Teachers who are pregnant or on maternity leave, disabled teachers and teachers from an ethnic minority background are more likely to be denied pay progression. Teachers who work part time, job share, or are contracted on other flexible arrangements are more likely to be denied pay progression than their full-time counterparts. We know that this adversely impacts women as they are more likely to work flexibly due to caring or childcare responsibilities.
Collecting this data from your workplace will help you to establish where the disparities are at a local level.
This can be particularly useful in making the case for automatic pay progression, including the removal of onerous threshold application processes.
Your branch secretary or the NEU officer or lead rep negotiating with your employer may already have requested this data, so it is worth liaising with them first before making a request.
Requesting pay progression data for your school
There is a model letter available on the NEU website which you can use to make your request.
The letter highlights the employer’s Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), as set out in the Equality Act 2010 — specifically, the duty to monitor and assess the impact of the school’s pay policy on employees with reference to their protected characteristics.
Additionally, it references the DfE’s advice on monitoring pay decisions to identify any concerning patterns that emerge, such as a disproportionately higher number of men than women receiving progression, and section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA), which gives recognised trade unions the legal right to request and receive certain information from employers for the purposes of collective bargaining.
When should the request be sent out?
Requests for pay progression data should be sent out at the beginning of the school term in September. You should request for the information to be provided no later than December 31.
What information should you be asking the employer to provide?
With the initial request letter, you should also send the template excel spreadsheet. This worksheet has been designed for the employer’s convenience and will make it easy for you to compile and analyse the information.
The information covers:
- The number of teachers eligible to be assessed for pay progression in September (of the current academic year).
- The number of teachers who received pay progression, were denied progression, or where relevant, did not apply for progression.
- Breakdowns by pay range point, sector of school and personal characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, full/part-time status, maternity leave etc.
The data will not allow individuals to be identified personally.
What should you look for in the data?
You should pay careful attention to the calculation of progression rates, ie, – the percentage of eligible teachers who received pay progression. It is the practice of some academy trusts to subtract those teachers who chose not to apply for threshold from the total number of teachers eligible for progression. This approach invariably produces a higher overall progression rate, which doesn’t accurately reflect the true number of teachers that have received progression.
Teachers who are eligible to progress from the main to the upper pay range but choose not to apply are still just as ‘eligible’ for pay progression as any other teacher. Therefore, they should not be excluded from the calculation of pay progression rates.
Rates of pay progression by gender and other protected characteristics are very important for all the reasons stated above. This data will help you organise members and challenge your school’s pay policy effectively.
How can you use the data?
Collecting pay scale and pay progression data can help you organise members around the discriminatory nature of performance-related pay (PRP) and build arguments about the erosion of pay scales and its impact on recruitment and retention.
This data also highlights key issues in the employer’s pay policy – such as threshold application, expectations on the upper pay range, TLR structures, and whether decisions reflect the STPCD.
Additionally, comparing progression rates year-on-year – or against other employers – can provide leverage in bargaining. If other local or national employers offer better rates, this can support your case for change.
Networking with other reps in your branch or MAT to share findings and co-ordinate collective action will further strengthen your position.
