about the impact on the quality of education in Cumbria due to a demoralised work force who are being deprofessionalised by a county council that has simply got this wrong. It is not too late to put this right. The lot of us here would like the Government to press the county council to think again.