Written by Admin | 6 Aug 2024
Summary
We are pleased to confirm the latest position on the teachers’ 2024-2025 pay award discussion. The School Teachers Review Body (STRB) released its 34th annual report regarding teacher pay on 29 July 2024. This has informed the draft School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD), which has now been released. The report recommends an increase of 5.5% to all teachers’ pay ranges, advisory points and allowances from 1 September 2024. It also recommends that changes to the guidance on appraisal and pay progression should be published in time for the new school year, backing the DfE’s agreement to withdraw performance-related pay progression from September 2024. The government has agreed to accept the recommendations in full, which must now undergo a 10-week consultation. This will extend beyond 1 September, meaning the final pay offer will be backdated.
Key changes announced in the STRB report:
- Increase to all teachers’ pay ranges, advisory points, and allowances of 5.5% with effect from 1 September 2024.
- Fully funded pay award in the financial year 2024 to 2025. The government has stated that around £1.2 billion will be provided to cover the costs of the teacher and support staff pay award.
- Updated guidance to be published in time for the new school year on appraisal and pay progression to remove the current performance-related pay.
- Improvements for national equality, diversity and inclusion data and its annual release have been stated as a priority.
- More work is to be undertaken to review opportunities to support recruitment and retention. This could include greater flexibility to support phased retirement and more flexible approaches to allowances, such as permitting TLR payments to be paid in full to part-time teachers who carry out the entirety of the role.
- Teacher recruitment and retention plays a big role in the report, with statements relating to the development of career pathways and supporting structures, as well as work on a strategic and transparent workforce plan for the teaching profession commencing as soon as practicable.
The four teaching unions, ASCL, NAHT, NASUWT and NEU, have shared positive reactions to the above current inflation rate rise, which, although likely to be accepted, will need to be put to union members.
Affordability
The DfE states that the pay award is ‘fully funded’, although negotiations for the support staff pay award remain ongoing, with Unite and Unison announcing the balloting of their members for strike action. A decision is not likely to be reached until the Autumn term, and so the cost of the award remains to be determined. There is an expectation that schools may need to contribute to the pay rises from their own budgets. The following calculator from the DfE allows mainstream schools to gauge their funding estimate.
Core schools budget grant (CSBG) 2024 to 2025
Actions
Schools and academy trusts should re-visit their financial forecasts to determine the impact of the pay award and the additional funding on current and future plans.
Pay policy
Your pay policy should be updated annually, usually in the Autumn term. Our draft model policy is now available on the EPM website, and a tracked changes version is also available for you to easily compare with your existing policy. Remember that this model policy is draft only, based on the draft STPCD, and likely to be subject to further change once regulations are amended in light of the proposed amendments to the STPCD. You may wish to wait for confirmation of further changes before adopting your new policy.
EPM Model Pay Policy Draft (Tracked changes)
Timeframes for teachers’ pay and conditions updates
We now have a
draft STPCD. This will be further consulted on and laid before Parliament before provisions come into effect and will be backdated to 1 September 2024. Once the STPCD reaches the stage of being laid before Parliament, it is rare for it to be changed, but it cannot be ruled out.
Implementation of the pay award decision
Governors and trustees of all academies and trusts have discretion over how to apply the award.
This bulletin assumes the adoption of the STPCD. Maintained schools must apply the award in accordance with their local authority’s agreement. Where discretion allows, some employers may choose to implement a teachers’ pay award decision in advance of the STPCD being ratified, however, we would advise you to speak to your HR Adviser if you are considering this approach.
Our support and further information
We will keep customers updated on any announcements and developments on this topic via
social media and our published bulletins. If you decide to apply an interim pay award, please speak to your payroll provider for more details. Please note, if you have an existing payroll provision with EPM and decide to apply an interim pay award, followed by a further pay award once further confirmed by unions, an admin charge (per payroll) will apply for the processing of the secondary pay award.
Useful links
Managing Teachers’ and Leaders’ Pay - July 2024
EPM Model Pay Policy Draft (Tracked changes)
EPM Model Pay Policy Draft (Clean version)
Core schools budget grant (CSBG) 2024 to 2025
School Teachers’ Review Body – Thirty-Fourth Report - 2024
Notifying EPM of your teacher and support staff pay awards - 2024
Points you must consider before notifying EPM of your pay award decision(s)
The final decision
Please ensure that you keep up to date and are aware of the final accepted position by the unions and employers before instructing us of your decision.
Deadlines for notification
We have simplified the process for notification of your pay award decision. Notifications must be received by the 1
st of each month for application in the following month’s payroll. For example, notifications received by 1 October will be applied in November payroll. Important update: The deadline for a December application of the pay award must be received by 1 November. Notifications received after this date will result in the pay award being applied in January 2025.
Please consider these deadlines before confirming to staff the month they can expect to receive the pay award in their pay.
Advising us of your decision at the earliest opportunity
We have added future date options to notify us of the month you wish for the pay award to be applied. This allows you to alert us at the earliest opportunity and by the deadline dates stated above, depending on your pay date.
Review your Off Pay Scale reports
Your Off Pay Scale reports are available on the portal’s ‘Download Reports’ section under
Archived and other reports at the bottom of the page.
Please note your Off Pay Scale rates will not be updated until you confirm via the pay award survey or after updating the values via the portal.
Ensure you have the full approval to inform us of your pay award
This includes governor/trustee approval. If you instruct us to apply the pay award before receiving approval, and we need to further amend or reverse the application, administration fees will apply. For many academy trusts, we are aware that the trust will submit central decisions. Please check with your employer before submitting your survey response.
Local authority schools
You will need to wait for confirmation from your relevant LA decision and sign off by your pay committee before submitting your decision to EPM/your payroll provider. We will not accept LA notification of pay award decisions; this must come directly from the school.
Updates to your contractual allowances
Please note that we will automatically update the allowances you have instructed us to be categorised as ‘subject to pay award’. Any allowances
NOT subject to pay award must be reviewed by the school/trust and updated on the portal via an ‘Amend Appointment’ instruction. For
payroll-only customers, you will need to enter any changes to calculated allowances (such as contractual overtime and salary protection) directly through the portal’s ‘Amend Appointment’ option.
Supporting information required
Please note that if you follow locally agreed pay scales, including Greater London Provincial Council (GLPC) rates, we may not be able to apply the pay award until these rates are confirmed. If you receive the rates directly, please forward them via the
Communication Platform to our Pay Award Team to minimise delays.
We must receive your survey instruction AND any locally applied pay scales (if required) by the above deadline to apply your pay award in the relevant months’ payroll.
Consider the timing of any performance-related increments
Consider the timing of your performance-based increments (if applicable) in addition to the pay award for staff to streamline the application and processing of back pay.
How should schools, academies and trusts notify EPM of decisions?
To submit your decisions to us, we have launched the portal surveys on our EPM Portal to gather your instructions once all the points above have been considered. The teaching staff survey can be found through the 'Pay Award' tab once you log into the EPM Portal. These options allow you to confirm whether you are submitting the response for a separate school or for a whole trust. If you need to make any additional changes after the pay award is applied, these will be chargeable. Please contact the Pay Award Team to discuss this further.
Communication
If you have any queries on the application of your instruction, contact us via our
Communication Platform using the Pay Award category. Please clearly state your Trust name or EPM School reference number in the subject line and whether the query relates to the implementation of the support or teachers’ pay award.