Dear Members,
We hope you are well. We wanted to provide with some important information and key updates.
Extreme Temperatures – Red Warning
As you may be aware, a national emergency has been declared since the UK Met Office issued its first ever red warning for extreme temperatures on Monday 18th July and Tuesday 19th July 2022. At the time of writing, this warning covers a large area of England from London through the Midlands to Manchester and York.
As this extreme heat constitutes a serious hazard, all schools and workplaces in a warning zone must carry out a thorough risk assessment and take whatever reasonably practicable measures are indicated to control the risk. This could include partial closure, so that only rooms that are shaded (such as north facing) are used. It may be necessary to order a full closure. The risk assessment must also cover any outdoor activities, and risks associated with travelling to and from the school/workplace.
The risk assessments must be shared with all staff and consulted on. We would request our Workplace and Health & Safety Reps ensure this takes place and that the mitigations being considered are appropriate. If you need any advice and guidance on this, please contact us.
The NASUWT has produced guidance on excessive temperatures including relevant legislation which you can refer to. We have reminded employers locally including the Local Authority that they have a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that all workplaces are safe and have also shared our guidance.
If there are further updates to this guidance, we will share it on our Extreme Weather page.
Teachers’ Pay 2021 and Teachers’ Pension Scheme Indexation
Following our previous communications and emails on the issue of the Teachers’ Pay Freeze and the impact on the Teachers’ Pension Scheme Indexation, we would still like to be assured that schools are taking remedial action by the deadline of 31st August 2022 to ensure no teacher is impacted by this issue and suffers the detrimental effect on their pension.
We have previously shared a copy of the advice note that has been issued by the Local Authority in Coventry and we have been advised that all impacted teachers in maintained schools and those centrally employed will be contacted. This communication will confirm that the uplift of £12 will be paid before 31st August 2021 backdated to 1st September 2021 so the correct level of indexation is applied across the year.
Not all teachers will be impacted by this and it may only affect those:
- who first joined the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS) prior to 1 April 2015 (Those who joined after this date only have membership in the Career Average Scheme which is not impacted); and,
- who have not received any pay increase this year (If a teacher received an incremental rise or additional allowance or moved to a promoted post will have had a change of pay and their pension will therefore be revalued NB a change of hours would not count as a pay change if the FTE pay rate is the same); and,
- who are within 10 years of retirement (as the exact date of retirement is likely to be unknown, this should be deemed to be age 55 – the first point at which a teacher may access their pension benefits i.e. any teacher aged 45 and one day on 1 September 2021).
The advice note from the Local Authority in Coventry was shared with other employers including all Academy Trusts. The DfE have recently confirmed that there will be no retrospective fix so if any Academy Trust was awaiting confirmation of this before taking action, we have written to them.
We do not wish to see a situation where some of our members have received an uplift and therefore a remedy to this situation and others haven’t. This will lead to inequity and will have a significant impact on members’ pensions for a small financial cost to schools.
If you think you may be impacted and have not been contacted, please raise this with your Senior Leaders next week as we are fast approaching the end of term. Any support Workplace Reps and Contacts can provide in raising this with Senior Leaders would also be appreciated.
We remind you that the deadline for the remedial action is 31st August 2022 which is also fast approaching and there will be no retrospective fix as confirmed. It is also crucial that any payment is backdated to 1st September 2021, so the correct level of indexation is applied across the year, so action on this issue is crucial.
We will continue to request confirmation that employers will be making recruitment and retention payments by the upcoming deadline to ensure that this detrimental impact on teachers’ pension benefits is avoided.
More information
The Union will continue to keep you informed of developments and you are requested to please continue to monitor your emails and the NASUWT website for updates. Our local website at www.nasuwtcoventry.org will also have the latest updates for Coventry members.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for help, advice, and support by emailing advice@mail.nasuwt.org.uk..
Stay Safe.
NASUWT Coventry 