why redundancy?

• Amalgamation of schools. The Oxfordshire Education Authority, for example, is currently proposing a switch from a three-tier system in the City of Oxford (first, middle and upper) to a two-tier system. Middle schools will merge with either primaries or secondaries, which are currentlyinterviewing to fill new posts from among middle school staff.
• Closure of schools or reduction in the staffing of schools because of falling pupil numbers.
• Budget cuts. These may result from falling rolls or a fall in a particular type of pupil - e.g. statemented under Special Needs provisions - or from a reduction in the money for education either passed on from central government to local authorities or because the local authority itself has cut the education budget.
• Because schools are being 'Fresh Started'. At present, approximately 500 schools, mainly secondaries, are considered 'failing' by government. Education ministers want all those that stay on the list for more than two years to be considered for Fresh Start, i.e. closed, re-planned, re-named, re-opened under fresh management. Given some current high-profile disasters with failed or struggling Fresh Starts, they may soon change their minds about this. Meanwhile, there are several legal challenges in the pipeline over 'redundancies' at such schools: a group of teachers from the former Watermeads School, Merton, are claiming unfair dismissal and other cases will concern schools in Brighton and Guildford (where a private company is taking over King's Manor School). Challenges will rest on Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) or 'TUPE' legislation, which protects jobs of employees whose business either sells itself and restarts or is transferred from the public to the private sector.

The Law
A teacher's employer is the local authority or, in voluntary aided, 'church' schools, the school governing body. If redundancy is in the offing, the employer is required to notify and consult recognised trade unions and any employees likely to be affected 'in good time' only if the number of proposed redundancies exceeds 20. This threshold replaced the former requirement that there must be consultation and notification even if only one employee was affected. This happened when Section 34 of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993 was partly superceded by the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 1995 (S1 1995 No 2587) and 1999 (S11999/1925).

The new legislation has been challenged by unions. The present position is that teachers' employers are careful to go through 'good practice' procedure as laid down by ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service), www.acas.org.uk and which generally coincides with the former situation of notifying and consulting over each individual redundancy - because if they don't, industrial tribunals might find that an employee had been unfairly dismissed. The teaching unions and ACAS publish up-to-date guidelines; those from ACAS obviously don't relate specifically to teaching but they produce a useful booklet on handling redundancy.

What exactly happens will vary from one local education authority to another. Redeployment agreements within local authorities no longer exist but sometimes new posts at the same or another school may be 'ringfenced', and offered first to redundant teachers. Good links and goodwill between school heads following Local Management of Schools has replaced the concept of the local authority 'pool'.

What next?
The unthinkable has happened and your Head is talking to you about redundancy. Get in touch straightaway with your union or the nominated adviser the law allows you to have. Establish exactly what is being proposed, why and when. Your adviser will want to be certain that this is indeed a genuine redundancy.

The unions theoretically support the 'objective' principle of Last In First Out. In practice, they will encourage school managements to 'look at the housekeeping'. Is there anyone willing to take voluntary redundancy? Are other schools nearby looking for staff? Should the school do a 'skills audit' to check what its goals are and if it has staff to match - has management really pinpointed the right post to do away with? If you accept this redundancy, what are the implications for where and when you may then look for work? You will need references that make it quite clear that the redundancy in no way reflected badly on your contribution to the redundant post.

If you are convinced that the proposal is unfair, you may have the basis of a case of unfair dismissal or other grounds for taking your employer to an employment tribunal. You will need legal advice for this, which your union may be willing to extend to you if the case is strong.

Case stories
Helen had a part-time, slightly quirky, contract at a school in the London Borough of Lewisham, doing mainly 'Section 11' work (i.e. supporting the English of children whose first language was not English). The school wanted to alter the extent of this post and under a local agreement had to offer it first to a teacher made redundant from another school.

"I was given one term's notice and offered money or one vacancy in another school, over which I would have no choice. I was so indignant that I refused to even look at the other school. I'm an NUT member but I didn't find their advice helpful in the sense that it wasn't going to keep me my job.

"However, it soon occurred to me that I might never again have an opportunity to have some time off with a lump of money. Also, my daughter dropped out of her undergraduate course. Pressures were building up. I accepted the money and agreed that I couldn't take another post in Lewisham for three years.

"In August, my mother died. Because I had the money, I didn't have to look for another post immediately. I did a one-term Access course in social anthropology at Goldsmiths College, which was fascinating, and paid for a course of Alexander Technique lessons which were the best investment I've ever made in terms of personal well-being. I then got a job - as a mainly Section 11 teacher - with the next-door London Borough of Southwark. In the end, though I felt that the situation could have been handled far better at the time, I relished the break."

Sam was a special needs teacher in the Midlands who lost his post at the time of serious education cuts in the nineties. Special needs departments are often vulnerable to cuts as savings can be made by replacing experienced, specialist teachers with classroom assistants. He had recently left the NUT because he was not prepared to follow its then policy that teachers should withdraw goodwill over helping run school clubs.

"I couldn't see that my refusing to let the kids play snooker was really going to make Mrs Thatcher suffer." He joined the Professional Association of Teachers which, when it came to his own redundancy was, he felt, 'not that good.' He felt that headteachers may feel less like messing with a miltant union such as the NUT who may have defended his corner more strongly.