Pay Award Update – Teachers and Support Staff

Update on the School Teachers Pay and Conditions effective from 1 September 2021 and associated actions for schools and academies by 1 October 2021, as well as an update on the ongoing NJC (school support staff) pay award negotiations.

Teachers Pay

Further to the Education Secretary’s ministerial statement at the end of July, the Department for Education has published the draft School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2021 (‘the STPCD’) which is subject to a period of consultation with statutory consultees until mid-September. It is currently expected that it will become a legal document in mid-October.

Pending the outcome of the consultation, the STPCD, which will be effective from 1 September 2021, does not provide for any pay uplifts for teachers in academic year 2021/22, i.e. the pay rates and allowances remaining as per the 2020/21 academic year.

However, the STPCD does provide for £250 pay uplifts for unqualified teachers earning less than £24,000 per annum. In practice, this applies to unqualified teachers on scale points 1-3 of the 6-point unqualified teacher pay range (see the table appended).

For maintained schools, this pay uplift is mandatory. Should your school employ any affected unqualified teachers, HR ONE will apply this change in October 2021 salaries (backdated to 1 September 2021) subject to the outcome of the consultation*.

For academy schools, there is no mandatory requirement to apply this provision, subject to local academy agreement. If your academy uses the HR ONE payroll service, you should contact payrollacademyteam-mailbox@devon.gov.uk to confirm if you wish to have this change applied on the basis of the final agreed STCPD. HR ONE would apply this change in October 2021 salaries of affected staff (backdated to 1 September 2021) subject to the outcome of the consultation*, unless you specify otherwise in writing to payrollacademyteam-mailbox@devon.gov.uk by Friday 1 October 2021.

*Should there be any change to this provision following the consultation, further communication will follow and these arrangements will be subject to change.

As in previous years, HR ONE has produced a Model Pay Policy for schools to consider for adoption which takes account of the updated STPCD. This Policy has been added to the HR ONE Policy Library (under ‘Pay and Grading’) for schools to access and download. At the date of this communication, the policy is being released in ‘draft’ version pending consultation.

NJC (Local Government / School Support Staff) Pay

In February 2021, the NJC unions (UNISON, GMB and Unite) lodged pay and terms and conditions claims for ‘Green Book’ staff for 2021. This included a minimum of 10% increase on all spinal columns as well as other terms and conditions claims.

The National Employers rejected this offer in May 2021, offering 1.5% on all spinal points. This was rejected by the unions and on 27 July the National Employers made a ‘final offer’ to the unions which included an increase of 2.75% on NJC pay point 1 and an increase of 1.75% on all NJC pay points 2 and above. The offer also included an increase of 1.5% on basic salary for Chief Officers and Chief Executives, and a commitment to complete and/or review other terms and conditions related work.

Further details about the claim can be found on the LGA webpages.

The three NJC unions have balloted their members on the pay offer and this will run until late September/early October 2021. It is expected that the outcome will be known by mid-October 2021.

Any pay award ultimately agreed will be mandatory for maintained schools to apply. The award will be communicated once it is known, and HR ONE payroll will process this in salaries at the earliest opportunity (backdated to 1 April 2021).

For academy schools, there is no automatic requirement to apply the NJC pay award, subject to local academy agreement. For those academies which use the HR ONE payroll service, once the NJC pay award is agreed, HR ONE payroll will write to you to confirm the award and ask you to confirm whether you wish for this to be applied in relevant salaries. You may wish to make considerations now pending the outcome of the negotiations in order to be able to provide a response to HR ONE payroll.

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Unqualified Teacher Pay Rates 2021-22

Please note that the following scale point structure and values are those which HR ONE uses in its model pay policy. These values match the advisory pay point structure which is published in the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document 2021.

*Increased by £250 on last year’s figure.