Annan wants salary back

By STUART DYE


Former Cambridge High principal Alison Annan does not intend to return to the reins of the troubled Waikato school - but she wants her $100,000-a-year salary back.

Perfectly coiffured, and in a neat, fitted grey jacket, Mrs Annan told a hearing of the Employment Relations Authority in Auckland yesterday that she had never officially resigned.

Despite that, her application was not to be restored to full duties, but to be returned to the title "principal", and be put back on the payroll.

Kit Toogood, QC, counsel for Mrs Annan, said: "She recognises that a return to full duties would simply exacerbate the divisiveness and controversy which has surrounded her departure and its aftermath."

She was asking to be reinstated on duties limited to responding to a critical report by the Education Review Office.

"In effect, this would restore her to the payroll only," said Mr Toogood.

Paul Robertson, acting for Dennis Finn, who was yesterday appointed commissioner at the school after the Board of Trustees was sacked, said that would cost the school an extra $8000 a month.

"The prospect of her coming back has had a chilling effect," Mr Robertson said.

The controversial principal announced her resignation last month amid accusations of manipulation of NCEA results, allegations of staff bullying and financial mismanagement.

She will have to wait until Monday to find out whether she has won her battle against her former employers.

She wants to be reinstated for an interim period until a full hearing in October.

After a hearing lasting nearly three hours yesterday, authority adjudicator Maria Urlich said she would announce her written decision after the weekend.

The hearing heard that Mrs Annan had merely indicated her intention to resign. She changed her mind after the outpouring of support from students and parents, but immediately received a letter saying her resignation had been accepted.

Mr Toogood said that amounted to an unjustifiable dismissal.

If it was held that she did in fact resign, it was caused by the failure of her employers, the Board of Trustees, to support her under huge amounts of pressure, said Mr Toogood.

"It was an unjustifiable constructive dismissal."

Mrs Annan had been under tremendous pressure on the day and had not at any stage received any semblance of fair treatment, he said.

She had been vilified by critics, gagged (by the board) from responding, harried out of a job to which she devoted 11 years, encouraged to resign (by Dame Augusta Wallace) and had her pleas that she never carried out her resignation ignored.

Mr Robertson said the outpouring of support for Mrs Annan had no bearing on the case.

He argued that Mrs Annan's resignation was firmly tendered and accepted and submitted several affidavits to support the claim.

"It beggars belief for Mrs Annan to argue that there was some equivocation in her 'resignation', or that her change of heart three days later, following a public show of support, entitles Mrs Annan to undo that resignation," he said.

The crux of the problem was that Mrs Annan's reinstatement would be impracticable. A new acting principal was in charge, the commissioner had no confidence in her, and several members of staff would resign if she returned, he said.

"Mrs Annan unequivocally resigned. The evidence established that there will be chaos at the school if she returns. Another principal is in office. Mrs Annan can never return to the school."