Trade Union Facilities Time - Academies Only

Trade Union representatives have a statutory right to reasonable paid time off from employment to carry out trade union duties and to undertake trade union training.

Historically, funding for facilities time for trade unions representing school based employees at a local/branch level have been primarily funded through the Dedicated Schools Grant, however funding regulations state that non-maintained schools are not able to de-delegate monies back to Local Authority to administer Trade Union Facilities Time. As such we facilitate a service through which academies, free schools and other non-maintained schools can ‘buy in’ to a pooled service that shares the costs of teaching and non-teaching Trade Union facilities time.

The service provides an effective route for statutory and collective consultation and bargaining, a framework and structure for non-maintained schools to manage industrial relations and access to branch official from recognised unions, it includes:

Consultation, negotiation and representation, for trade union members on matters connected with terms and conditions, including:

• Pay

• Hours of work

• Holidays and holiday pay

• Sick pay arrangements

• Pensions

• Equality and diversity

• Notice periods

• The working environment

• Job evaluation

• Local agreements (e.g; Teaching Assistant /Nursery Nurse agreements)

• Health and Safety

Attendance and representation at meetings with and on behalf of union members in relation to:

• Grievances

• Disciplinary

• Attendance management

• Restructuring and/or redundancy

• Pay & grading appeals

• TUPE transfers

• Health and Safety

• For members at management meetings on matters of local and joint interest such as policy changes

And any other industrial relations issues where school-based employees have a statutory right to representation. 

Alternative arrangements

Any non-maintained school not purchasing the service needs to ensure there are adequate arrangements in place for trade union facilities. The handling of any industrial relations matters will revert to a school based official or regional representatives and has the potential to lengthen the process. Schools will be responsible for making their own arrangements for covering work areas/tasks and costs associated with release of officials for representation or training.

Trade union representatives employed within the school will be entitled to undertake the full range of functions listed within this document and training from their respective union. It is estimated that a school based representative for a school not buying back would need cover for approximately 8 days of training per official.

The Council’s service operates well established procedures and practices for arranging School Exclusion Reviews. The Council’s service has a proven track record of successfully arranging exclusion reviews within the statutory framework and has built up a large pool of experienced and trained independent panel members. 

We provide a full service which covers matters such as contacting the parents and dealing with all queries and bookings relating to the hearing, so we require little from the school aside from producing necessary paperwork and attending the hearing on the day. We can also provide tailored quotations based on your specific service needs.

Note: This service is de-delegated to maintained schools