Vol. 444 No. 6
194 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Education the proposals, if any, she has to deal with the applications of school secretaries for regrading along similar lines to arrangements for regrading agreed with the trade union IMPACT some time ago; and if she will make a statement on the matter.
Claims for the grading of posts of school secretaries are matters appropriate for negotiations between my Department, school management and the relevant trade union. The trade union recognised by my Department as representing school secretaries is IMPACT. It was in response to a claim by IMPACT for the regrading of school secretaries in national and secondary schools that evaluation of posts was conducted. The evaluation exercise was carried out in two phases, the first completed in December 1992 in response to the original claim and the second in October 1993 on foot of an appeal from the union to have additional posts evaluated. The evaluation resulted in the regrading of 40 posts. As part of the settlement of the claim IMPACT agreed that the upgradings were on an exceptional basis and would not be quoted in furtherance of any other claims. In these circumstances I have no proposals in the matter.
