Now in force! How to budget for the Teachers Pay Awards

It’s vital you are forecasting for pay awards accurately and factor this into the budget, so it doesn’t come as a shock when you need to pay out for all the back pay. 

The Teachers Pay Award September 2023 has now come into force, as of Friday 3rd November. Here's 5 tips from our Finance & Accounting team:

1. Set up your staffing contracts with increments e.g. April for Support and September for Teachers (We always suggest building this in year-to-year for all staff – therefore planning for a worst case scenario!)
2. Ensure you run a monthly payroll reconciliation – this will highlight any 'variances' against budget
3. Please note that Teachers in September will be showing a 'variance' due to the pay award that may not go through for another couple of months
4. Where a variance is shown in the payroll reconciliation because pay increases have not yet been implemented, SBS Financial Planner allows you to carry forward the back pay so that it isn't lost from the budget monitor commitments and. therefore, your forecasts. 
5. Schools are reminded to increase their allowances in line with the pay award (eg TLRs and SEN) and remove any other inflation that has been applied for the period of the awards.

Our Financial Planning & Forecasting Software is SBS Financial Planner:

Please note that our team uploads Teachers Pay Scale tables for each academic year so that schools and trusts can quickly and easily apply this to their budget. We can show you how easy this is to apply to your budgets:

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Other significant developments and dates:

• The support staff pay award was also agreed on 1st November. The same budgeting process applies, but backdated to 1 April 2023. 
• Employer Contributions for the Teacher Pension Scheme are increasing by (around) 5% with effect from 1 April 2024. The Government will be making a compensatory grant based on pupil numbers, akin to the Teacher Pay Additional Grant.