119 school staff facing redundancy in Blackburn with Darwen (From Lancashire Telegraph)

119 school staff facing redundancy in Blackburn with Darwen

11:00am Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Education By Nafeesa Shan, Reporter

FRONTLINE HIT Teachers and support staff will lose their jobs

A TOTAL of 119 school staff are facing redundancy despite ‘promises’ that no jobs would be lost under Blackburn and Darwen’s education shake-up.

The teachers and support staff from Beardwood Humanities College, Crosshill School and Fernhurst School are angry after being placed on a 90 day consultation at what they see as a council u-turn.

Education bosses had vowed there would be ‘no largescale redundancies’ after plans to rebuild or remodel schools under the borough’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme were given the green light in 2008.

However the council has said that while redeployment had always been a ‘major focus’, it would now have to make redundancies.

It said that on top of the 119 jobs at risk a further 83 staff had either been redeployed, taken early retirement, voluntary redundancy or found alternative employment.

Unions said the council had given ‘promises’ the posts would be safe, even though two schools were earmarked for closure and another would reduce in size.

They said when a redeployment policy for teachers and support staff at the schools was drawn up in 2010, education leaders again said there would be no redundancies.

National Union of Teachers (NUT) national executive and Blackburn with Darwen secretary Simon Jones said: “Staff are understandably very angry to be facing compulsory redundancy later this year after being promised there would be jobs for them all at the beginning of the process.

“It is quite disgraceful that some of the schools in the area that have benefited from massive capital investments under BSF have then reneged on their promises to accept members of staff from the schools that are closing.

“Beardwood Humanities College is closing in the summer, Crosshill School will be scaled down when it is co-located with the new Blackburn Central High School in Haslingden Road, Blackburn, and Fernhurst School will also close this year.

At Beardwood Humanities College 68 staff, made up of 32 teachers and 36 support staff, are at risk of redundancy, Fernhurst School 18 teachers and 19 support staff and Crosshill School six teachers and eight support staff.

Crosshill Special School has already set £100,000 to one side to help cover some of the redundancy costs.

The National Association of Schoolmasters of Women Teachers (corr) (NASUWT) union said that even though employable teachers and support staff were available in the deployment pool, schools in Blackburn with Darwen had continued to recruit externally.

Lesley Ham, negotiating secretary for the union in Blackburn with Darwen, said: “The casualties are immense and the impact on staff is profound.

“The local authority is not large enough to absorb the staff.

“It is not just the local authorities’ fault, the management of the schools, the governors, school leaders and the local authority are all to blame.

“Schools continued to recruit even though there was a redeployment list of staff.

“This is a cruel situation.”

A teacher who has been notified that he is in the 90-day consultation period said the decision had ‘destroyed’ his career.

The teacher, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “We tried to talk about redundancies and they refused to discuss the issue with us.

“Now there will be a lot of teachers and support staff out of work.

“ For me personally they have destroyed my career. I would have carried on teaching in my 60s.

“I was banking on redeployment because the council assured us that they had jobs for everyone, they were insistent this was the case.

“It is disgraceful.”

The council said that despite the 119 posts being at risk children’s education would not suffer.

Bosses said there had been a small drop in pupil numbers as well as over-staffing in some schools. There was also an overlapping of skills and experience of staff on the redeployment list and the existing schools were already fully staffed.

Harry Devonport, director of education at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said: “The council, in partnership with the secondary schools, developed a redeployment strategy in the borough with effect from 2010 to help staff at Beardwood, Fernhurst and Crosshill to find alternative employment following the closure.

“Teachers and support staff have had access to a number of different options including redeployment, voluntary and transferred redundancy.

"Redeployment has always been a major focus for us under the BSF programme and at the beginning it was hoped that there would be no need for largescale redundancies as a result of the collaborative working across the school and council.

"Finding new jobs for the people on this list remains a priority but unfortunately there will be some redundancies.”