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Support staff

The NEU represents support staff members across the UK in the maintained, academy, free school, independent, further education and sixth form sectors.

Membership of the NEU is open to any person working in the education sector: teachers, teaching assistants, examination officers, technicians, librarians, lecturers, managers, administrators and ancillary staff. Support staff are represented by their National Council.

The National Education Union (NEU) recognises that support staff are among the most underpaid and undervalued workers in the sector, and we are proud of our support staff members who campaign tirelessly for better working conditions. In the last few weeks, we have again been censured by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), merely for saying that we want support staff to be organised into effective unions.

Despite this, we believe the way forward must be rooted in unity across the trade union movement, together recognising and campaigning on the challenges faced by nearly a million support staff working in schools.

The NEU is committed to working positively and collectively with all who share the goal of improving the working lives of support staff across the sector.

Special Conference

A special conference has been called for 28 February to decide how best to proceed with organising support staff.

Support staff hero

Support staff news - winning at work

Support staff members standing together, taking action, and achieving real improvements in their workplaces.

Read our termly news

Advice

Teaching assistant with child

Support staff pay

Support staff pay has lost around 20% of its real value since 2010. Any pay award must be fully funded by the central government.

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Pay scales

Pay scales for support staff in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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Working conditions

This advice is designed to help support staff working in state, academy and independent schools to deal with the increase in the quantity and complexity of work for school support staff.

Graphic of files saying quality teaching, planning, data, marking

Appraisal

Many employers still do not have in place performance management processes for classroom support staff, nor for other categories of support staff.

Teaching assistant with child

Lone working risk assessement

NEU believes none of its members should be more at risk in their jobs than other workers just because they are required to work on their own.

Young child talking to woman

Term-time working

An initial section of guidance on term-time working has now been agreed between the local government employers and the recognised trade unions.

Two women in discussion

Job descriptions and evaluations

Guidance for support staff around job descriptions – their accuracy, and how to go about changing them, and details on job evaluation.

Children in classroom with teacher

Classroom observations

It is important that a support staff member understands the reasons for any observation and what elements will be observed and commented on.

TUC dispute and annual conference

Last November, the NEU began ballots of both our teacher and support staff members for action over pay and, crucially, over the funding of pay rises in schools.

Three unions – Unison, GMB and Unite – made a complaint to the TUC alleging that our ballot was an organising activity intended to recruit support staff to our union.

We maintained that the purpose of the ballot instead was to ensure that we were putting as much pressure as possible on the Government to put money into schools. We saw this funding as crucial to ensure that redundancies and cuts in hours are avoided and that it could allow pay levels to be better.

However, the TUC disputes panel found against us and as part of the judgement they require that we place this paragraph on our website.

“NJC unions, Unison, GMB and Unite, brought a complaint to the TUC under the TUC’s Disputes Principles and Procedures, relating the NEU’s decision to ballot school support staff and related campaigning activities. Complaints that NEU were in breach of Principle 2, relating to knowingly and actively taking into membership existing or recent members of another union and Principle 3, relating to actions that would have the effect of undermining the position of an established union, were upheld by a Disputes Committee. 

The NEU is not recognised for collective bargaining on behalf of support staff and is not seeking and will not seek recognition to collectively bargain on behalf of support staff. NEU will not undertake any campaign or organising activity on behalf of support staff that could be construed as infringing on the established collective bargaining arrangements that exist without the express agreement of NJC unions, respecting the spheres of influence of those unions.”

This paragraph is in contradiction with a motion passed at our conference this year, which lists these action points:

Conference instructs the Executive to:

  1. Seek, at the earliest opportunity, recognition and negotiating rights for our support staff members.
  2. Liaise with the local government unions representing support staff to make clear our desire to work with them, to strengthen union density and effectiveness among support staff.
  3. Report back to the Support Staff National Council on any developments in respect of negotiations with our sister unions regarding recognition and negotiating rights and recruitment.
  4. End the undertaking not to actively or knowingly recruit support staff.

Because of this difference, the NEU will be seeking meetings with Unison Unite and GMB to explore how we can resolve the contradiction between these positions.

Support staff pay

Unison Unite and GMB are all balloting their school support staff members alongside their council staff members in disputes about this year's National Joint Council (NJC) pay offer. NEU has written to those unions expressing solidarity with their campaign and stating that we want to talk with them about balloting our support staff members to make that solidarity very practical.

We have also said that we want to explore how we can fulfil another part of the TUC judgement – that a mechanism with the other unions should be set up so that the views of NEU support staff members are taking into account in NJC negotiations.

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