Covid-19 update and survey

Survey

To help UCU monitor and challenge what is going on within the prison estate please complete the online survey.

This will help us to complete both a local and national picture on what facilities are and are not available and to monitor any emerging changes to regimes etc. The survey is open until this Sunday 22 March in order that we can use the results to raise with the necessary authorities early next week, including if necessary via HMPPS directly and with ministers.

Key workers

As you will be aware from our earlier update, UCU has requested that all prison education is closed in line with other education providers such as colleges and schools. In the meantime, we will be seeking clarification from government and your employer whether prison educators will be classed as 'key workers' and therefore entitled for your children to remain in schools for the time being.

We will also be raising the issue directly with your employer about paid leave for those staff who can't attend work for childcare reasons once schools close on Friday. We will keep members updated as quickly as we can once we have further information and are currently compiling a list of FAQ's.

POA support

I wanted to share with you the statement from Mark Fairhurst, Chair of the POA, which he has sent in support of all of you:

'We are happy to support our teaching colleagues, they should remain at home on full pay and should never be used to support the prison regime. If we are short of staff send the army in. We need pressure on government to provide the correct PPE for frontline staff, we are chronically short of it.'

Prison education - a vital service?

Across prison sites we are hearing reports from employers that education will continue because it is a vital service with one report of a governor stating that 'you will carry on teaching until there are none of you left to teach'.

It is about time that prison education was recognised as providing a vital service - perhaps that can now be formally acknowledged so that our members are paid a wage that finally recognises their professionalism against the odds. How can vital education be delivered by prison education staff who are paid less than FE lecturers and teachers whilst they clean their own classrooms, protect themselves from violent assaults and without access to basic handwashing facilities at a time of a pandemic.

To suggest that prison teachers take on additional areas of work within the prison for which they are not trained and when staffing levels are dangerously low is of deep concern to us. Especially, in the context of reports that basic handwashing facilities are not being provided in some prisons and our members are having to take in their own soap and undertake cleaning because there are no professional cleaning contractors in place.

This is all symptomatic of a system that was clearly broken well before this current crisis hit. Our members are being asked to pay with their own health and safety and that of their families. It is unacceptable and unsustainable.

Please complete the survey and we will do all we can to continue to press government and employers to close down prison education until such time that it is safe for you to continue your amazing work.

In solidarity

Marianne Quick 
UCU bargaining and negotiating official