COUNTY Durham classroom assistants campaigning for better pay for their increasing responsibilities could take strike action.

On Wednesday, assistants from some of the county's 300-plus schools lobbied councillors arriving for a meeting at County Hall, Durham. They say their employer, Durham County Council, will not review pay scales to take into account their increasing role.

The county has 1,200 classroom assistants, teaching assistants and nursery nurses whose pay scale offers a maximum salary of about £13,800.

In 2001, their union, Unison, submitted a claim for a new pay scale and career structure that would have added £2,000 to £3,000 to the pay of many staff.

The council has agreed to resume talks but insisted any pay increase would have to be funded by the Government.

Unison regional officer Howard Pink said: "If councillors don't start the ball rolling, they are leaving us with no option but to consider more confrontational ways."

Cabinet member for education, Coun Neil Foster, said the county had sympathy for the union's claim.