Teachers at City and Islington College in Angel took strike action earlier this year

TEACHERS at a sixth-form college say they are furious with the “Trumpian tactics” of its CEO after she refused to grant them a nationally agreed pay rise.

This will mean that City and Islington college in Angel, which is part of the Capital City College Group (CCCG), will be the only sixth-form college in the country where staff do not see an increase in their pay.

Members of the National Education Union (NEU) took strike action earlier this year, successfully pressuring the Sixth Form College Association into giving them a 5.5 per cent pay rise in line with that given to academised colleges.

But now Angela Joyce, who became the chief executive of the college group in January 2024, has told staff that she will go against the SFCA recommendation, imposing a lower award of just 2.5 per cent for all teaching staff.

The decision has led teachers to accuse Ms Joyce of adopting “a Trumpian style of management in ignoring convention and structures”.

Pippa Dowswell, the joint secretary of Islington NEU, said members were “angry” as they prepared for further strike action after the Easter holidays.

She told the Tribune: “The trade union agreement recognises that the college is committed to negotiating with the SFCA for the sixth form part of the college. It absolutely feels like a betrayal. There is a lot of anger. It’s quite unprecedented the amount of strike action that we’re putting on all at once.”

Union officials say that Ms Joyce has argued that a “commitment” is not binding and is now trying to change the terms of the trade union agreement signed by the college.

Ms Dowswell said: “We were gobsmacked that someone could assign a new meaning to the word ‘commitment’ – she wants to remove the clause from the trade union agreement because she clearly does know the meaning of commitment.”

NEU members claim that it would cost just over £30,000 to give all teachers at City and Islington college the pay award for this year.

Ms Joyce earns a salary well into six figures, according to financial statements.

Ms Dowswell said: “I think it’s absolutely appalling. The whole system is in crisis. There is no place for a CEO in an educational institution anyway. They get treated like businesses and I don’t think that it’s OK.

“We should have a headteacher and deputy headteachers and they should all do a bit of teaching. All the financial stuff shouldn’t be in their hands, and they certainly shouldn’t be getting these grossly inflated salaries.”

A Capital City College spokesperson said: “We are focused on achieving equal pay for all our teaching staff, and we are not ignoring the fact that the government has this summer accentuated the two-tier pay structure for post-16 education teachers across in England.

“The problem is that as an FE college the government chose not to fund the 5.5 per cent teachers’ pay award which it has done for academised sixth forms and schools.

“We have followed the pay recommendations made by the Association of Colleges, and this year we gave all our staff across CCC a 2.5 per cent pay increase.

“In a climate of reduced government fund­ing for FE, and where the government has decided not to fund pay awards for colleges, we are addressing the inequity that exists within Capital City College where some teachers and tutors at our Sixth Form centre in Angel have enjoyed a higher rate of pay and higher rates of year-on-year increases compared with other teaching staff within the group.

“At the heart of this issue is our belief in equal pay for all teachers.

“We don’t believe in separate pay awards, even if historically that was the case.”