Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 July 2023
288. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Minister for Education if she is aware of the situation whereby some school secretaries may be worse off financially under the new changes to regularise the employment, terms and conditions and pension rights of school secretaries; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32268/23]
View answerOn the 24th February 2022, following a series of engagements at the WRC, a package to settle a claim on terms and conditions for grant-funded school secretaries was proposed, which Fórsa agreed to recommend to its members. A ballot was undertaken and the result was 95% agreement in favour of the deal.
Since then the work to implement this agreement has been ongoing, in conjunction with Fórsa. It requires a complex process of assimilating information to capture accurate data in respect of each individual secretary, and the application of this data to ensure that each individual secretary is correctly assigned to the new agreed terms and conditions, if they so choose.
Circular 0036/2022 - Revision of Salaries and Annual Leave arrangements for School Secretaries employed in recognised primary and post primary schools issued in June 2022. It contained the payscale agreed with Fórsa for secretaries who choose to move to the new terms and conditions.
Under the terms of the Circular, each school was asked to identify the pay rate and annual leave that would apply should a secretary choose to move to the new terms and conditions and to indicate these to the secretary. This was to be done by the end of September 2022.
It should be noted that the information provided in Circular 0036/2022 was intended to assist school secretaries in making an informed decision as to whether they wished to remain on their existing terms and conditions as provided by the school or whether they wished to move to the new terms and conditions encompassed in the WRC agreement.
In November 2022, my Department issued a survey to most schools (this did not include ETB schools). This was done to facilitate the migration of school secretaries who choose to opt in to new salary and annual leave arrangements. This will lead to the payment of their salary through the Department’s Payroll from September 2023 onwards.
Information gathered as part of this survey appears to show that some schools made offers to secretaries that placed them on incorrect points of the scale (i.e. higher or lower than they should have been). Staff in the Payroll Division of my Department have been engaging with these schools regarding revised offers to be made to secretaries. Work on this is ongoing to ensure that secretaries are on the correct points of the salary scale in time for September 2023.
