The School Support Staff Negotiating Body, launched last October as a non-statutory, 'shadow' body, is working towards agreeing a new framework for pay and conditions in maintained schools and settings (News, 1 October 2008). Previously pay scales were determined by the National Joint Council for local authorities.
Workers who will have their pay and conditions set by the SSSNB include nursery nurses, classroom assistants, caretakers, clerical and administrative staff, catering and playground supervisory staff.
The SSSNB was made statutory as part of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act, which is a package of reforms aimed at helping the schools workforce.
The body is currently developing national role profiles and job evaluations for school support staff and developing national contracts and agreements on working time.
Members of the SSSNB include employers from local governments, the Foundation and Aided Schools National Association, the Church of England Board of Education, and the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales, and representatives from public sector unions and the DCSF.
Christina McAnea, head of education for Unison and lead negotiator for the unions, said, 'I am delighted that school support staff are being given a voice of their own. For too long the vital contribution they make in sustaining children throughout their school years has gone unrecognised and undervalued. We are aiming to draw up a national agreement on pay and conditions and to ballot our members by May next year.'
Ms McAnea added that she hoped that developing national contracts and agreements on working time would solve the problems caused by the single status agreement and term-time only contracts.
Some nursery nurses and school support staff in the maintained sector have suffered pay cuts of up to 30 per cent after their contracts have been changed from full time to term-time only.
