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Currently, the remuneration and conditions of support staff working in England’s state-funded schools are set through the National Joint Council for Local Government Services (‘NJC’). The NJC makes decisions on the terms of employment of 1.4 million individuals employed in local government, across a broad range of roles from refuse collectors to librarians.
As part of its plan to ‘Make Work Pay’, and in an attempt to address the difficulties state schools are facing in recruiting and retaining support staff, the Government is proposing a school-specific approach in respect of such staff. The Government intends to reinstate the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) which was abolished under the previous coalition government in 2010. The SSSNB will be able to consider the specific issues affecting support staff in schools when setting remuneration and conditions.
The SSSNB
The SSSNB will be established under the Employment Rights Bill and is anticipated to comprise representatives on both the ’employee side’ and ’employer side’, a representative for the Secretary of State for Education and an independent chair. The three unions responsible for negotiating pay and conditions for school support staff, UNISON, GMB and Unite, will also sit within the SSSNB.
School support staff comprise approximately half of the school workforce, and includes those in teaching and learning support roles, administration and catering. Improving job satisfaction of school support staff by addressing the challenges they face is aimed at increasing employee retention rates and ensuring schools can operate effectively. The SSSNB will deliberate the pay and conditions of support staff working in state-funded schools in England to ensure staff are paid fairly and feel valued in their work. It will seek to balance consistency with flexibility by setting a core, national pay and conditions base level which all employees are entitled to, upon which individual employers can improve by way of increased pay and improved conditions should they choose to.
The SSSNB will also seek to address the recruitment and retainment issues in schools by exploring and advising on the training and career progression opportunities available to support staff, which the Secretary of State can use as the basis for statutory guidance.
Consultation
The Government recently ran a consultation to inform its approach to the SSSNB. This consultation, which came to an end on 18 July 2025, focussed on the following key areas:
- The definition of “school support staff” for the purposes of the SSSNB
“School support staff” refers to non-teaching staff working within state-funded schools in England, including academies and schools within multi-academy trusts.Under the Employment Rights Bill as currently drafted, “school support staff” includes those in executive roles but does not include employees of academy trusts, such as HR and admin staff, who are not based at the school itself but work in a central office. Due to the differing needs of these groups, it is important that all and only school staff in supporting roles fall within the remit of the SSSNB, regardless of their location of work - Widening scope of SSSNB to include agency workersThe Government is also considering the practical impact of including agency workers within the scope of the SSSNB so that they too would be entitled to minimum pay and conditions. The Government considers the best approach may be to include within the SSSNB only agency workers who have a contract with an agency to work in school settings (directly employed school support staff). The Government considered the way in which agency workers supply schools with support staff and under what contracts as part of the consultation. Should agency workers be included, the SSSNB would likely to need to include a representative for agency workers.
- An assessment of how pay and conditions of school support state are currently set, including a call for any evidence of such;
- The pay protections which may be necessary for certain, individual employees.
Looking forward
The precise mechanisms for setting pay and conditions will be determined by the SSSNB once it is established, with recommendations on pay not expected to be made until 2027/2028 at the earliest. The Michelmores team will continue to provide updates on the SSSNB as the government announces further detail. To discuss anything raised in this article, please contact Heidi Brown.