School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2007

The School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2007 has now been published onto Teachernet, although hard copies of the Document will be available from September. If you ordered a free copy last year from the Teachernet publications website, you should automatically be sent a copy this year but in any case one copy will be sent to the Chair of Governors at your school address.

Summary of changes to Pay and Conditions

The main changes to the document are as follows (paragraph references are to paragraphs in the document):

• New sets of pay scales bringing in a 2.5% pay award from 1 September 2007 have been incorporated (paragraphs 6.4, 17.3, 19.2, 30.1 and 38.1)



• An increase of 2.5% in the value of the TLR 1 and TLR 2 ranges (paragraph 23.2) from 1 September 2007; a requirement to increase all TLR's in payment by 2.5% from 1 September 2007 (paragraph 24); and provision to increase by 2.5% from 1 September 2007 all TLR's which are in the staffing structure but which have not yet been included (paragraph 25)



• An increase of 2.5% in the value of SEN and allowances (paragraph 27.1)



• The introduction of revised pay standards in England and Wales for post threshold Teachers, Excellent Teachers and Advanced Skills Teachers (Annex 1)



• The removal of references in the Document to objective setting for members of the leadership group and AST's who are subject to Performance Management Regulations



• The introduction of closer links between performance management/appraisal arrangements and pay decisions (except in respect of unqualified teachers and the annual increment for main scale teachers) effective from 1 September 2008 after the first reviews take place under the new Performance Management Regulations



• The inclusion of Fast Track Teachers in the usual working time limit for Teachers of 195 days/125hrs (which means that since no special pay or conditions arrangements now apply to Fast Track Teachers, no special references are needed for them in the document. The exception to that is reference at paragraph 18.1.4 which covers those teachers who joined the Fast Track programme by the initial teacher training route prior to 1 September 2006 who have not yet started teaching.)

Amendments to Statutory Guidance (Sections 3 and 4)

• A number of amendments, updates and clarifications have been made to the statutory pay guidance in Section 3, in line with the 2007 changes to the Document and comments made in the statutory consultation process.



• In Section 4, an amendment has been made to paragraph 50 concerning the expectation first set out in 2003, that Teachers and Headteachers should only rarely cover for absence colleagues. The amendment provides that schools should expect to operate on the basis that Teachers should rarely cover from 1 September 2009 and should set interim targets to enable them to achieve this by that date. The Government intends to consult on the introduction from 2009 of the statutory provision which would have the effect that Teachers and Headteachers rarely cover for that date.



• In addition, a minor amendment has been made to paragraph 79 of section 4 to state that Teachers should be present in the exam room only when they have the permission of the Head of Centre (usually the Headteacher in Schools).

Model Pay and Performance Policy

These changes will be incorporated in the Model Pay and Performance Management Policy which was updated in June 2007. This will require consultation with the County Secretaries of the recognised Teaching and Support Trade Unions but given many of these changes are reflections of other work e.g. the new Performance Management Regulations, it is hoped that a revised policy will be available by the end of September 2007.

If you have any immediate queries or concerns, please contact Bob Hedley and he will endeavour to give assistance.