Concerns over school admin proposals

Ceres Primary School Parent Council has started the online petition ‘Save Our School Secretaries’, over fears the proposed changes could have on local communities.

The petition claims that Fife Council, in a bid to make savings, “recently announced a proposal to centralise some administrative tasks and downgrade the existing admin and clerical roles in 28 out of 42 primary schools and nurseries in the Waid, Bell Baxter and Madras Clusters” as part of proposals to restructure their frontline school services.

The petition calls for the council to reconsider the proposal and has, at the time of writing, received 609 signatures.

Fife Council said it is reviewing roles and responsibilities to make sure the correct posts are in place across schools.

Shelagh McLean, head of education, said: “Administrative support in primary schools is allocated based on the size of a school, so a school might have a clerical assistant or an admin assistant or both. This will continue.

“The role these employees play for schools and parents is crucial and we are not seeking to remove this support. The current proposal includes a minimum of 30 hours support in every single school, irrespective of the size and pupil roll.

“The council has a job evaluation framework, which sets out the job grades linked to core activities and responsibilities. This ensures people are employed and paid on a consistent basis across the organisation and it needs to be reflected in our schools.

“This isn’t about making savings in our primary schools and we don’t anticipate any compulsory redundancies at this stage.

“Staffing model options have been developed to start meaningful discussions with our teams and their feedback is being sought. No decision has been taken and alternative models will be considered throughout the consultation period.”