Deputy general secretary Kevin Callinan has written to officials at the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to demand progress on the regularisation of terms and conditions for staff in the School Completion Programme (SCP).

 

Fórsa is to bring the issue of School Completion Programme staff to the Central Oversight Group for the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA), in order to progress the issue of regularisation of terms and conditions of employment. Members of Fórsa’s SCP branch balloted in favour of industrial action last year on the issue.

 

The SCP was established in 2002 and provides strategic support to vulnerable children, enabling them to complete their second level education. The programme is made up of 124 local projects, which work in 470 primary schools and 224 secondary schools nationwide.

 

Kevin met with officials from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Tusla, along with representatives of Fórsa’s School Completion branch in December.

 

Kevin subsequently wrote to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to express the union’s extreme disappointment that the department failed to put proposals to regularise the terms and conditions of employment for SCP members.

 

He said the union had raised the issue of employment status and related terms and conditions of employment over several years, and said the Department of Education and Skills had previously  recognised the need to put ‘good order’ on arrangements, before responsibility for the SCP was transferred to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

 

He said: “Our concern relates to the retrospective correction of a grievous wrong done to those co-ordinators and project staff employed by local management committees, who do not enjoy public service conditions, while the majority of their counterparts employed by education and training boards possess such status, including membership of the appropriate pension scheme.”

 

Kevin highlighted the recognition of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone, for the value of the programme, as well as the positive findings of the ESRI in its 2015 report on the programme. He added: “These are achievements for the entirety of the SCP and are not confined to the cohort of staff employed by ETBs. Basic fairness and justice demands that they are all treated equally.”

 

He said no process on regularisation, and the future direction of SCP, should proceed until the issue of satisfactory terms and conditions of employment had been agreed, and said both government departments had accepted this was reasonable.

 

Kevin advised the department that he would bring the matters in dispute to the attention of the Oversight Group.