THE ongoing row between Durham County Council and the county's teaching assistants has taken another twist after a letter was sent to all headteachers.

Durham County Council plans to change the contracts of its 2,600 teaching assistants so they will be paid during term-time only, which unions say amounts to a pay cut of up to 23 per cent for some staff.

After talks at Acas, the authority made what it said was its “final offer” to extend a compensation period from one to two years.

Last week, union ballots produced a split result, with members of Unison voting to reject the proposed deal and GMB members voting to accept.

Now it has emerged a letter has been sent out by the council to all headteachers stating that teaching assistants who are members of the GMB will get a two-year compensatory payment for agreeing to change to term-time only pay. However, Unison members will face dismissal, then re-engagement on new conditions with a single year's compensation.

Teaching assistants say this could mean colleagues in the same classroom being on different rates of pay while doing the same job.

Megan Charlton, a teaching assistant and Unison member, told the BBC: "My initial response was horror and disgust, but that rapidly turned to anger when I thought about the message that Durham County Council was trying to put across.

"How dare they try and put us against each other and split us up and divide us. We are going to stand up and we are going to fight this. We won't be victims, we will fight it all the way."

Durham County Council has said it values the work of all teaching assistants, but sent the letter after taking expert advice. 

The result of Unison's strike ballot is due in two weeks.