Dave Prentis

General Secretary

UNISON

1 Mabledon Place

LONDON WC1H 9AJ 21 May 2003

Dear Dave

This is a holding reply to your letter of todays date, thecontent of which was brought to my attention by a journalist prior to thereceipt of the letter in my office.

I have not yet had the opportunity to consider the detail ofyour letter. However, I have had itread to me and have considered what seemed to me to be the significantpassages. I am advised you write: We do not believe this Agreement meansreplacing qualified teachers with unqualified staff. UNISON has always supported the need for a qualified teacher forevery class and subject group and It is not as, as the NUT has consistentlyimplied, about unqualified staff being plucked from nowhere and put in chargeof whole classes.

You must read again the proposed addition to the regulations133 which regulates who may teach. Thechange in the regulations which result from paragraph 10 would enable thatwhich I describe in NUT News no. 16 (copy enclosed).

For me to accept that the approach of UNISON as described inyour letter as read to me would require UNISON to support the NUTs oppositionto the proposed change in the regulations as described above.

Should UNISON be unable to support the amendment to theregulations proposed by the NUT, then the claims in your letter cannot besustained and the honesty of your approach is brought into question.

The text of your letter brings into question the extent towhich you have been accurately informed of the exchanges in the meetingschaired by Brendan Barber. I havewritten to Brendan asking him to arrange a meeting involving yourself, BillMorris and John Edmonds. The purpose ofthe meeting would be to ensure that there can be no misunderstanding of the NUTposition.

Yours sincerely

Doug McAvoy

GENERAL SECRETARY

Encl.