Farron demands Cumbria stops teaching assistant pay cut as new figures put county council on defensive

South Lakes MP Tim Farron has today demanded that Cumbria County Council call a halt to their pay cuts for teaching assistants after it was revealed that no other shire county council was making such savage cuts to teaching assistants' pay.

Figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests by the News and Star newspaper show that Cumbria is one of the last shire counties to go through the single status review process, and that in most other counties teaching assistants had seen a pay rise not a pay cut. Even in those counties where pay was cut, the cuts were nowhere near as severe as the ones Cumbria is proposing.

The MP believes that now would be a good time for the county council to accept that they have got the evaluation of the teaching assistant role wrong - and that they have underestimated the actual value and seniority of the role.

Speaking today, Tim said: "Every other equivalent council in the UK has found a way of dealing with single status while treating their teaching assistants fairly. The county council are now left without a leg to stand on. They must now cancel their plans for a 30% pay cut and follow the example of other councils who have shown that they value the work of their teaching assistants."