TEACHERS’ PAY AND CONDITIONS
IN ACADEMIES
GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS
DECEMBER 2014
This document provides guidance for NUT members on teachers’ pay and conditions of
service in Academies.
It covers the position of teachers who take up posts at Academies from teaching
employment elsewhere as well as teachers who are transferred to Academies from the
schools they replaced.
BACKGROUND
At present there are 4,344 operational Academies in England. The majority of these have
opened from September 2010 onwards under the Coalition Government’s accelerated
Academies Act programme. There are no Academies in Wales.
The NUT continues to oppose the establishment of Academies in principle. Information on the
NUT’s policy on Academies and campaigning materials for use locally in opposing Academy
proposals are available in the Campaigns section of the NUT website at www.teachers.org.uk.
NUT members should, in the first instance, contact their local NUT secretary or NUT regional
office for advice and guidance where an Academy is proposed.
Notwithstanding its opposition to Academies, the NUT is committed to supporting and
protecting its members who transfer to and/or work in Academies. This document gives
guidance on the pay and conditions of service for teachers who are appointed to teaching posts
in Academies after they have opened, and for teachers who transfer to an Academy replacing a
previous school at which they worked.
All Academies are able to set their own pay, conditions and working time arrangements for
newly appointed teachers joining the Academy. In some Academies, pay and conditions
arrangements for such teachers are similar or identical to those for teachers in local authority
maintained state schools. In others, teachers’ pay and conditions can be very different.
Teachers transferred from predecessor schools replaced by an Academy are covered by
the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE). The TUPE
regulations provide that, where an Academy replaces an existing school(s), teachers’ previous
pay and conditions entitlements transfer. These include statutory provisions on pay,
professional duties and working time and national and local agreements on teachers’ conditions
of service, redundancy payments and recognition of the NUT as a trade union. Where the
Academy is a new institution, however, all teachers are in the first category of newly appointed
teacher and no teachers are protected by TUPE.
This document looks in turn at:

pay and conditions of service arrangements for newly appointed teachers at Academies;

arrangements for teachers transferred from the school(s) replaced by the Academy; and

issues common to and relevant to all teachers in Academies.
PAY & CONDITIONS IN ACADEMIES – GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS
2
NEWLY APPOINTED TEACHERS
As noted earlier, teachers who are newly appointed to Academies are not automatically
employed under the terms of the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD)
and the Burgundy Book national agreement on conditions of service. Each Academy is able to
decide for itself the form of pay and conditions arrangements for newly appointed teachers.
The NUT seeks to negotiate on pay and conditions for teachers with all Academies. In these
negotiations, the NUT seeks, as its over-riding priority, to secure the application of the STPCD
provisions on pay structure, pay levels and working time and the Burgundy Book national
agreement on conditions of service, or closely comparable arrangements, for all teachers newly
appointed to the Academy as well as those transferred from any predecessor school under
TUPE arrangements. The NUT will, where necessary, consult members with regard to action
up to and including industrial action to secure such arrangements.
Transferred teachers should, in the NUT’s view, retain their previous entitlements even where
they have successfully applied for or agreed to take up new posts at the Academy following
transfer. This is considered further in the section on transferred teachers.
Pay
Specific matters that teachers should ask about when considering applying for teaching posts in
an Academy are as follows:

Does the Academy follow the STPCD provisions on teachers’ pay structure and pay
levels?

If yes, are these provisions incorporated into teachers’ contracts as contractual
entitlements?

If no, what are the Academy’s pay arrangements? In particular:
-
-
Are the pay levels comparable to the STPCD’s pay levels?
Is there an automatic link to national teachers’ pay increases?
What are the rules for progression on the Academy’s pay scales?
What are the pay arrangements for teachers with additional responsibilities – do
they receive separate additional responsibility payments or are they paid on
separate higher pay bands?
In the London area, what are the arrangements for London area allowances?
Contractual working time

Does the Academy follow the STPCD provisions on teachers’ working time?

If yes, are these provisions incorporated into teachers’ contracts as contractual
entitlements?

If no, what are the Academy’s contractual working time arrangements?
In particular:
-
Does the Academy contract include any specific limit on the overall working time
required of teachers?
If yes, is this working time limit the same as the STPCD limit of 1265 hours
annual directed time? If no, does the contract include any other limit on working
time eg a limit on weekly working time?
PAY & CONDITIONS IN ACADEMIES – GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS
-
-
-
3
Does the Academy contract include any specific limit on the overall number of
working days required of teachers?
If yes, is this limit the same as the STPCD limit of 195 working days, of which
only 190 are teaching days? If no, does the contract include any other limit on
working days?
Does the contract include an entitlement to safeguarded PPA time within the
weekly teaching timetable for teachers’ planning, preparation and assessment?
If yes, does this at least match the STPCD PPA entitlement of 10% of timetabled
teaching time from September 2005? If no, what are the arrangements?
Is there an extended school day in the Academy and, if so, are there any
requirements for working time before or after the normal timetabled day?
Does the contract include any requirement to work at weekends or on Bank
Holidays?
Does the contract include any requirement to work during half-terms and
holidays?
What requirement, if any, is there for additional working time outside this
contractual working time and in the teacher’s own time?

What is the length of the lunch break for teachers? Are teachers protected from
undertaking lunchtime supervision?

Is there a guaranteed morning or afternoon break? Is there a guaranteed break
between normal sessions and extended day sessions?

Is there a contractual limit on teachers’ cover obligations? If yes, are teachers entitled to
only 'rarely cover' for absent colleagues? If no, what are the arrangements?

What is the practice with regard to weekly meetings? Are there any provisions
excluding teachers from undertaking bureaucratic or administrative tasks?

What is the Academy policy on professional development? Is there an entitlement to a
specified number of days of CPD during the working year?
Any problems faced by NUT members in Academies over excessive working time will be taken
up by the NUT in accordance with usual practice. Where NUT members have concerns,
they should seek advice and support from the NUT immediately.
Conditions of service
Other contractual issues of importance include entitlements to sickness and maternity pay and
leave, notice periods, leave of absence, procedures for matters such as discipline, capability
and grievance, and continuity of employment provisions.
Questions to ask include:

Does the Academy follow the Burgundy Book national sickness and maternity pay and
leave provisions? If yes, are these provisions incorporated into teachers’ contracts as
contractual entitlements? If no, what are the Academy’s sickness and maternity pay
and leave provisions?

Does the Academy recognise previous teaching service with local authority maintained
schools for the purposes of entitlement to sickness and maternity pay and leave?

Does the Academy operate a probationary period for new appointees and if so what are
its terms?
PAY & CONDITIONS IN ACADEMIES – GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS

4
Does the Academy follow the Burgundy Book notice periods or are the Academy’s
notice periods longer than, or different to, those arrangements?
Pensions
Academies are required to offer membership of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, allowing newly
appointed teachers at an Academy to join or continue in membership of that scheme.
TEACHERS TRANSFERRED FROM PREDECESSOR SCHOOL(S)
Where an Academy replaces an existing school(s), teachers who transfer to the Academy from
the predecessor school(s) are protected in respect of pay and conditions by the TUPE
regulations.
Where the Academy applies its own pay and conditions arrangements to newly appointed
teachers, the arrangements for the two groups may be very different. The NUT obviously
seeks to ensure that the preserved terms and conditions for transferred teachers are protected.
It is important that, wherever NUT members in this position feel that their terms and
conditions of service are being eroded or worsened, they contact the NUT immediately.
There are limitations to the protection offered by the TUPE regulations, as follows:

The TUPE regulations do not give absolute protection against loss of employment in the
event of a reorganisation at the point of transfer or after the Academy has been
established. Employees may still potentially lose their jobs through reorganisation, as
was the case before the creation of the Academy and the TUPE transfer.

Although teachers cannot be dismissed or have their pre-transfer contractual
entitlements changed by reason of the transfer alone, the TUPE regulations allow
changes to be made where they are necessary for clear “economic, technical or
organisational” (ETO) reasons. The NUT argues that changes to contractual terms are
rarely necessary.

The TUPE regulations do not protect working conditions which are not contractual
terms. Given that Academies are encouraged to adopt innovative approaches to
management and teaching and learning, it is likely that teachers will encounter
proposals to make changes to areas such as the school day and timetabling. If these
changes could have taken place in the predecessor school, they can also take place in
the Academy.
Protections conferred by the TUPE regulations continue for so long as the contractual
entitlement would have continued to apply under the former employer.
Where a transferred teacher takes up a different post within the Academy following the transfer,
that teacher is in the NUT’s view entitled to retain the previous contractual entitlements other
than the revised rate of pay now applicable. This applies whether the teacher moves post as a
result of normal application and appointment to a vacant post, a voluntary agreement to move
to a different post or an enforced redeployment following reorganisation. The teacher should
not be required to accept a move to any different pay and conditions arrangements applicable
to newly-appointed teachers.
The specific protections offered by the TUPE regulations for transferees’ pay and conditions
entitlements are set out in the following sections.
PAY & CONDITIONS IN ACADEMIES – GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS
5
Pay
Transferees will continue to be entitled to be paid according to the pay structure and pay scales
set out in the STPCD. Their pay will increase according to increases in the pay scales set out
in the STPCD.
If any reorganisation takes place which leads to the loss of a post of responsibility, they will be
entitled to the pay safeguarding provisions set out in the STPCD, protecting them against
immediate loss of pay.
Contractual working time
Transferees’ working time arrangements will continue to be as set out in the STPCD. They will
continue to include the following specific provisions which may not be included in the contracts
for newly appointed teachers:





a limit of 195 working days per year, of which 5 days must be non-teaching days;
a limit of 1265 hours of directed time per year;
an entitlement to only 'rarely cover' for absent colleagues;
an entitlement to 10% PPA within the pupil day; and
protection regarding administrative and clerical tasks.
NUT members in this position are encouraged to seek support from their NUT Division
Secretary or Regional Office if they believe they are working over and above these limits on
working time and cover or if they are not receiving their full PPA entitlement.
Transferees also continue to benefit from any contractual entitlements deriving from local
agreements between the Union and the authority which maintained the predecessor school.
Conditions of service
Transferees will continue to benefit from the Burgundy Book provisions on contractual issues
such as sick pay, maternity pay and notice periods and from any contractual entitlements
deriving from local agreements.
As noted above, TUPE provisions do not protect working conditions which are not contractual
terms. Transferees will not, therefore, usually be protected against changes to the length and
timing of the working day, the introduction of shorter lunch breaks or changes to policies on
class size. NUT members should, however, seek advice and support from the NUT if they
believe that unacceptable working arrangements are being proposed.
Pensions
Since Academies are required to offer membership of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme,
transferees will be able to join or continue in membership of that scheme.
ISSUES OF GENERAL APPLICABILITY
This section considers issues of general applicability to all teachers in Academies.
Staffing structures
Each Academy is responsible for determining its own staffing structure. The NUT believes that
all Academies should have published staffing structures showing the level of responsibility
PAY & CONDITIONS IN ACADEMIES – GUIDANCE FOR NUT MEMBERS
6
payment attached to each post. These should be publicly available in the same way as in local
authority maintained schools.
Recognition and machinery for negotiation and representation
The NUT seeks to negotiate collectively on behalf of teachers at Academies in conjunction with
the other teachers’ organisations. The TUC, together with the NUT and the other TUC-affiliated
unions for teachers and support staff, has published a model agreement for recognition and
machinery for negotiation and consultation in Academies.
Trade union facilities time
Academies are subject to the usual legal requirements on time off with pay for trade union
representatives, including learning and safety representatives. Some Academies have also
reached agreements with the NUT and the local authority providing NUT members with time off
to undertake trade union duties as NUT local officers.
Moving to and from employment in LA maintained schools
NUT members are advised to seek advice from the NUT if they are concerned about a break in
their service which may impact on their entitlement to contractual or statutory employment
benefits.
On moving to an Academy, where the teacher is not TUPE transferred, previous service in local
authority maintained schools may not necessarily be counted for entitlement to contractual
entitlements to sickness and maternity leave and pay if the academy does not recognise
service at other schools. This should be discussed before taking up a post at an Academy.
Such previous service will, however, count towards total length of service for redundancy pay
under the terms of what is known as the 'Modification Order'.
On returning from an Academy to a local authority maintained school, the period of employment
at the Academy will not automatically be counted for entitlement to sickness and maternity
leave and pay if the authority does not recognise service at academies. Entitlement to sickness
leave and pay, which depends on total aggregated service in local authority maintained
schools, will not be affected unless the teacher has less than 4 years’ previous aggregated
employment in this sector. Entitlement to maternity leave and pay, however, depends on
continuous service, so this entitlement may therefore need to be acquired anew through a new
period of continuous employment. Service in the Academy will, however, count towards length
of service for redundancy pay under the terms of the Modification Order.
National Union of Teachers
December 2014