National Secular Society claims Government is breaking the law by increasing religious discrimination in academy schools

The National Secular Society (NSS) has said that it has received legal advice suggesting that the transfer of  community and faith schools to academy status is likely to be in breach of the EU Employment Directive.

The NSS said that statutory protections against discrimination on the grounds of religion protected non-religious staff being required to take religious education lessons or conduct collective worship.

At present, there is a 20% limit on the proportion of staff who can be required to be religious in a “faith” school controlled by local authority, of which there are around 2,500. However, the Education Bill provides the government with the power to raise this limit for such schools transferring to academies to 100%, and remove the protection for the non-religious staff.

In this scenario, the NSS said, affected staff would be entitled to bring claims of discrimination on the grounds of religious belief.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “The statutory protections on which the jobs of hundreds of thousands of non-religious teaching and support staff depend will disappear when they transfer to academies, the new norm. Staff should be treated with equal respect whatever their faith or lack of it, and not forced into pretending to hold beliefs that they do not have, in order to retain their jobs. This has the potential to be a most serious erosion of religion and belief employment rights. It is even more disgraceful given that these academies are funded by the taxpayer, not religious bodies.”

The legal advice was provided by law firm Beachcroft LLP. It said: “in respect of each of voluntary aided, voluntary controlled [the two main types of faith school] and community schools converting into academies, there are strong grounds to believe that the Government’s proposals are a breach of its legal obligations to protect teachers (and others) from discrimination on the grounds of religious belief, set out in the Directive.”

The National Secular Society has also complained formally to the European Commission and asked the Government to make the necessary legislative changes to remedy these problems in the Education Bill that has just started its passage through Parliament.