Brighton and Hove City Council has noted examples of teaching assistants' pay detailed recently in The Argus.

Because of employee confidentiality it is not possible to talk about named cases.

However, a recent prominent example was of a teaching assistant currently earning £9,500 for a 27.5-hour week, matched to a level C role in the new career structure. Such a teaching assistant would be at point 13 of the national councils' salary scale.

Under our offer, they would, by April 2005, be earning £12,050 for 27.5 hours a week and by April 2006, £12,800 for a 27.5 hour week - a rise of £3,300 over two years. This equates pro-rata to a full-time salary rising from £13,701 now to £19,615 in April 2006.

Clearly, a part-time member of staff would earn a proportion of the salary and the council is not claiming they earn the full sum.

I would stress the council recognises a teaching assistant in this particular situation would get a bigger pay rise, taking them to a higher salary, than most teaching assistants. The council is not claiming such a person is typical.

However, it does reflect the new four-tier career structure which rewards the more highly-qualified teaching assistants with more pay.

The largest single group of teaching assistants would be the 54 per cent graded at level B, who would earn £7.23 to £7.74 per hour - equivalent to full-time council staff on £13,953-£14,931 a year.

In April 2005, pay for level B would increase to a range from £7.45 per hour (equivalent to a full-time rate of £14,365) to £7.97 per hour (equivalent to £15,371 full-time). April 2006 figures for level B will be £7.67 per hour (£14,788 ) to £8.20 per hour (£15,825).

Teaching assistants have had personal letters pointing out what their proposed salaries will be under the offer but many have been misled into believing they then have to deduct several weeks pay because of the so-called "reduced paid weeks" issue. This is untrue. The figures they see on their letters are the actual salaries they will receive.

The council acknowledges some staff do work more than their contractual hours and such arrangements would attract additional pay.

We are also looking at impacts on pensions. In broad terms, people getting a pay increase - 90 per cent of teaching assistants - will also have some pension improvement.

-Mark Lamb, director, human resources Brighton and Hove City Council