I read about the Major Restructure of DMAT and found it to be very worrying that our children’s education can be dealt with in this way. Major cuts in front-line staff, those who actually teach the children, while increasing the non-productive and highly paid jobs in the DMAT. 

 It is plain that the cuts are being made to fund the over-inflated salaries of staff in the DMAT and to fund the new non-jobs proposed. At a time when teachers have been striking to try to achieve better pay and conditions their moral must be at rock bottom after this. 

If the proposals are part of a consultation as stated, why have the productive front-line teaching staff and assistants been issued with redundancy notices? It appears that decisions have already been made! Apparently, the news was given to staff in letters and a video rather than face to face. If that is the case then CEO of DMAT and its trustees have no respect for the staff affected to treat them this way and no respect either for parents and most of all for the children affected. The CEO, DMAT staff and Board of Trustees should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have treated people. It seems they would rather hide behind a video than look people in the eye. 

All that waffle about enhancing the learning process for children is not believable when the salaries of the so-called non-productive leadership staff, increasing from 13 to 27 roles, are so high. A better proposal would be to withdraw the letters and redundancy notices issued, stop the unproductive staff increases, and reduce the salaries of those already in place by £50,000 each, thus saving £650,000 by my calculations. That would save money to put towards funding the teaching staff and other costs. MATs are set up to be companies limited by guarantee and have exempt charity status. How can it be right for the people in them to be paid so much, especially at a time when costs are rising?  

I would urge everyone, especially if you have children in the schools, to sign the petition. Go to www.change.org and search for DMAT Schools. We have to fight for the futures of our children.

David Potter

Okehampton