Moderate elected as NUT head

Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:00 AM

Steve Sinnot has been elected as the new general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

Mr Sinnott will take over from outgoing secretary Doug McAvoy immediately.

The NUT's relationship with the Labour government has been severely strained in recent years. After a number of incidents at the annual conference, where Ministers were booed and heckled, the Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, refused to attend the annual conference.

In addition, the NUT is the only union to refuse to sign up to the Government's workload agreement which seeks to reduce teachers' hours and administrative responsibilities by giving a greater role to classroom assistants.

The election for Mr Sinnott- who is widely seen as a moderate- offers the possibility of a better relationship.

Although Mr Sinnott's election manifesto places him in opposition to the Government's policies on testing, school inspections, and accused the Government of "letting us down" on school funding, he pledged to restore relations.

He also said that he would seek to create unity within the NUT, seek to end "damaging disunity" with the other teaching unions.

Mr Sinnott is the first NUT leader to hail from a comprehensive school background and has been deputy general secretary of the NUT since 1994.

Commenting on his election, Mr Sinnott said: "I am delighted to be elected as your General Secretary. All the candidates were committed to promoting the best interests of this great Union. I know that their commitment will continue unabated. My pledge is to dedicate my best endeavours to the service of all members, all teachers and the children in our schools."

The NUT is the largest of the teaching unions with around 253,000 members, half of all the UK's teachers.

Mr Sinnott's election represents something of a blow for the out-going general secretary. Mr McAvoy's favoured candidate, the high profile John Bangs, was beaten into third place.

Mr Bangs had campaigned on being the "only candidate not promoted and supported by a political group. I am the only independent candidate."

"I believe in a campaigning union. I will lead industrial action when necessary."

Accepting his defeat, Mr Bangs said today that he regretting nothing about the campaign, and called on the union "to unite around its campaign to protect and promote the teaching profession and all public services."

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