Can employer change responsibilties and reduce pay?

[cakeforbrains]

My DH is a teacher, and has worked at his school for 15+ yrs. He's currently has two head of department roles. Due to a restructure, they are now proposing to take away one of his head of department roles, which means they will also take away the additional salary he receieves for the role. They will be putting in another member of staff to replace him as head of dept, while still expecting him to be part of the dept. There are no concerns about his performance in the role, but they have said he will not be eligible to apply, nor will they be doing a transparent recruitment process.

Can DH's employers do this? And is it fair that they reduce his salary? He is devastated by this, he has worked hard at the role and has built up the department.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

this sounds quite complicated - is he in a union? I know that a lot of teachers' T&Cs are governed by collective agreements so there may well be set rules for this situation.

He's not in a union unfortunately and it's a private school. His contract doesn't actually list his responsibilities, just that he'll do whatever the school requires etc. The school are pretty clueless about HR as well.

hopeful bump

Sounds like they have cakeforbrains

They cannot take away the salary and title just because it suits them to meddle round with the departments. He needs to drop them a polite note asking them to clarify in writing that they are proposing to reduce his pay without his agreement and reduce his responsibilities without his agreement and that there have been no capability concerns regarding his performance. The letter should ask for a written response ASAP so that he can consider his position in the light of this.

That should bring them up short. I expect they will reverse their proposals sharpish. If not then you shoudl follwo up with a letter from a lawyer.