Fórsa has secured an agreement on the engagement of a facilitator to assist with the design of the new higher education job evaluation scheme. The facilitator role has been put out to tender.

The job evaluation scheme, which the union won in talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) last year, will see the evaluation of 10% of education-sector clerical, professional and library jobs each year. Staff whose jobs are upgraded as a result will be designated to a higher grade if they have four years’ continuous service in the evaluated post.

Job evaluation is an internationally-recognised method of independently and fairly assessing roles, and ensuring that they are graded to reflect the ‘size’ of the job – the skills, responsibilities, knowledge and educational attainment that a worker brings to their daily work.

Fórsa members took industrial action last year in a campaign to get the scheme in place. The education department had failed to do so despite a commitment won under the Lansdowne Road Agreement in 2015.