Kent Scheme Pay Award 2023

The Pay Award for 2023/24 has been approved by County Council. For this year only the Council has suspended the direct connection between TCP assessments and pay. This has been done to give the best possible reward to the majority of staff, recognising the impact of the current economic circumstances on everyone's lives, while still working to meet our own financial challenges as a local authority.

The Kent Scheme pay award is the positive and successful outcome of the pay negotiations with our recognised Trade Unions, who have balloted their members on this award.

Kent Scheme Pay Award Information for Schools

The bottom and top of the Kent Scheme pay bands between KR3 and the bottom of KR11 have been increased by £2,000. From the top of KR11 onwards, the pay bands have been increased by a percentage rate. The minimum Kent Scheme pay rate, KR3, rises by 10.4% to £11.04 per hour or £21,293 per annum, to reflect and continue to exceed both the rising National Living wage to £10.42 and the Foundation (real) living wage to £10.90.

Voluntary Controlled and Community Schools do not have discretion to alter their grade bandings. The expectation is that they continue to pay within the grade boundaries as set by KCC and suspend the link between pay and performance this year; applying the pay award to everyone who is in post. Foundation, Aided and Academies schools (where the Governing Body are the employer) are not obliged to follow Kent Scheme Pay and TCP. Where a school does not follow the KCC pay award timeline - an appropriate pay policy needs to be in place. In any event, schools cannot pay beneath any statutory minimum as of 1 April 2023.

View the Kent Scheme Pay Scale for 2023-24 here (PDF, 14.9 KB).

Normally, pay progression within a grade is subject to personal performance as assessed through the Total Contribution Pay (TCP) process and a percentage increase awarded for each assessment level. However, recognising the impact of the current economic circumstances on everyone's lives, while still working to meet KCC’s own financial challenges as a local authority, a general pay award independent of performance assessment was seen as appropriate. This means, for this year only, the usual TCP rules will not apply and there is no link between pay and contribution assessment. Everyone on Kent Scheme will receive a consolidated pay increase consistent for their grade and their pay scale position will be retained.

Current School Allowances

The school allowances available to support staff have also been increased by 6%. Details of the new allowances can be found here (PDF, 102.3 KB).

Performance assessments

We continue to recommend managers still have assessment conversations, so people understand how they have performed and are given a rating to reflect on the contribution they have made. Schools may choose to award a rating of successful, excellent, outstanding or performance improvement required as a formal record of their performance over the past year. The review meeting is also an important opportunity to identify performance objectives and learning and development needs for the next appraisal cycle.

Changes to Kent Scheme Annual Leave Provision

As we continue to work towards standardising annual leave entitlement for colleagues across all grades, the Kent Scheme annual leave arrangement has improved further. The new entitlement is shown below. The Concessionary Day remains.

There is an additional bank holiday on 8 May 2023 to mark the King’s Coronation. In recognition of this Community and Voluntary Controlled schools will be closed on this day.

From 1 April 2023, KCC will be adjusting the calculation for annual leave entitlement for colleagues who are employed on all year-round contracts and are joining or leaving the organisation. This will see the removal of the calculation based on calendar months and the introduction of entitlements based on calendar days. This does not affect the formula used to calculate annual leave for term time only colleagues. For further details  please contact your line manager or headteacher in the first instance.

Kent Scheme Newsletter for Schools

The Kent Scheme newsletter for schools (PDF, 123.6 KB) is also available for you to view and download and includes useful information about The Local Government Pension Scheme rates.

If you have any questions about any of the details of the Kent scheme pay award, please contact you line manager or Head teacher. This communication has also been sent from the Corporate Director’s office to the Head Teacher’s/nominated persons in each Kent school.