November Executive NEUs

Joint General Secretaries’ Report

The Executive endorsed the JGS decision to call for schools and colleges to be part of the lockdown with rationale to:

• Increase space in schools and colleges.
• Undertake deep cleansing
• Plan to reduce the occupancy rates of school sites through various measures so that social distancing is a reality
• Extra staffing to allow CEV staff and pregnant members (3^rd T) to work from home.

Gavin Williamson wrote to heads on 7 Sept saying: “I want to reassure you again that all your staff and pupils have access to testing if one of them should develop Covid -19 symptoms.” This has not happened.  The spread of the virus and the disruption to pupils’ education is evident – at the start of September, almost 90% of pupils were in school but as the rate of infection increased attendance fell, particularly in secondary schools – by half term, almost 1 in 5 pupils were absent from secondary school because the virus had spread so widely.

Demands:

• Rapid testing, including of asymptomatic staff and pupils.
• Mask wearing to become much more prevalent.
• Investment to bring down class sizes and increase social distancing, to pay for additional cleaning and the cover of sick staff.
• Rotas to be established in sixth form and secondary settings at least.
• The Govt to fulfil its promise to deliver sufficient broad band and laptops to pupils
• The most vulnerable staff to be allowed to make their contribution working from home.
• A pause will create the conditions for schools to be sustainably open for the remainder of this pandemic.

We have produced a new reps’ app which allows reps to access documents and report outbreaks in their school.  We will continue to monitor the data from the app to shape and direct our strategy.  We will support branches and reps in escalation strategies relating to these matters.

The Executive welcomed the Membership Report showing 384,903 in-service members compared to 364,627 in October 2019.  Our rep density has gone up since March – from covering 28% of schools to 41% of schools with 44% of primary members having access to a rep and 78% in secondary.  The JGSs reported on the deployment of the Organising team during the pandemic to help build the rep base including contacting all newly volunteer reps within 12 hours of contact.

Since the last Executive meeting, there had been two meetings of the Officer Steering Group and the following urgent decisions were made:

• Increase of funding for CLASS to £15k
• By-election timetable for D13 vacancy
• ETUCE Conference business (nominations to board)
• Responsibilities for Executive and Officer positions – protocol (to be available for all relevant national election candidates with small amendment)
• OF and NC member role-sharing protocol – to be available on Officer’s Sharepoint and to RWS for R/W Councils
• GS succession document – for referral to December meeting
• TUC Equality motions and delegate arrangements
• Edenred contract termination
• 2021 timetable – additional Special Executive on 4 September
• Staff Pension arrangements

The Executive agreed the following urgent recommendations from the Strategy Committees:

Union Strength – for Rep and Officer of the Year Awards it was agreed

• To reduce the number of questions and criteria for the awards from 9 to 3 for reps and from 10 to 5 for officers.  Thereby creating a more straightforward nomination process; and 
• To produce guidance to explain the different types of rep and officer roles the awards are designed to recognise including the new Covid rep role.  

GPC updated on membership income and employee costs budgets – that the membership income and the employee costs to 31 October 2020 are on track against the 2020/21 budget. GPC noted that there are 63 returns outstanding from local districts and the steps in place to secure these returns. Revisions were agreed to the local structure expense regulations to clarify the position on travel expenses in line with HMRC regulations.  It was agreed to donate £112,000 to the Durham Miners’ Association and to encourage NEU Districts support.  A full and final staff pay offer was agreed.

The Executive noted the recommendations following the initial Review of special conference and agreed the following in relation to Annual conference 2021

•  A virtual conference should be held over three days 7-9 April 2021
• The event should maximise debating time for motions from Districts, sectors and sections.
• We should recognise the demands of extended time on Zoom, and therefore structure the days accordingly.
• Conference committee to be asked to accommodate as many District motions as possible following the prioritisation process.
• A separate event to be held later in summer 2021 (likely to be a virtual event) to consider all formal business (Executive report, annual accounts etc) 

The Executive endorsed the revised Code of Ethical Practice in Leadership and the NEU statement on disability-related language.  The Executive endorsed the decisions of the SC:MD Sub Committee in relation to appeals against decisions to withdraw legal representation.  The Executive elected the following: Simon Murch to Professional Conduct Committee; Chris Denson to the Post-16 NC; Heather McKenzie and Julie Huckstep as legacy staff pension scheme trustees and Daniel Kebede to the CLASS steering group.