GUIDANCE FOR SCHOOLS
Urgent manual pay scale update to SIMS for SWC
With the recent confirmation of a 1% pay award for support staff backdated to 01/04/2013 and teachers from 01/09/2013 your SIMS database needs to be updated with the new pay rates. This is required for the next Schools Workforce Census (SWC) on 7th November 2013.
How to update service terms with the new pay awards
The process is a manual one and you will need to allocate at least 30 minutes to do it.
1) In preparation to do the updates you need the latest pay scales and allowances. Schools that use the Council’s Schools HR Service may download these from the HR Website: http://bit.ly/14GcZKH (you will need your login). The scales for teachers and support staff can be found in the quick links section at the bottom of the page.
If you use an alternative HR provider then you will need to confirm the pay scales with them. Alternatively, you may wish to try your payroll provider.
If as part of the freedoms introduced by the recent teachers pay and conditions document you are not planning to retain the 3 and 6 point teachers pay scales then please contact me – Lewis Brunton, 020 8871 7992 /
2) To edit a service term go to Tools à Staff à Pay Related (see figure 1) to bring up the service term search window.
It should look similar to figure 2 over the page.
3) Click the Search button as highlighted figure 2; this will list all the service terms on your system.
4) Start by updating the support staff pay scales, double-click the service term in the list called ‘Support staff appointed 1/4/04’ (it has a code of ‘SS’).
You should find that the screen populates with data similar to figure 3.
Section 2: Pay Awards. You will see in figure 3 that three areas of section 2 are highlighted, they are as follows:
a) Scales List – this is the list of scales that you would pick from (having selected a service term) when setting up a contract.
b) Award Dates – As contracts in SIMS can cover many years, each time there is a pay award the date upon which it is effective is added here.
c) Pay Amounts - For every Award Date in (b) there is a list of spinal points and the pay amount associated with it. (You can see this by selecting an award date in (b) and seeing the pay amounts in (c) change.)
5) Click the ‘New’ button on the right hand side of the award date box (area b in figure 3) – this will add a new award date.
You should now be presented with a new window (see figure 4). You should find that the only field you can edit is the award date. You put in here the date from which the new pay award takes effect. In this case the date should be 01/04/13. Now click ‘OK’, the window will close.
The award date you have just created is now selected in the award date list and you should also see that pay amounts area on the right hand side is showing ‘0’ against each spinal point. This can be seen clearly in figure 5:
Using the pay scales you obtained (see point 1) you should now manually input the support staff pay amounts against each spinal point - click the ‘0’ in the amount column and over-type with the amount.
Note: Although the spinal points start at 1 in SIMS, the pay amounts start at point 4, leave ‘0’ against the earlier spinal points.
6) Once you have entered all the pay amounts it is advised that you re-check the figures as these will be used to calculate pay and therefore need to be correct.
7) Save the changes you have made by clicking the ‘Save’ button at the top of the service term window. The service term has now been updated. For the changes to take effect you will need to log out of SIMS and then back in again.
8) You have updated the main support staff service term, if you have any other service terms in use that are based upon the same pay rates you will also need to update them.
The next step is to update the teachers’ service terms. This is completed using the same process as you followed for support staff. The following service terms need to be updated:
Code / Description / Pay Range / NotesTE / Teachers / Main pay range
TU / Teachers Upper / Upper pay range
UQ / Unqualified Teachers / Unqualified teachers pay range
AT / Advanced Skills Teacher / AST pay spine / No new appointments from 01/09/13
ET / Excellent Teachers / Spot pay point / No new appointments from 01/09/13
LP / Leading Practitioner / Leading Practitioner pay range / New from 01/09/13
LD / Leadership / Leadership pay spine / Lots of points to update on this one!
You may also have the following service term in use:
QT / Teacher / Common pay pine / Main pay spine / No longer in useIf you do then you need to re-create any current contracts using it with the newer ‘TE’ service term listed in the table above.
Allowances
Some service terms also include allowances e.g. TE has TLR Payments as allowances. You must update these in section 3 (see figure 6) of the service term window. Please refer to your school’s pay policy for TLR amounts.
Select the allowance in the top list, then click ‘New’ to the right of the bottom list (see figure 6). You will be prompted to add a new allowance award date (01/09/13 for teachers) and the amount. Then click ok to accept the addition.
Save the changes you have made by clicking the ‘Save’ button at the top of the service term window.
NOTE: If any other service terms are in use in your school, for teaching or support staff, which use the same pay scales then you must also update these.
Leading Practitioners
To record staff in the new ‘Leading Practitioner’ role created in the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document 2013, a new service term needs to be set up.
For Leading Practitioners schools are required to determine a pay range within the minimum - £44,986 (or £37,836 Bradstow School only) and the maximum - £64,677 (or £57,520 Bradstow School only) values given in the Schools Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document. Schools may wish to adopt a five point range as previously available to AST posts to facilitate smooth transition to the new range for existing staff where appropriate. There is no requirement to retain 5 points however and schools can adopt a shorter or longer range if wished, depending on the level of challenge and demand in the role, differentials with other posts and budgetary concerns. You should refer to your pay policy for information on what has been adopted in your schools.
Recording this on SIMS is quite tricky.
The suggested approach is to set up a service term with one scale, with one spinal point with a value of £44,986 (or £37,836 Bradstow School only). Then the difference between the spinal point value and the actual base pay of an individual should be paid as a special allowance with a description of “LP Base Pay”
Setting up the Leading Practitioners Service Term
1) To create a service term go to Tools à Staff à Pay Related to bring up the service term search window. Click ‘New’ - you will be presented with a blank service term.
2) Fill out section 1 of the service term window with the following info (this can be seen in figure 7)
Code: / LP / Salaried: / TickDescription: / Leading Practitioner / Hours Worked / Week: / 32.5
Spinal Progression: / Do not tick / Weeks Worked / Year: / 52.14300
Teacher: / Tick
Section 1 is now complete.
3) In section 2 ‘Single Pay Spine’ will already be ticked. Please leave as is.
4) Set both the ’Minimum Point’ and ’Maximum Point’ as 1.
5) Click the ‘New’ button alongside the ‘Scales’ box. You will see a window similar to figure 8.
6) Fill out the window with the following detail:
Code: / LP1Description: / Leading Practitioner
Minimum Point: / 1
Maximum Point: / 1
Payscale: / Other
Reg. Pay Spine: / Inner London
(Choose Reg. Pay Spine of ‘Rest of England’ for Bradstow)
Then click ‘OK’ to save.
7) Click ’New’ alongside the award date to add a new award date. Enter the date 01/09/2013. Then click ‘OK’ to save.
8) Add the base salary amount to the spinal point: £44,986 (or £37,836 Bradstow School only)
Your Section 2 should now look like figure 9 and is now complete
9) In Section 3 click ’New’ alongside the ‘Allowances’ box
Setup the new allowance window with the following details:
Code:* / ~LPBDescription:* / ~LP Base Pay
Category of Additional Payment: / Other
Please note that the ~ character used in the code and description fields is very important and must not be missed out.
(It can be found on most keyboards on the # key - just press shift on the keyboard at the same time as the # key to get the ~)
When complete it should look similar to figure 11
10) Click ’New’ alongside the ‘Allowance Awards’ box
11) You will be presented with a window similar to figure 13. Enter the award date as ‘01/09/13’, and enter the amount as ‘0’. Press ‘OK’ to save the record.
12) In Section 4 click ’New’ alongside the ‘Posts’ box.
13) You will be presented with a window similar to figure 15. Enter the following information:
Post Reference / LPPost Description: / Leading Practitioner
Post Category: / Teacher, Other
SWC Post / Excellent Teacher
Press ‘OK’ to save the record.
14) In Section 5 click ’New’ alongside the ‘Superannuation Schemes’ box.
15) You will be presented with a search box as shown in figure 17. Click search to list all the schemes.
16) Double click on the entry with the code of ‘TEAC’ and the description of ‘Teachers Pension Scheme’. This will add the scheme to the service term.
Having added all that information you can now save the service term as it is complete. You will need to close and re-open SIMS before you can select the service term in a contract.
Recording the Leading Practitioner allowance in a contract
When recording a Leading Practitioner contract using the allowance ‘~LP Base Pay’ to increase the minimum pay up to the salary agreed you must complete as shown in figure 18
· Choose the start date of the contract as the ‘Start Date’ of the allowance
· Enter the difference between the agreed salary and the minimum pay as the ‘Amount’. In figure 18 the amount is £2000.00
September 2013
Service Term Update Instructions v1.1