Harris Federation scales back redundancies

The Harris Federation, one of England’s biggest trusts, has scaled back redundancy plans at 20 of its schools.

Schools Week revealed last month that 45 jobs were at risk across Harris, with the MAT blaming “extremely challenging” budgets caused by “unfunded” pay and national insurance rises.

After National Education Union members in four academies balloted for strike action, the trust confirmed the number of job cuts has been reduced to 15 “out of a teaching workforce of 2,650”.

But Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s general secretary, said that a loss of 15 frontline teaching staff meant a “cut to children’s education”.

In a letter last month about the redundancies, Harris said it was “facing an unfunded pay rise for teachers of 2.8 per cent and for support staff of 3.2 per cent, which we will have to fund from existing budgets”.

It also faced a “critical drop in income as, like nearly all London schools, we are experiencing a significant drop in our rolls resulting from the falling birth rate and therefore we have no extra income to offset costs”.

Union claims Harris ‘backed down’

Since then, the government has approved a 4 per cent pay rise for teachers and provided some extra funding – but Harris said schools still had to find 2.3 per cent of the rise themselves.

Kebede claimed the NEU ballots resulted in the trust “backing down”.

Pointing to chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan’s £515,000 pay packet, he said that “attempts to make financial savings at the coal face [are] unacceptable from a chief executive who earns over half a million”.

“The underhand practices of individually targeting staff must end, and open and transparent negotiations with staff trade unions must begin to avoid any future redundancies that will directly impact on pupils’ learning.”

The 15 planned redundancies are spread across 11 secondaries.

A Harris spokesperson said that when the consultation was initially announced… “we said that we hoped the final number would be lower, with some affected staff redeployed to other roles and others due to leave or retire”.

The trust was doing everything it could to support staff in the 15 roles.

Harris said it excluded overseas-trained teachers without leave to remain in the UK and those on maternity leave from redundancy.