As a school governor for more than 15 years, I am acutely aware of the key support role played by teaching assistants in our city and when I was chair of governors at Portslade Infants School, I was privileged to work alongside Maggie Berriman, one of the early pioneers of structured training for this group of staff.

We all value the important and sometimes difficult work teaching assistants do in our schools and we all want them to be paid fairly for it.

We agreed with the trade unions that we should concentrate on teaching assistants first in our Single Status work together but Single Status is not just about fair pay. It is also about equal terms and conditions.

To be fair to other staff who work term-time only, whether in schools or elsewhere, all these issues need to be addressed.

No other group of workers employed by Brighton and Hove City Council, apart from teachers, is paid for 13 weeks holiday per year and every other local authority we know of pays its teaching assistants on term-time contracts.

Under our offer, teaching assistants will have the same paid holiday entitlement as other staff in the council, plus one week extra in addition to the school weeks in the year.

If their school wishes them to work in the holidays and they agree, they will be paid extra for that. We believe the offer we have made is very fair - indeed, it is significantly more generous than other local authorities and, at a time when finances are stretched, it is as much as our schools can afford.

There has been so much misinformation about the council's offer to teaching assistants that it is not surprising people are confused.

We have always made it clear that the figure of £21,000 represents a full-time equivalent rate for the top-grade band in the new salary structure.

The actual salaries will reflect the number of hours worked per week and the 44.9-45.7 paid weeks of the contract.

This will still leave 90 per cent of teaching assistants in the city earning more in real terms than they do now, with the remainder being paid the same as they are now.

In the two main grades, representing 90 per cent of all teaching assistants, the hourly rate will go up to between £7.23 and £9.90. They will be paid between £759 and £1,450 per year more than their colleagues in East Sussex and between £1,002 and £2,385 more than in West Sussex.

This is after taking into account the change in the weeks worked.

Every teaching assistant has had a letter from us saying how much the offer will mean to them personally in real terms.

The total package will add around 20 per cent to the pay bill for teaching assistants over the next three years.

The unions are continuing to lead their members astray by misrepresenting the council's position. The council has again repeated its offer to go to arbitration in an effort to end this unnecessary dispute and the unions have again refused.

The public has a right to know why.

-Councillor Sue John, deputy leader Brighton and Hove City Council