EC Meeting Papers March 2018

July 2016

Joint Advice on School Teachers’ Pay 2016-17

The Government has confirmed its decision to accept the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) on pay for 2016-17 and has published the draft 2016 School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD). This document sets out our organisations’ joint advice on the application of the provisions of the STPCD for 2016-17, including the adoption of pay scales and the application of individual pay increases.

Our organisations have jointly welcomed the clear statement by the STRB that a pay increase “significantly higher than 1%” will be required “before the end of this Parliament”.

Consultation on pay policies

The late publication of the STRB report and short timescale for consultation on the STPCD mean that the final version of the STPCD will not be published until August. We believe it would be helpful for local authorities, school governing bodies and academy employers to announce as soon as possible that they intend to adopt the advice in this document. They are, however, still required to consult formally with teachers and their representatives before finalising their pay policies and pay scales for September 2016. Such formal consultation must therefore take place at the start of the new academic year in order to comply with the requirement for meaningful consultation, while also ensuring that teacher pay uplifts are not delayed. As you know, the STPCD now only prescribes pay ranges with minimum and maximum points. The DfE no longer publishes any pay scale points for reference, either in the STPCD or in Departmental advice documents. The STPCD continues, however, to permit the adoption of fixed pay scale points as the basis for teachers’ pay progression, including by continuing to use previous STPCD pay scale points uprated as appropriate. The STRB recommended a 1% increase in the minima and maxima of STPCD pay ranges. We jointly advise the adoption of the pay scale points set out in this document, which reflect this 1% increase, as part of each school’s pay policy from 1 September 2016. We also jointly advise that all values of allowances and ranges for allowances set out in each school’s pay policy should also be increased by 1%. Pay scales for 2016-17

Where a school pay policy includes pay scale points other than those advised in this document, we jointly advise that such pay scale points should also be increased by 1%.