Report of the Officers

Annual General Meeting, 28th February 2007

[Jane Rudon]Secretary - Jane Rudon

Meetings and Speakers

During the past year we have had eight general meetings plus the AGM and eight committee meetings. In addition we enjoyed Nic Gavin's leaving party and a summer and Christmas committee social. We have not had as many invited outside speaker as in previous years but have used the strengths of our local members to generate interesting meetings. The outside speakers we have welcomed are John Dixon, Assistant Secretary in charge of action who spoke to us about our activist base and pensions and Brian Carter, our Regional Secretary who led a meeting about Performance Management. Our meetings have covered a wide range of issues including discussions about our campaign against the Education and Inspection Bill (followed up with leafleting in the city centre in May and a public meeting at the Adult Education Centre in June), Pensions, Workload and Bureaucracy, and TLRs etc.

At one meeting we heard of members' experiences of false accusations and it helped us to understand the horrors that people can go through if false accusations are made against them. This plus casework we have undertaken led us to putting forward a motion to Conference 2007 that is the highest prioritised motion by associations and divisions. Clearly there is an issue that has resonance across the country.

We also held a very successful Quiz Night that attracted a record number of teams from different schools. Many thanks to Ian for organising this event.

Facility Time

In order to ensure that there is no detriment to the service we offer our members because I spend time in London on Executive duties, Ian has increased the number of days he is in the office. This is working very well and he is does a lot of the day to day administration of the union as well as case work. Membership is one of the union's highest priorities and unfortunately, we have not found a mechanism for enabling Anne Blair, our membership secretary, to have any facility time (as she works in a 6th form college) to undertake membership activities. Fortunately, Ian has done a lot of membership work for the union, particularly targeting newly qualified and young teachers. Our membership is still strong but there is a supermarket-style cut price war going on with other unions and we must not be complacent. We attended the annual Freshers' Fair at the University and the Local Authority's NQT function to encourage students and NQTs to join the NUT.

Pete continues to work three days a week. Following the 2007 AGM I expect we will look again at the officers we have and allocate such time as is needed to undertake duties. There are constraints on what we can achieve because, as in most jobs, there is always more work to do than there is time to do it in.

School Representatives

We continue to value our school representatives. The work they do is crucial to the smooth running of the union. We have supported them with reps' training (thanks to Ian for organising this) and detailed advice on such issues as pensions, TLRs, conditions of service etc. We still do not have a named rep in every school and I consider that this should be a priority for the coming year. This will be particularly helpful as the implementation of the very successful Workload and Bureaucracy ballot will be at school level supported by local officers, much as last year's TLR campaign was run. Further reps' training has been planned for 12th March to address this issue and negotiations within the workplace.

Conference 2006

A full delegation went to annual conference at Torquay. Pete Flack seconded a successful motion on workplace bullying that Annette Price (ex City member) proposed. Members of the delegation attended a number of fringe meetings.

Children and Young People's Service

The Education Department has now become the Children and Young People's Service. The management structure of the CYPS is being reviewed and there are a lot of unfamiliar faces running services. Fortunately, at the moment the Human Resources Team is still a working independently from the Corporate Team but proposals for great changes have been put forward. We remain of the view that the expertise of the HR team that was Education, needs to be retained because the pay and conditions of service of staff within schools are so complicated.

The politicians made a decision last year not to have teacher representatives on the Children and Young People's Service Scrutiny Committee. Previously there had been four teacher reps on the Education Scrutiny. The NUT considers that this is a retrograde step as, in our opinion, the politicians need to have access to the expertise of teachers in order inform their decisions. As a concession, after receiving our representations, they have agreed that we can request to speak if there is something that we feel we particularly want to contribute to. It's very disappointing, as is the very recent decision not to have union representation on the Schools' Forum (the key body that makes financial decisions). I think that the politicians wish to marginalise the unions and that the officers of the Local Authority are happy to comply with this.

Marketisation and Privatisation of Education

We continue to have grave concerns about the marketisation and privatisation of Education. We still regret that we were unsuccessful in opposing the Samworth Academy (which will open September 2007). We have continued to be involved in the change of status of the two schools that will become the Academy and at the last report we believe that there will be no job loss and existing conditions of service will continue. I attended a Lobby of Parliament last year in support of public services.

The Islamic Academy will change into the Madani Academy for September 2007 and this will bring the school into the LA's control as a Voluntary Aided school. We have not been as involved in the change of status of this school as we had hoped and must continue to ensure that members in the school are supported.

We continue to oppose Building Schools for the Future. We resist the argument that it is the "only show in town". We consider that the cost of rebuilding and refurbishing the secondary schools in Leicester through BSF is going to be an ever-increasing drain on the council's resources. We continue to resist any idea that primary schools might somehow subsidise BSF. BSF is running behind schedule and seems in disarray. Meanwhile a wonderful newly-built primary school has quietly been opened. Queensmead Primary School has replaced the infant and junior schools, in good time, at a very reasonable cost and without Private Finance Initiatives, expensive consultants and mortgaging the council for ever and a day. It can be done, but the government doesn't seem to want traditionally funded schools.

Teachers' Negotiating Committee (TNC) Working Party

The local association secretaries meet with Human Resources frequently to negotiate various conditions of service issue. Once we have done as much as we can on documents, the papers are taken to TNC for full discussion and agreement, or not. The main work we have covered this year is the review of the management of sickness absence. Many meetings were spent trying to make the procedure as acceptable as possible but it was not agreed in the end because there were issues to do with trigger points for meetings and what we consider to be excessive bureaucracy that were not acceptable. We have also discussed mileage allowances, the referral form for Occupational Health, long service awards, maternity leave and the duty of schools to promote disability issues.

Remodelling the Workforce

I continue to be on the local Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group. A survey of schools was undertaken this year and schools are reporting that they are complying with the Remodelling the Workforce expectations to a very large degree. This issues that are not completely in place seem to be work/life balance, headteachers' time and leadership and management time. The survey was meant to have involved staff but I suspect that the responses came mainly from heads and chairs of governors.

Redundancies

There were a number of redundancies last year. We were particularly concerned about the large number of posts that went from New College Leicester (falling rolls) and the almost annual event of a reduction of the Minority Ethnic Education Service. Worryingly, both these establishments are going through a redundancy process again this year. The large number of early retirement packages last year caused the politicians to try to remove the five added years that teachers can receive if they volunteer to early retirement. We went into dispute with the LA because they did not follow due process that was resolved. We are still in negotiations with the politicians and the LA about this and are doing our very best to retain the added years.

Casework

The amount and complexity of casework is ever increasingly. The new Ofsted framework seems to have put even more strain on our headteacher members. It seems that teachers are being blamed for the lower than average achievement of some pupils in some schools. A programme of support has been put in, funded by the DfES. It is called Improving Achievement in Priority Primary Schools (IAPPS) and it is for schools that have not reached the 65% level 4 at Key Stage 2 base. I am increasingly concerned that the pressure on some teachers amounts to bullying with threats of capability of disciplinary procedures. Clearly this is an intolerable situation and a meeting has been set up specifically for IAPPS schools (plus two secondary schools that are being similarly pressured) to see if we can find out the scope of the problem and if we can have collective representation and support.

The future

The key issues at the moment are workload and Performance Management (PM). Support will be given to schools in negotiations over the implementation of PM including matters like the number and length of classroom observations. Detailed advice has been sent to all school reps and also to individual members. As far as our association is concerned, our membership is good and the number of active officers is excellent. We have a few new-ish officers who have made very helpful contributions to the association and we hope that they will continue to rejuvenate our committee.

The support we get from Regional Office continues to be of the highest standard. As lay officers, we rely on the expertise of the officers in Regional Office and they are always most supportive. I would like to express my special thanks to Brian Carter, the retiring Regional Secretary who has given me so much invaluable advice and support. I wish him all the very best for his retirement. I would like to thank the officers and committee of the association for all they do for the union especially Ian and Pete who give me so much help and support.

I think we provide an excellent service for our members and it is the commitment and effort of our officers that make it possible.

Assistant Secretary - Peter Flack

[Peter Flack]

This year has been another busy one. We have been involved in a number of campaigns, most notably in relation to the plans of the government to create 'Trust' schools, which would be independent of the Local Authority and run by sponsors.

We organised a major public meeting at the Adult Education Centre in June which featured Peter Soulsby MP as our guest speaker, together with colleagues from other unions. We also ran two large adverts in the Leicester Mercury and circulated model letters to schools.

We continued the campaign against BSF and had a Mercury First Person Column printed questioning the costs of BSF. We also took up the issue in a variety of fora, not least Schools' Forum.

On Academies, we were successful in halting the plans to make New College an Academy. This followed a meeting with leading politicians and the withdrawal of the Bishop from the plans after the cathedral was leafleted by Leicester Social Forum opposing privatisation of education. This was an important success in stemming the drift towards Academies and reinforced the case for Community Schools as opposed to Trust schools.

In the autumn term we fought off attempts to unilaterally remove the opportunity for teachers to receive added years as part of Premature Retirement. Together with the other teaching unions we won a collective dispute with the authority and the status quo remained. We are now facing a further attempt to change this and a delegation from the unions met with councillors in mid February, just after half term.

We have been actively pressing for greater support for Primary schools and for concrete initiatives to tackle some of the pressing challenges that face our schools, not least in Early Years and KS1.

Similarly we have been campaigning for an effective inclusion strategy for Leicester that is based on the needs of children and ensures adequate resourcing for schools to support pupils. The LA has undertaken to engage with us on this issue, which is one of the reasons for the main item on tonight's NUT agenda.

On the integration of children's services we have been proactive in seeking to establish proper working arrangements for multi agency working. Our Draft Protocol on this has been circulated by the LA as a basis for discussion. We were also able to ensure that teachers working in Children's centres are line managed on professional matters, as opposed to day to day working, by a colleague who is a qualified teacher. This was an important victory.

In May I attended the European Social Forum in Athens together with Anne Blair and Bob Vincent. We are now one of the signatories to the European Public Services charter in opposition to privatisation and commercialisation of services across Europe.

Then there was the various casework, support to school groups and last but not least our central contribution to the establishment of Leicester Education Forum. This has now been running for nine months and has lively meetings that include a variety of educational professionals and users on a monthly basis at Regent College. Next meeting March 21st.

[Ian Leaver]Assistant Secretary - Ian Leaver

I have being taking two days per week facility time this academic year which has enabled me to take a much more active role in the NUT office. I suppose that the majority of my time has been spent on communication and membership matters.

Communication

Membership

[Nic Gavin]Treasurer - Nic Gavin

The Association accounts were closed on December 31st and audited in January. We have increased the Association's reserves to just over £5000.00. The greatest expenditure reflects the fact that we now run a very efficient high-tec office which is staffed every working day. This ensures not just excellent service for our members but allows us to be involved in the wider fight for justice across the wider trade union sphere. There is full time access to high speed broadband as well as the facility to laser print in colour up to A3 on top of the usual office equipment. These will be continuing expenses but are well within the budget. Therefore I recommend to the association that there is no need for an additional increase in our subscriptions and that we continue to support the current affiliations of the Association. In addition I propose that we make a donation of £250.00 to the Teacher's Support Network (formerly the TBF).

Equal Opportunities Officer - Sera Shortland

[Sera Shortland]

During my term as equal opportunities officer I had the opportunity to attend the NUT's Annual Conference in Torquay. At conference, I attended and reported on many fringe meetings relevant to the issue of equal opportunities, including International Development, Kick it out and Gender Equality. This year Leicester NUT has been busy actively campaigning. I have taken my place alongside colleagues petitioning, handing out balloons and leaflets explaining Leicester NUTs position on many issues. Articles written for the city teacher have provided information and advice for city teachers on matters such as the 2006 Age Discrimination Act, refugee week and poverty. This year has been both an enjoyable and educational experience, and I have found Leicester NUT to be pro-active and welcoming. For the coming year I feel that the equal opportunities officer should attend any available training sessions on equality to make the post more effective.

[Andy Haynes]Health and Safety Advisor - Andy Haynes

I have spent most of the year learning what the job of the Health and Safety Advisor is about. I attended the school health and safety representative's course at Stoke Rochford in March and the annual H&S Advisors briefing in November, making useful contacts and learning a lot in the process. I've also conducted a survey to try to establish the level of training that school reps have received and the support that they experience in school. I am also a member of the Children and Young People's Services Safety Committee and I have attended a TCC meeting to advise on health and safety matters.

The main concerns of the NUT regarding H&S are teacher stress and the continued presence of asbestos in school buildings. Members are much more likely to be aware of problems within their own school than anyone coming in from outside. For this reason I believe that it essential that we seek to recruit and train school Health and Safety Representatives in as many schools and colleges as possible. This will be an important area on which to focus in the coming months.

Teachers' Support Network - Ruth Byrne

For the Teacher Support Network to be able to function effectively it relies on volunteers to carry out casework at a local level. For some time the question of appropriate training for such volunteers has been considered. Changes to the laws governing charities have increased the need to address this issue. Hence the TSN organised a half-day training seminar in June in London which I attended. There was also a follow-up training pack which had to be completed by October, 2006. The training was useful and interesting. It gave me an opportunity to refresh my memory as well as learn more about the newer services being developed. The chance to meet with other TSN volunteers from around the country was also valuable.

The TSN continues to develop its services for teachers:

All these services can be accessed by calling 08000 562 561 or by visiting www.teachersupport.info.

In order to support teachers the TSN relies heavily on the generosity of people who give donations, hold and support raffles or subscribe as individuals through direct debit etc. Our Local Association responds to the Annual Appeal by considering a donation at the A.G.M. and I hope we will be able to continue to support the TSN in this way since it is very much appreciated.

[Anne Blair]Sixth Form College Group Report - Anne Blair

Locally NUT groups at the three sixth form colleges (Gateway, Regent and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth 1) do not meet as a group, which is a pity, as NUT Reps. used to meet regularly during the Incorporation period. It is good to see that individual NUT members from all three colleges have attended local Association and Committee meetings, and the local Education Social Forum, supported by the NUT, have been meeting at Regent College. It is also pleasing that there are NUT Reps and contacts at all three Sixth Form Colleges.

Nationally, the NUT National Working Group for Sixth Form Colleges has met twice during the last year and discussed:

The Sixth Form College sector is not participating in the current action and it was a bit confusing to receive copies of the Teacher and local City Teacher, however recently all NUT members in sixth form colleges were posted useful guidelines on workload and working time policy. These documents were the outcome of discussions at the National Working Group.

[Jane Rudon]Executive Member for Leicester, Leicestershire, Rutland and Northants - Jane Rudon

Following my election to the National Executive in spring 2006, I have attended eight Executive meetings and one Special TUC Executive meeting. I have also attended one Professional Conduct Committee, one Recruitment Committee and a meeting of the Primary Advisory Committee. I am on Membership and Communications and Salaries, Superannuation, Conditions of Service and Health and Safety Sub-Committees. I attended a very interesting conference about LGBT issues called 'Safe Places for Learning.'

I have endeavoured to communicate with the Associations within District 11 and have started to visit Associations and Divisions.

Major issues that have been discussed on the Executive during this time have been:

We have also spent considerable time discussing Academies, Trust Schools and the marketisation of education; Equality issues; the Workload Agreement.

Targeting young teachers, recruitment strategies especially of NQTs, the increasing use of Hearth and training have been key issues discussed on the Membership and Communications Sub-Committee.

In the Salaries, Superannuation, Conditions of Service and Health and Safety Sub-Committee we have considered many issues including teachers' pensions, Academies, pay issues, the NUT's response to the School Teachers' Review Body recommendations, the PPA survey, Performance Management and pay progression.

I have taken part in short-listing and interview for Brian Carter's (Regional Secretary) replacement. Unfortunately we did not appoint and are going through the process again at the moment. I also am involved in an appointment of a Regional Officer in Eastern Region.

I have got to understand the complexities of how such a huge organisation as the NUT is run and important role that Executive members have within the system. It makes me feel even more pleased to be part of the Executive.