NI Education: FE lecturers to receive payment amid dispute

The dispute between the FE unions and employers over pay has been long-running

Lecturers in Further Education (FE) colleges are set to receive a £3,000 one-off payment in August.

That is despite a continuing row between the college employers and FE unions over a wider pay deal.

Unions have called pay rises for lecturers of 1% for 2021-22 and 1% for 2022-23 "dismal".

But the employers have accused the unions of being "no longer willing to engage in negotiations".

The FE college employers - which represent the heads of the six FE Colleges - have now decided to implement the 1% rises for 2021-22 and 2022-23, and an additional one-off payment for lecturers.

The Department for the Economy (DfE), which is responsible for further education, told BBC News NI that the total cost of the pay deal was £12.6m.

"This business case was approved by the Department for the Economy, in line with Department of Finance pay remit approval process and guidance," a spokesperson for the department said.

"The department approved the non-consolidated payment on the basis that it was an element of, and not separate to, the overall pay settlement for 2021/22 and 2022/23."

'Negotiations exhausted'

There are over 50,000 students taking hundreds of different courses at Northern Ireland's six FE Colleges.

But there has been stalemate over a pay deal for lecturers since 2020.

The starting salary for a full-time FE lecturer in Northern Ireland is about £25,000 a year, although some staff are paid on an hourly basis or work part-time.

The University and College Union (UCU) and NASUWT are the unions which represent FE lecturing staff.

Lecturers had been expecting to receive a one-off payment of £3,000 before tax prior to the summer break.

But the college employers had said DfE would not approve that without agreement on a wider pay deal.

However, the employers have now said that negotiations with the unions are "exhausted" and that the 1% rises and one-off payment will be paid to lecturers in August.

UCU said the pay offer was "dismal"

In a letter to unions, the College Employers Forum (CEF) said they realised "this does not meet trade union's expectations on pay".

"However, throughout this process the CEF has endeavoured, despite the current landscape of public finances in Northern Ireland, to get the best possible sum of money, in whatever format, into the pockets of the lecturers," a CEF spokesperson said.

'Too little too late'

The CEF said that they had also taken the decision on pay to avoid losing £8m in ring-fenced funding for the one-off payment.

They added that they were committed to working with the unions "to build the case for a pay award in 2023-24 that adequately reflects the hard work and professionalism of further education lecturers".

But in a letter to the employers, the UCU's Katharine Clarke accused them of "politicking" by failing to give lecturers the £3,000 payment as expected in June.

The union also called the 1% rises "dismal".

"We will not recognise it as otherwise by accepting it," their letter continued.

"It is, however, clear that you can make payment without our agreement."

The NASUWT's Justin McCamphill called the pay rise "too little and too late".

"Lecturers haven't had a pay increase for over three years and the amount offered is well below the rate of inflation," he said.

"This offer is not enough to either bring lecturers' pay in line with school teachers or pay elsewhere in the UK.

"Unsurprisingly this offer was rejected by the NASUWT. And while it is important that this money was not lost to the system, the NASUWT remains in dispute with the employers as lecturers' pay continues to fall in real terms."

In England, more than one million public sector workers have been offered pay rises of between 5%-7%.

But those agreements do not apply to workers, including lecturers and teachers, in Northern Ireland.