Postal “disruption” “may have delayed” the delivery of teacher strike ballot papers, an independent body that handles ballot administration has admitted.
A spokesman for Civica told Tes that it sent all ballot papers to NASUWT members by post “as required by legislation” but that ”it is possible that some ballot papers may have been delayed” because of ”recent disruptions in the postal service”.
The statement comes after Tes revealed that NASUWT members had highlighted concerns about the union’s strike vote process, after the union failed to satisfy the legal turnout threshold required for industrial action.
Yesterday the NASUWT teaching union revealed that its members would not walk out, despite 90 per cent of returned ballots calling for strike action, because the 42 per cent ballot turnout failed to reach the legal threshold for industrial action.
For a vote to be deemed valid under law, 50 per cent of eligible members must vote in a strike ballot, with 40 per cent of all eligible members approving the action.
However, several NASUWT members have told Tes that they did not receive their ballot papers, despite chasing them up several times.
The Communication Workers Union’s Royal Mail members went on strike for six days last month, leading to delays in postal deliveries.
An NASUWT spokesperson today told Tes that the union is “currently examining the balloting process and outcome to inform forthcoming decisions on next steps in our campaign for a better deal on teachers’ pay”.
Union acknowledges missing strike ballot papers
The NASUWT acknowledged missing ballots in an email to a member earlier this month, seen by Tes.
However, the NASUWT said in the email that it could not deal with replacements as it had “to put in a request to Civica, and it takes them up to 48 hours to send a paper out”.
“We are aware that replacement papers have been taking longer than anticipated due to the postal delays,” the email continued.
“In some cases, they have taken around three weeks due to the postal disruption and how pre-printed ‘business mail’ is treated as last priority by some sorting offices (after parcels, hand-written envelopes, other personalised mail and even franked mail).”
After Tes revealed the concerns of many NASUWT members yesterday, the independent voting body admitted that delays could have occurred.
A Civica spokesperson said that “all ballot papers were sent to NASUWT members by post, as required by legislation” and added that “any requests for replacement ballot papers are...processed promptly”.
“However, due to recent disruptions in the postal service, it is possible that some ballot papers may have been delayed,” they said.
The spokesperson added that, despite the disruption, “legislation requires that an industrial ballot must have fixed start and end dates; in this case 27/10/22 to 9/1/23. Ballot papers cannot, by law, be counted after the end date”.
