LANCASHIRE County Council paid almost £60,000 in compensation to teachers last year according to new figures.

The council has revealed it gave out £59,126.47 in a series of deals during 2014, but the figure was much less than for many other authorities.

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It comes after data from the NASUWT teaching union shows schools and councils across the country were forced to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation to teachers last year.

The union said it secured compensation of £19.7 million for its members during 2014.

The NUT in Lancashire has said it would expect to have at least secured the same amount through settlement agreements entered into voluntarily by the employer and employee.

The compensation secured by the NASUWT was awarded for successful claims for unfair dismissal, personal injuries, criminal assault, unlawful deduction of wages, breach of contract, constructive dismissal, victimisation and discrimination.

The county council said the information it provided is based on when the claim was concluded irrespective of the date of the incident of the date the claim was received.

A spokesman also said there were no successful employment law claims made against the authority during 2014.

Simon Jones, who represents the NUT in Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen, said: “Behind these figures is a human tragedy and they show the level of the crisis in the industry at the moment.

“It shows that there is a workload crisis at the moment that is not being addressed.”

Bob Stott, Lancashire County Council director of children’s services, said: “We would prefer it of course that no teachers were ever hurt in an incident while at school, or involved in any kind of dispute.

“But in a county with nearly 10,000 teachers and well over 160,000 school-age children it is likely that there will be some incidents.”