FE Unions Reject Pay Offer

The six Further Education unions representing 250,000 members in England have today (May 1) rejected the employers (Association of Colleges) pay offer of 2.5%. The six trade unions - ACM, ATL, GMB, UCU, UNISON, UNITE - submitted a catch-up pay claim for 6% or £1,500, whichever is the greater. This would establish a minimum wage level of £7.38 for workers in FE.

Joint Trade Union side Secretary and UNISON National Officer, Chris Fabby, said: “We reject this offer outright. 2.5% is just not enough. This year, our members have been struggling to cope with huge hikes in the cost of essentials like fuel, food and housing.

“The employers must get back around the negotiating table with a more realistic offer. We need a fairer deal for the low paid who can earn as little as £12,738 per year.

“Last year workers in FE got a below inflation pay deal. If this happens again, we run the risk of prompting a recruitment and retention crisis.”

The offer covers all FE staff including lecturers, managers, learning support staff, librarians, IT specialists, technicians, professional staff, administrative and business support staff, cleaners, canteen staff and estate management staff.

Joint Trade Union Side Secretary and UCU Head of Further Education, Barry Lovejoy, said: “A pay increase of 2.5% just won’t make up for years of below-inflation awards or remedy the 6% FE-school teacher pay gap. And it doesn’t address the widespread dissatisfaction with poor pay in the face of increasing workload pressures demonstrated by the independent survey carried out recently for UCU.

“The employers need to go back to the drawing board and come up with an offer that will enable FE to avert a potential staffing crisis that could well de-rail the government’s skills strategy.”

More Have Vocational Qualification Than Degree

The number of people with vocational qualifications is now higher than those with degrees but the awards still suffer from negative prejudice. In an article on their website, ATL report the findings of research carried out by Edexcel which shows 38% of the population having a vocational qualification and 26% having a degree.

Dissatisfaction Widespread Among FE Staff

A report published just a few days before today’s industrial action taken by members of the University and College Union (UCU), shows widespread dissatisfaction among FE staff. The report by the Learning and Skills Network (LSN), shows that:

• Only 39.1% of staff say that they would recommend their organisation as a good place to work and this drops to 31.1% among lecturers and teachers. Furthermore, many respondents (42.2%) said that they didn’t feel valued by their employer.
• A significant number of people (56%) reported that they don’t think they are adequately rewarded for their work. This rises to 60.9% among lecturers and teachers but drops to 34.6% among senior managers. By comparison, the majority of people (68.4%) say they are happy with their pension scheme.
• 21.9% of teachers and lecturers, and 35.8% of senior managers, say they are not able to take their full holiday entitlement.
• Only 7.4% of respondents do not work beyond their contracted hours. Out of the staff who said they often work beyond their contracted hours, 29% of teaching staff, 38% of managers and 63% of senior managers said they often worked more than 11 additional hours per week.
• 40% of people say that their organisation will tolerate managers or colleagues who bully others.
• Overall, 53.9% of people said they had been verbally abused by learners, with 37.4% of staff saying they had felt physically threatened by a learner.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the findings also reveal high levels of stress and job insecurity: Most staff (69.8%) say they feel too much stress in their job, with teaching staff and middle managers more likely than other groups to say they are stressed.

And reflecting the widespread instability caused by continual restructuring, 48% of staff said they do not feel they have job security, with teaching staff and middle managers feeling the least secure.

Further details can be found in the full LSN report, FE Colleges: the frontline under pressure.

UCU To Strike Before Negotiations Begin

College lecturers in England have voted to strike on Thursday 24 April in support of a demand to bring their pay up to that of schoolteachers. Over 27,000 lecturers in more than 250 colleges were balloted by the University and College Union (UCU). On a 38.6% turnout, 65.5% voted to support strike action.

Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), who teach in schools, are also striking on Thursday 24 April over a separate pay claim.

In both schools and colleges, many teaching professionals believe their employers are ignoring their professional status and serving business interests at the expense of community needs. NUT, UCU and the National Union of Students recently launched a joint campaign ‘Our schools, our colleges, our communities’ to draw attention to threats to the quality of local, public education from college marketisation, ‘city academies’ and cuts in public services.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of UCU, said: “College lecturers feel undervalued, despite their successes, which the government has recognised.

‘The considerable difference in the average pay of lecturers and teachers doing the same work is grossly unfair.

‘It is more than four years since FE employers agreed to move lecturers to the same length pay scales as school teachers but 47% of colleges still haven’t done that. The treatment of FE staff is a scandal. Pay has been further eroded by below-inflation pay awards.

‘Further education is central to the government’s plans for reskilling the nation but colleges must also serve their communities, not simply be factories for qualifications. Lecturers are delivering. Now college employers must tackle the deep dissatisfaction amongst their staff.’

Responding to today’s announcement by the UCU, Sue Dutton, Association of Colleges (AoC), Acting Chief Executive, said: “Colleges are disappointed that the University and Colleges Union (UCU) has called its members out to strike on 24 April over the 2008/09 pay claim.

‘The action is unprecedented as it is being called before national pay negotiations have even begun. Despite the decision, AoC is still committed to national pay negotiations, which are due to start 1 May.”

None of the other five unions who are party to the national pay claim have held industrial action ballots.

College Fined For Breaking Safety Law

City of Bristol College has been fined £14,000 and ordered to pay £18,000 costs for a breach of health and safety law. The case, brought by the HSE, related to the College’s failure to ensure the safety of its employees, particularly with regard to the use, handling and storage of hazardous substances and to the provision of appropriate training and supervision.

Further details are available on the UCU website.

Search For Lost Adult Learners

Over the past two years there has been a fall of nearly one and a half million adult learners on publicly funded courses. This week the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is launching a nationwide search to find out what has happened to those adults.

NIACE is exploring how the cuts in publicly funded adult learning have impacted on individual learners and wants to hear about what people have done without publicly supported classes. In particular NIACE is interested in finding out from learners, tutors and providers.

Alan Tuckett, Director of NIACE, said, “These are challenging times for adult learners. Because of our ageing population we need more – not fewer – adults of all ages learning. Learning increases confidence, reduces isolation and has positive effects on your mental health, particularly as you get older. This is why we want to hear about how adults are learning now – if not on publicly-funded courses.”

Anyone interested in sharing their experiences should contact NIACE at: lostcourses@niace.org.uk or write to: Lost Classes, NIACE, Renaissance House, 20 Princess Road West, Leicester LE1 6TP.

CEL Equality and Diversity Conference

The Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL) is holding its first Equality and Diversity Conference on 21 May 2008. The conference offers the opportunity to engage with the sector on equality and diversity matters; hear the findings of CEL’s equality and diversity research, soon to be published; participate in workshops with key sector agencies to capture and share good practice; and talk about and work through challenges and the strategies to address them.

More details can be found on the CEL website.

TUC Reaction to White Paper

Commenting on the Government White Paper Raising Expectations: Enabling the System to Deliver announced today (Monday), TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

“Many of the proposed reforms, such as giving local authorities a greater strategic role for young people, should help more employees get the skills they need. But with two in five workers still not getting any regular training at work, this organisational reform must not divert attention from the wider skills challenge - getting more employers to offer quality apprenticeships and training opportunities.

“It’s vital that as well as meeting the skills needs of employers, more individual employees are helped to get new skills under these new arrangements. Unions can help to do this, both at a strategic level and on the ground, through the 18,000-strong network of union learning reps.

“The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) has played an important role in supporting the Government’s skills strategy in recent years. Ministers must ensure that the expertise built up by LSC staff is utilised in any future arrangements, without recourse to redundancies.”

Plans Published To Raise Particpation Age

LSC to be abolished in major shake up

The Government today set out the details of the transfer of £7 billion to local authorities to help colleges and sixth forms deliver the reforms needed to raise the education and training leaving age to 18.

At the same time the Government will direct £4 billion a year through a new agency to provide training and skills for adults. The intention is to transform the system to be responsive and demand-led.

The proposals were published in a by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills in a joint White Paper, Raising Expectations: enabling the system to deliver.

The plans will mean the dissolution of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) by 2010 and instead make local authorities responsible for offering all young people in their area a full menu of choices - both the new Diplomas and Apprenticeships alongside GCSEs and A levels.

The DCSF, DIUS and local authorities will work together to deliver the main points set out in the White Paper.

For 14-19 year olds:

• It will put local authorities firmly in the driving seat to deliver education and training for children and young people aged 0-19, supporting the Government’s commitment to raising the participation age to 18 by 2015;
• It will make local authorities responsible for delivering the full range of 14-19 entitlements including the new Diplomas, Apprenticeships and the Foundation Learning Tier;
• Local authorities will be able to commission provision to meet demand from young people and employers.
• Local authorities will work together with national agencies and the Regional Development Agency who will co-chair the regional level, to provide a coherent planning and funding system for FE colleges and providers.

For adult learners it will mean:

• the creation of a streamlined Skills Funding Agency to route funding to FE colleges and other providers to meet the demands of employers and learners;
• giving the Skills Funding Agency the lead role in sponsoring colleges and providers
• the new Agency managing the creation of the new England-wide adult advancement and careers service, which will play a key role, with Jobcentre Plus, in boosting individual demand for skills and guiding people to the right training to meet their needs and help change their lives; and
• the new Agency eventually taking over from the Learning and Skills Council the management of the new National Apprenticeship Service, with end-to-end responsibility for the Apprenticeships programme, including ultimate accountability for national delivery of targets.

The White Paper was presented to Parliament in Written Ministerial Statement by Ed Balls.

He said, “We want every 16 and 17 year old to participate in education and training. And we want every adult to have the chance to improve their skills to get a job, a better job, or have a more successful economic life.

“The key proposals in the document will help to deliver our ambition to raise the participation age and transform attainment by age 19 and underpin our aim of a demand led system and the integration of employment and skills.

“The consultation document sets out how for young people, we aim to place leadership of the system, accountability for outcomes, duties and the funding to deliver, at a local level - local authorities will have the responsibility and duties to deliver for everyone from birth to 19.”

The White Paper is now out for consultation and comments must be submitted by Monday 9 June 2008.

That Was Apprenticeships Week

Last week was the first ever apprenticeships week. Below we take a quick look at the coverage and comment from those involved…

The Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills announced that some leading employers are creating some 4000 new places for apprentices. On the same day the LSC was highlighting research that shows how apprentices benefit business performance.

One sector known for offering apprenticeships is the automotive retail industry. In promoting apprenticeships week they were keen to highlight their commitment to apprenticeships.

ATL reported that LSC Director of Apprenticeships Stephen Gardner said that apprenticeships should not be associated with just the traditional industries, as they offer a number of opportunities in a range of potential career paths.

Of particular significance was a call from the TUC, and backed by the employers body FSB, calling for an increase in the minimum weekly wage for apprentices from £80 to £110, once legislation has been passed to extend wage contributions to small employers who are taking on an apprentice.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, “Apprenticeships are a great way for people to earn and learn, while employers benefit from skilled workers. The quality and diversity of apprenticeships must improve if they are to grow over the next decade. Completion rates are an important indicator of quality, and improving pay is crucial to ensuring that people can afford to complete their course. Increasing the minimum pay for apprentices to £110 a week will boost their reputation and convince more people to train.”

Trade union Unite called for more action on apprenticeships by urging the government and employers to agree a national training levy to fund more apprentice places. The UK’s largest trade union siad the fall in the number of apprenticeship places will create massive skills shortages in key industries.

Work Related Stress Responsible For Sucides

Work related stress could be responsible for as many as 250 suicides each year, more than the total number of fatal accidents at work recorded by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

These alarming figures are highlighted by the trade union Hazards magazine in a recently published report called Crying Shame. They are based upon statistics in Japan where an estimated 5% of suicides are considered work related.

In their report, Hazards magazine refers to the case of three teachers, all of whom found the pressure of their jobs too much. They also point out that figures released by the HSE in November 2007, showed a sharp upturn in cases of work-related “stress, depression or anxiety,” with the total affected up to 530,000 in 2006/07 from 420,000 the previous year.

In a related matter, the House of Laws recently ruled in the case of Corr v IBC Vehicles Ltd. It found the employer liable for Mr Corr’s suicide where it directly resulted from foreseeable depression caused by an accident at work (House of Lords on 27.2.08).

Young People Choose Learning

More young people are choosing to stay in learning according to Government figures. Compared to this time last year 31,000 more 19 year-olds have achieved a Level 2 qualification (5 GCSEs A*-C or equivalent) and 18,000 more have achieved a Level 3 (2 A levels or equivalent).

Rob Wye, National Director of Young People’s Learning and Skills at the Learning and Skills Council said:

“For everyone working in and involved with the LSC and right across Further Education, these results reflect all the positive work that goes on every single day to build better lives through better learning and skills. It’s so important for young people to have choices and there has never been a better time to learn.

“Not only are young people choosing to stay in learning, more and more of them are achieving and progressing on to Level 3. We see the Further Education system is really delivering in the right way to increase the numbers of young people, particularly those who are more disadvantaged, achieving a Level 2 and Level 3, giving 1.5million young people the right head start in life.”