Government fails to offer adequate protection against religious discrimination against teachers in “faith schools”

Government transitional safeguards to protect the jobs and promotion prospects of head teachers and teachers already in post in Voluntary Controlled faith schools breach natural justice and are discriminatory, says the National Secular Society.

The NSS ‘blew the whistle’ on these self-serving provisions, which were originated by the Church of England. The provisions result in a discriminatory attack on the career prospects of thousands of teachers in voluntary controlled schools. They were implemented enthusiastically by the Government which claimed that the unions had been “fully consulted”, although we know that the largest teaching union, the NUT, had not been.

Having lost the battle in Parliament to defeat the provisions, despite some excellent work by Dr Evan Harris, Baroness Turner of Camden and Lord Avebury, we turned our attention to damage limitation. Vice President Anna Behan and Keith Porteous Wood asked the previous Education Secretary and officials in round table meetings for transitional provisions which protected the career prospects of existing staff.

The transitional provisions for voluntary controlled schools offered nothing that an employment tribunal would not have enforced without any such arrangements. A consultation on these arrangements has just closed, and the NSS has led the way with this too.

The NSS has asked for the promotion of existing teachers in Voluntary Controlled Schools to continue as if these provisions had not been introduced, for the remainder of their careers. We have also written in like terms to the Education Secretary, Ed Balls and kept the unions informed of our proposals.
read the NSS’s statement

18 July 2008