Spring Term 2023

School Teachers’ Pay 2023/24

On 15 November 2022, the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) published its remit letter for the pay period 2023/24. The Local Government Association (LGA) has now begun consulting with local authorities to inform the response to the remit from National Employers Organisation for School Teachers (NEOST), which is the statutory recognised national employer representative body for schoolteachers.

You can find a summary of the key messages included in the remit in our latest news article here.

The STRB is due to report back to the DfE in May 2023.

Future Developments - Right to Request Flexible Working

On 28th October 2022, the Government confirmed in Parliament that it will support the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill, a Private Members' Bill that was introduced into Parliament on 15th June 2022. In addition, the Government carried out a consultation in late 2021 on proposals to reform the statutory right to request flexible working. In December 2022 the government published its response to the consultation Making flexible working the default.

Once the Bill is passed likely future developments include:

• removing the requirement for an employee to explain any potential effect they think the change in their working pattern will have on their employer
• allowing an employee to make two applications (rather than one) for a flexible pattern of work during any 12-month period;
• requiring an employer to consult with the employee about their flexible working application before refusing it; and
• shortening the period of time an employer has to notify the employee of its decision about their flexible working application to two (rather than three) months.
• making the right to request flexible working a Day One Right (it is currently only available to employees with 26 weeks' continuous service), this remains a right to request, not a right to a flexible working arrangement
• a new duty for employers to discuss alternatives to the request (so that if the employer intends to reject the request, they must discuss whether there are alternative forms of flexible working available), it is not clear yet whether this will be a statutory requirement

Forthcoming HR Deadline – Gender Pay Gap reporting deadlines

Employers with more than 250 employees are obliged to publish their gender pay information for each reporting year. Up-to-date pay gap information will be due by 30 March 2023 for most public authority employers, and 4 April 2023 for private, voluntary and all other public authority employers. HR Customers can access more detailed information here.

Forthcoming increase in statutory pay rates - April 2023

On 17 November 2022, the Government announced that the weekly rate of family-related statutory pay for the tax year 2023/2024 will increase.

From 2nd April 2023, the flat weekly rate of statutory maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and parental bereavement pay will increase from £156.66 to £172.48.

From 6 April 2023 the rate of statutory sick pay increases from £99.35 to £109.40 per week.

Industrial Action Update

As we start the Spring Term awaiting the results of the NASUWT (closes 9 January 2023) and the NEU (closes 13 January 2023) formal statutory industrial action ballot of teachers in England and Wales, we thought it useful to highlight some of the resources we have available to support your school through a period of industrial dispute.

HR Customers can find detailed guidance both on the legal and practical implications of industrial action here on the website, plus a selection of detailed FAQs and a range of template letters confirming deduction of pay following strike action.

As the concerns around pay are driven strongly by the current cost of living crisis you can also access resources to assist you in supporting the financial wellbeing of your staff here.

Although industrial action will no doubt cause disruption we would advise schools wherever possible to be sympathetic to staff concerns about the rising cost of living and the impact it is having on their pay, the industrial action is nationally led - which may affect the tone of your communications with staff. Ultimately, staff are free to take action or not, however, showing that you understand their concerns may go some way to maintaining workforce engagement, the school is not responsible for the pay deal on the table. The ‘trade dispute’ with staff is with the government rather than being a matter which you as their local employer have control over. Take control of the communications with your staff, consider sending out sensitively worded communication to help them make up their minds about whether they genuinely wish to take action, emphasising that whilst you are sympathetic to their concerns over pay, you also know that staff genuinely want to do right by their pupils.  We will keep you updated with developments in this area.

Additional Bank Holiday in 2023

There will be another additional bank holiday on 8th May for the coronation of King Charles.

The DfE has confirmed it will shortly lay regulations to reduce the school year from 190 days to 188 days for the academic year 2022-23, as a result of the additional bank holidays in September 2022 & May 2023. 

You can find details of our online training offer for this term on our Training page.

You can access a range of previously run webinars on demand by clicking here.

Please click on the below image to download the recording from the session