PRIMARY heads remain confident the courts will back their long-running campaign for higher pay, now reaching its final stages at an employment tribunal in Glasgow.

They expect to hear a verdict in the new year which could wreck the carefully crafted salary calculations in the McCrone national agreement and place local authorities in an impossible financial position.

Bill Milligan, outgoing AHTS president, warned that the union would not make any concessions on back pay because of the authorities’ insistence on challenging every aspect of the case.

This included the union’s right to compare the pay of a female head of a South Ayrshire primary and the male head of Mallaig High in Highland who earns substantially more for running a much smaller school. That comparison has allowed the AHTS to argue that female primary heads are paid less primarily because of their sex.

Mr Milligan said: “Our principle is of equal pay for equal work. The fact that some women even in the 21st century are paid substantially less for doing work of the same type or of equal value to that of a man is simply intolerable. Indeed it is iniquitous and this association has no intention of tolerating such a state of affairs in teaching.”

Primary heads are demanding a pay scale which places them on the same footing as secondary heads of similar-sized schools and believe the current promoted post job sizing exercise will have no bearing on their fight.