Christina McAnea, Unison's national secretary for education, said, 'We welcome the secretary of state's willingness to discuss these issues, but the devil is in the detail.'
She added, 'The lack of a clear national framework has led to problems over implementing the workforce agreement in schools and we will be seeking a meeting with the secretary of state to explore these issues.'
In an interview with The Guardian last week Ms Kelly referred to the creation of national pay scales for teachers 20 years ago and added, 'One thing that I'm very open to considering, although I haven't made up my mind up on this issue yet, is whether we need to do the same now to teaching assistants.'
Unison, together with the main unions representing school support staff, the GMB and the TGWU, is in the process of discussing a national claim for nursery nurses and support staff and plans to lodge it with the Government later in the summer.
The move was prompted by growing disparities in support staff pay around the country. Until now the Government has remained adamant that pay should be determined at local level. Teaching assistants' pay ranges from 11,000 a year or less, to 18,000, with higher level teaching assistants in Birmingham able to earn around 22,000.
Rob Kelsall, GMB regional officer in Birmingham, welcomed the prospect of an end to 'the current array of pay and conditions for school support staff across England and Wales which is not conducive to raising standards in education'. He added, 'It has not just led to a two-tier workforce, but sometimes a four-tier workforce, with higher level teaching assistants in one authority being paid 3,000 to 4,000 less than in another authority.'
Inequalities have been exacerbated by the protracted process of job evaluation and implementing the single status agreement for local government workers. While most local authority staff work a 37-hour week, teaching assistants are reckoned to do an average of 32.5 hours a week, and so to be working part-time. Consequently some councils have decided to pay them on a term-time basis.
In Cheshire, for example, the outcome of this process has been accompanied by a warning from Unison that teaching assistants could end up at least 2,000 worse off.
Last year more than 1,000 teaching assistants took strike action when Brighton and Hove council tried to reduce the number of paid weeks to 44 from 49.5 in mainstream schools and 52 weeks in specialist schools. After both sides agreed to binding arbitration, the conciliation service ACAS ruled last week that teaching assistants should be paid for 46 weeks.
Brighton GMB branch secretary Mark Turner said industrial action would not have been necessary if there had been national pay scales instead of local bargaining. He said his union had written to Ruth Kelly welcoming her overtures and seeking a meeting to discuss the issue.
