£200,000 in payouts for city teachers

BIRMINGHAM teachers were awarded nearly £200,000 in compensation for accidents at school last year.

Nationwide, teachers took home more than £3 million for an array of accidents – including slipping on a pen and falling from a school stage.

A survey of councils found teachers and their assistants pocketed more than 200 compensation cheques for mishaps in schools, in the playground and on trips between April 2015 to April 2016.

The total payout of just over £3 million was made for 214 separate claims for year 2015/16.

In one case, a Birmingham teacher received £30,000 for an injury from pushing an overloaded trolley. Another from Birmingham received £2,719 when they were hit by items falling from a shelf. Elsewhere, South Gloucestershire Council paid £14,000 to a teacher who injured an ankle and knee after slipping on a felt tip pen. Telford Council paid £3,000 to settle a case after a teacher burned their fingers while using a faulty glue gun, and Slough Council paid out £8,567 when a teacher fell over a bag of rubbish.

With many cases being brought against councils through no-win-nofee lawyers, the overall cost of payments, including legal fees, came to a staggering £6 million.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Either authorities are failing to live up to the standard required of them by law or they are giving in too easily to compensation claims – both scenarios leaving hard-pressed taxpayers to pick up the bill. At a time when every department is having to find necessary savings, councils must try to keep these costs down.”