London schools must end 'egregious' unfair pay

Cleaners, cooks, teaching assistants and more get £1,000 less

London schools must end the ‘egregious’ unfair pay which sees some staff miss out on more than £1,000, City Hall has said.

A motion passed by London’s Assembly calls on Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to lobby for greater parity in London weighting rates for school support staff.

As things stand London Weighting – a wage supplement designed to help workers cope with the cost of living in the capital – is applied differently for teaching and non-teaching staff.

This means in some boroughs [1] school support staff, including cleaners, cooks, teaching assistants, business managers and caretakers, are paid London Weighting of more than £1,000 less than teaching staff in the same school.

The London Assembly motion also agreed to push for the introduction of an independent pay board to fairly set London weighting.

The motion is the result of a campaign by GMB school staff members and was proposed by Unmesh Desai AM.

Warren Kenny, GMB Regional Secretary, said:

“School support staff play a vital role in the education of our children.

“Greater standardisation in London weighting is imperative to improve recruitment and retention of key public sector workers, but also it is a necessity to provide dignity in the cost-of-living crisis.

“Tens of thousands of our school support members in London worked throughout the pandemic, they deal with workplace assaults and abuse regularly.

“However, our members do the job because they passionately care about education, but they cannot be expected to live on goodwill alone.”

Unmesh Desai, London Assembly Member, said:

“I proposed this motion after hearing the experiences of GMB school members who in seven London boroughs are paid the unfair London weighting rates.

"It shouldn’t be the case that two people in the same workplace have two different London weighting rates.

“London weighting was a scheme designed to ease the additional cost burden of living and working in our city, rather than compound it”.