There have been several consultation meetings between the LA and Unions representing all employees of Warrington Borough Council to agree new policies on Safe Vetting of Employees, Employee Misuse of Drink and Drugs in Work Time, Stress at Work and, finally, No Smoking Policy. All these plolicies are then scrutinised and amended as necessary to fit in with the situations that exist in schools. I am pressing for the review of the Capability Procedures. Parts of the policy have been knowingly circumvented by headteachers on several occasions and the LA has promised remedy.

Additionally, following concerted pressure from the professional associations, the LA has re-established the local WAMG (Workforce Agreement Monitoring Group) to focus on consistency and transparency in the measures taken by school managements to progressively redude the amount of cover undertaken by staff, to safeguard the PPa arrangements in the primary sector from infringement of the statutory School Teachers' Pay and Conditions and the introduction of the new Performance Management Arrangements that come into effect in September 2007.

The remodelling of the centrally employed teachers' structure has not moved forward. The acting assistant director for the development is also dealing with the revised review of secondary provision and is hoping to have the various options ready for elected officials around early May. The review will explore revised options for re-organisation in East and Central Warrington. A period of full consultation will then follow.

I shall be assuming the role of Health and Safety Rep for ATL as Gill Povey has been seconded to the LA for half of each week. Many thanks for the inspections done by Gill to date.

Finally, a big thank you to all of you who volunteered to be an ATL contact in those schools without a Rep.. I am hoping to recruit even more to fulfill this key role. Please contact me if you might want to volunteer.