Member's statement: Education: Pay and Grading Review
Member's statement by Mr Nick Mathison on .
- MLA
- Mr Nick Mathison
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 3 June 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Education: Pay and Grading Review
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4492861
Read the official Assembly record
Text
First, I welcome the news that the planned strike action by non-teaching staff unions is not going ahead today and that two unions have agreed to suspend action planned for Tuesday. That is welcome as a temporary reprieve, and it will bring relief to many parents and to students who are concerned about sitting examinations. Hopefully, it offers us a window of opportunity to resolve the long-running dispute over the pay and grading review. The review was agreed with the employer — the Education Authority (EA) — back in 2019, and it is unacceptable that, in 2024, staff still await its implementation. It remains unclear to me why the EA's business case sat with the Department of Education from February 2023 until December of that year, before receiving sign-off by that Department and being passed to Finance. As far as I can tell, that was a delay that, ultimately, led to it not being included in the financial package to restore the institutions. Staff, rightly, feel let down by how the process has been handled over many years. Support staff in our schools, often working for low pay as classroom assistants, in transport and in kitchens, provide vital services to keep the system running. They should be paid fairly, and they should sit within a grading system that promotes career development and makes the roles viable, long-term options for the staff who carry them out. There is a workforce crisis in education, and the pay and grading review is essential to addressing that. The dispute sits in a slightly odd context in which the employer — the EA — has no financial levers to resolve the issue: it does not have the resource that it requires to deliver the pay and grading review. The matter sits under the responsibility of the Education Minister, and I welcome the announcement that engagement with the unions is under way. I urge the Minister and the unions to enter into meaningful negotiations to find a way to resolve the issue. Staff rightly feel let down by years of inaction, but, in our current financial context, a resolution must be found that is affordable to the Executive and can be accepted by the workers who are impacted. It will not be resolved by the Minister making unrealistic bids in the next monitoring round. Sensible, pragmatic politics will be required by all stakeholders to find a resolution to the dispute. Our education system faces acute pressures on a range of fronts, and the pay and grading review is critical to tackling some of those, including, as I have mentioned, workforce issues and, particularly, special educational needs (SEN) reform, and to ensuring that schools do not face a protracted period of closure and disruption.
I call on all stakeholders involved in the dispute to use the short window of time available to find a solution.
478 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.95).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.95 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.70 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.17 |
| Education structures, integration and community division | 0.12 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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