laura080269:

We've been told that all of the Teaching Assistants at our school who are on permenant contracts will be going through the redundancy procedure. I think that out of 20 of us they will need to lose round about 100 hours a week, which is an awful lot!

Hmmm.  Needing to lose 100 hours per week is not, technically, the same thing as redundancy.  Redundancy means that a job is no longer needed (for example, if someone were employed specifically to support one pupil and that pupil either no longer needed the support or was no longer at the school) not that it can no longer be afforded...

If you don't belong to a union you'll probably just have to grin and bear whatever is dished out to you in the way of reduction in hours (or even loss of job).

 I was made redundant from another sector a few years ago, and from what I went through, the school will have to have a consultation period with the employees, you may have to state your case as to why you should stay, and they might base their decision on your performance, puncuality, attitude to work etc or it could be last in, first out. The consultation period has to last for a certain amount of time depending on how many employees there are I think. 

I wasn't in any union when I was made redundant, but I got onto the Citizens Advice Bureau and they were fantastic at explaining everything and checking that all procedures were carried out correctly. There is also information on line as to what exactly should happen. The school or LEA need to follow the whole thing to the letter.

Hope this helps. Good luck

 We had to have interviews with the head, a governor and someone from the LA, telling them why we were worth keeping.  This is where you have to forget your modesty and big yourself up.  Good luck.

 I went through potential redundancy this time last year. We were asked to fill out a skills audit, then staff would be kept on a point scoring basis. It didn't come to that, in the end we all took an equal cut in hours. I would say contact the unions asap as it can get quite nasty. We left it too late and lots of things were said and done that could have been avoided had the unions been involved from the start. Plus the unions will fight to save all jobs where possible. It really is an  awful time. Good luck