Council remains locked in talks with union over on-going schools strike action in north Northumberland

Teachers are still expected to walk out for three days this week, with the latest industrial action starting today (Tuesday). However, there is a possibility that the latter days could be called off if a compromise is reached.

Meanwhile, the local authority has confirmed that an outline business case for the project to develop new buildings for Berwick Academy will be brought to the local authority’s ruling cabinet in the “near future”.

But Berwick East county councillor Georgina Hill has accused the council administration of “disastrously mismanaging” the schools reorganisation, with her concerns including her view that nothing meaningful has been done to progress the project.

The council is currently pressing ahead with proposals to restructure the system in the Berwick area to a two-tier model. Members of the education union NASUWT say plans to close Glendale, Tweedmouth and Berwick Middle Schools without job guarantees would put 142 staff at risk.

The union wants those staff to have jobs under the new system “ring-fenced”. NASUWT’s executive member for Northumberland John Hall explained the issue that remained and if resolved, there is “a slight chance Wednesday and Thursday will be called off”.

He said: “There’s a number of roles that are being filled by the recruiting schools in the Berwick Partnership. The ring-fencing means the staff at risk of redundancy will be one of those new teachers – it protects them.

“However there seems to be some resistance where some of the headteachers want to go outside of the ring-fencing and advertise externally. That is unacceptable to us – they are all qualified, competent teachers.”

In her statement, Coun Hill said: “We are heading to four years since that initial investment was secured and nothing meaningful has been done to progress it. They are only now talking about outline business cases and what sounds very much like a bit of a refurb – not a new school with the facilities our children deserve.

“Parents, pupils, staff and the whole town have all been badly let down, school reorganisation has been disastrously mismanaged by this council administration and there has been false promise after false promise.”

In response, Coun Guy Renner-Thompson, cabinet member for education, said: “Councillor Hill is completely wrong. The budget for the Berwick Partnership reorganisation has just been increased to £50million.

“Our schools, the council, architects and builders are all working together as we speak to bring forward a project that will transform the future of education in Berwick and north Northumberland for generations to come.

“The vast majority of our schools are quietly getting on with the day job and preparing to adjust to the new system they agreed to.

“It is shame that instead of working together for the long-term future of our children, Coun Hill is only interested in grabbing newspaper headlines as we head towards local elections in May.”

The council has issued a statement on the strikes following the recent discussions. A spokeswoman for the local authority said: “Our aim is to secure permanent employment for all staff over the next two years. This will include recruitment, redeployment and retraining as appropriate.

“We continue to work closely with the schools and the trade unions to ensure staff across the partnership are supported during this process. There has been extensive engagement with all unions and particularly with the NASUWT and NEU who were taking industrial action in the summer term.

“These consultations have been positive and recruitment procedures and salary safeguarding have been fully agreed with all partners. In our last meeting there were no areas of fundamental disagreement and we confirmed our commitment to work together on further details.

“As a result, we are both surprised and saddened that despite the progress being made the NASUWT and NEU has decided to go ahead with this extensive strike action.”