Restructuring at school

[BonnieBlueButler]

My school is the lead school in a trust of schools. Our CEO has recently changed and we are going through a brutal restructure.

It started with senior management just before the summer with all temp senior managers (there were a lot - some of them temporary for as long as 2-3 years) being demoted back to their substantive posts. The number of Assistant Heads were cut and the roles changed considerably so there has been redundancies and permanent staff having to apply for the roles
now up for grabs.

The restructuring will soon start for middle managers and those with TLRs which is where I come into it. I have a permanent TLR (worth 9 thousand - basically as second in faculty) and have had this position for 9 years). I'm the only one (other than head of fac) with a permanent TLR although there are 3 others with temporary ones. My question is, what can they do with my position? Are they able to take away from TLR if they consider my role is not needed or they come up with another structure that is very different to the one we currently have? If they do this, do I have any protection considering my position is permanent? I'm on the UPS - would they be able to change this?

I'm so worried. We are currently in the process of buying a house we cannot afford if I lose 9 thousand a year! We've been given Christmas as a time scale to find out the changes.

Any advice? Thanks!

In maintained schools pay protection for TLRs and the likes last for 3 years. During that 3 years you can be asked to do other tasks commensurate to the additional allowance.
Your union will have been through this lots of times and 3 years is long enough to go for promotion or find another job. Good luck x

Thank you! So they would have to guarantee my current salary for 3 years? Does it make a difference that my school is an academy? Could they offer redundancy instead?

With redundancy, it's the position that's made redundant, not the person. That's a really important distinction. So they might decide that the new structure no longer has any TLR posts for the job you do. In which case, you would be notified that your job is at risk and go into a consultation period, at the end of which you'd be told if your job had disappeared or not. You can then appeal that decision - twice. They cannot make someone redundant and then appoint someone to the same or a very similar post - the law is very clear about that. So, if it comes to that, in your position, I'd be thinking about what you do because of your TLR and asking questions about who will be doing that work instead of you. They can't just take away the TLR but expect you to continue doing the extra work.

The best example I can give is of a school a friend in Yorkshire worked at who made their caretaker redundant. The caretaker primarily cleaned, with maintenance being done by an outside contractor. The school had a substantial extension which meant more cleaning. The Governors decided to re-spec the caretaker job as site manager, with the emphasis on maintenance and managing contractors who came in to clean. That was considered to be a sufficient change in job to make the post of caretaker redundant. The ex-caretaker was then invited to apply for the post of site manager.

The law is really clear about how this process works, and any Head/Governors who doesn't follow it carefully will leave themselves open to all sorts of claims for unfair dismissal etc.

That's really helpful toomuch. Thank you for explaining that.

My gut feeling is they are going to get rid of the traditional structure of second, head of KS4, Head of KS3 and replace with Lead Practitioners. This would be a enough of a change from my old role I think to mean they could advertise to others.

It's reassuring to know that they can't just take the money away straightaway. It's just so frustrating to not know what they are thinking. The school have always been very good and fair employers but seeing the turmoil they have caused to some ex members of the SLG (albeit within the law it seems), I no longer trust them.