- Conference
- 2017 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 23 February 2017
- Decision
- Carried
Conference recognises the importance of recruiting and organising support staff in schools as part of our campaign against the government’s 8% cuts to school funding by 2020 (as predicted by the National Audit Office) . These cuts are already hitting a wide range of staff particularly in academy schools and will also hit the quality of education received by pupils.
We therefore need to ensure that we continue to campaign for increased school funding and to keep community schools under the local authority, to stop further erosion and fragmentation of education.
Conference believes that it is absolutely vital that we protect and extend facility time arrangements in all schools regardless of who the employer is. The key priority for the union must be to ensure that we maintain local authority pooled facility funds where they exist and also work to ensure that all academy schools pay into a facility time arrangement; allowing branch and school based reps to represent members to the best of our ability in all schools.
Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:
1) Campaign for distinct and adequate funding arrangements for trade union facility time in schools to be part of any new national funding formula
2) Approach the local government employers with a view to agreeing a joint position on the need for specific national funding arrangements for facility time in schools
3) Continue to encourage and support branches to consider having a dedicated Schools Officer / Organiser
4) Work with regions and branches with the aim of getting a UNISON steward in every school
5) Support branches to increase the number of members we recruit in schools
6) Run a targeted project to encourage existing school based union contacts to become fully accredited stewards