There are significant developments to the NJC pay spine, teacher pay and how terms and conditions are set for school support staff in the coming months and years. As such Employer Link has three short questionnaires for members of the National Heads of HR network for Academy Trusts to feed their views into the National Employers to shape their work and to inform discussions around policy development with the new Government.
Work around the School Support Staff Negotiating Body and the Teacher pay consultation are particularly time critical – hence the short turn arounds. However, we would appreciate the insight you can provide. Apologies for the significant length of this newsletter, links to the three questionnaires are immediately below, but if you would like to know more about the specifics (to share with relevant colleagues), more detail is provided under their headings.
We would like one response per employer, and as such you are the only person receiving this email. If someone else is better placed to respond to any of the surveys please forward on, or liaise with relevant colleagues before submitting.
All responses will be treated confidentially. Information will be aggregated, and no individual or employer will be identified in any publications without your consent. Identifiable information may be used internally within the LGA but will only be held and processed in accordance with our privacy statement. We are undertaking this survey to aid the legitimate interests of the LGA in supporting and representing authorities.
School support staff negotiating body
You may recall that a School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) was introduced through legislation under the previous Labour government and was abolished by the coalition government in 2010. The SSSNB at that time applied to all local authority-maintained schools in England in respect of non-teaching staff and its intended purpose was to agree a pay and conditions framework for school support staff. However, the SSSNB was abolished before any such framework was implemented.
The King's Speech in July confirmed that the SSSNB will be reinstated "to establish national terms and conditions, career progression routes and fair pay rates." The New Deal plan further provides that its reinstatement "will value and recognise the professionalism of the entire [LGA emphasis] school workforce and address recruitment and retention challenges." Potentially therefore, the SSSNB will apply not only to non-teaching staff in local authority-maintained schools, but also to non-teaching staff in the Academy sector.
The establishment of alternative arrangements for setting the pay, terms and conditions of school support staff and the potential for it to include the Academy sector will affect the shape of the NJC negotiations so it is vital that the National Employers have relevant data with which to work. This is relevant both for the redesign of the pay spine and the design of future pay offers so please provide as accurate a picture as possible.
Please ensure you have completed this survey by 27 September 2024.
NJC Pay review
The 2023 NJC pay agreement included a commitment by the National Employers and Trade Unions (UNISON, GMB and Unite) to enter into negotiations in order to reach agreement on a redesigned national pay spine.
The NJC pay spine currently consists of 42 pay points, each point representing a salary. The NJC agrees to an annual uplift to the salaries on the spine, on which each employer decides where to place its employees. Each employer takes into account a number of factors such as job size and local labour market conditions when deciding an employee's salary. There are no nationally determined jobs or pay grade/scales/bands; they are determined locally, so grading structures will vary from employer to employer.
Ahead of the review getting underway, the National Employers would like to hear your views on what you think the employers should seek to achieve from the negotiations.
Please ensure you have completed this survey by 27 September 2024.
Teacher pay 2024/5 consultation
The statutory process for establishing the new School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document requires a consultation on the output from School Teachers' Review Body's (STRB) 34th report and the government response and the draft School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) 2024. The National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers (NEOST) are one of the statutory consultees and will respond to the Government on behalf of all school employers. Employer Link subscribers are requested for their views as part of this process.
The end of the statutory process will not be reached until after the ‘praying period’ for the new legislation that introduced the new STCPD. This will not happen for some weeks after the conclusion of this consultation, and so implementation of the pay award should not take place until then.
Important Guidelines
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Base your answers on the majority position/view of the academies in your Trust.
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You can just skip questions you cannot answer; partial responses are welcome.
Please ensure you have completed this survey by 13 September 2024.
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