Heavy axe hangs over support staff

U nions representing teaching assistants are concerned that their jobs may be particularly vulnerable as local authorities struggle to balance their books this year, given that many are on temporary contracts. A spokesperson for the GMB said that in many cases, school support staff were facing non-renewal of yearly contracts rather than redundancy, making it difficult to gauge the full extent of job losses. 'The Government's workforce agreement with the unions is meant to be tackling this by putting teaching assistants on proper contracts, but at the moment, the funding doesn't seem to match the philosophy. We're supportive of the...