Further education lecturers won't receive £3,000 one-off payment

More than 1,700 lecturers in further education (FE) colleges have been told they will not receive a £3,000 one-off payment they had expected this month.

The University and College Union (UCU) said the damage to industrial relations was "immeasurable".

The employers in the six FE colleges said the Department for Economy (DfE) would not approve the payment without agreement on a wider pay deal.

DfE said it encouraged the colleges to continue to engage with unions.

There are six further education colleges in Northern Ireland with more than 50,000 students studying hundreds of courses.

The UCU and NASUWT are the unions who represent FE lecturing staff.

The starting salary for a full-time FE lecturer in Northern Ireland is about £24,000 a year, although some staff work part-time or are paid on an hourly basis.

But there has been stalemate over a pay deal for lecturers in Northern Ireland for over two years.

The UCU and NASUWT previously rejected an offer of 1% for 2021-22 and 1% for 2022-23.

Unions had also been offered an additional one-off lump sum payment to lecturers of £3,000 before tax.

The UCU official in Northern Ireland, Katherine Clarke, claimed that the union had suspended a marking and assessment boycott as they expected lecturers to receive that payment in June.

Some UCU members in universities have not been marking exams or assessments as part of a long-running dispute over pay, workload and pensions.

But a letter from the College Employers' Forum (CEF), which represents the management of FE colleges, to the UCU has now said the £3,000 "non-consolidated" payment had not been approved by the department.

"I recognise that this will be disappointing to lecturers but want to assure you that we have made every effort over recent weeks to make this payment to lecturers," said the CEF letter, which has been seen by BBC News NI.

"DfE has confirmed that the non-consolidated payment must form part of a pay remit and since trade unions have rejected the offer for 2021-22 and 2022-23, the CEF's business case cannot be approved."

The letter also said that they understood the union's view that the 1% pay offers were "unacceptable".

But it said: "The CEF cannot progress the payment of the non-consolidated payment and 1% uplifts for both years unless trade unions accept the offer in its entirety."

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Ms Clarke, however, told BBC News NI that the union "cannot trust anything the further education employers tell us ever again".

"The UCU is shocked and appalled the college employers offered a much-needed payment to our hardworking members that they were totally unauthorised to make," she said.

"We fulfilled our part of the deal.

"The UCU is mindful that lecturers may have booked holidays or entered other financial commitments on the perfectly reasonable assumption of receiving extra monies in the June payroll."

In a statement in response, the chair of the CEF, Nicholas O'Shiel, said it remained committed to working with the unions to find a resolution to the pay dispute.

"At the time of the suspension of the assessment boycott, management did commit to making our best endeavours to make the non-consolidated payment to lecturers in June," he said.

"However, we have always been clear with the trade unions that this was subject to the public sector pay policy.

"This position was never accepted by trade unions as they did not consider the non-consolidated payment to form part of pay remit negotiations.

"College management has asked trade unions to reconsider its position on the full pay offer that includes the non-consolidated payment.

"Our hope now is that we can continue negotiations with trade unions to ensure that lecturers can get this pay award and non-consolidated payment over the line."