Sheffield school staff receive payment offers over equal pay claims
The payouts – which last year were predicted to cost £15m for city school staff – are being paid by the council to address years of pay injustice.
Sheffield school workers who have launched equal pay claims are beginning to receive their settlement agreements this week.
The payouts – which last year were predicted to cost £15m for city school staff – are being paid by the council to address years of pay injustice.
Last September Sheffield City Council announced that it had signed agreements with trade unions to pay around £36m for payments in total owed to its staff in around 260 job roles, bothin within the council and in schools.
The payments recognise that hundreds of mainly female workers were systematically underpaid for work of equal value to men.
The GMB trade union – one of three that represents council staff – launched an equal pay fight in October 2023.
Peter Davies, head of the GMB’s Regional Equal Pay Unit, said: “This week marks a powerful moment for working people in Sheffield.
“For many of these workers, this money will make a real and tangible difference to their lives.
“This progress reflects the collective work between GMB and Sheffield City Council to address historic inequalities.
“We need to ensure that pay injustice is never again something council employees in Sheffield are forced to experience.”
The council made a statement that said it reached a landmark equal pay agreement last year with recognised trade unions UNISON, GMB and UNITE to “resolve historical equal pay issues across the organisation including community-maintained schools”.
This work is being delivered in stages – as part of delivering on that agreement, eligible employees in community-maintained schools are now being contacted with their individual equal pay redress outcomes.
Just over 1,000 employees across 38 council community-maintained schools received their offers this week.
The council said that the number of employees receiving offers at this stage is slightly lower than figures referenced last year.
This is because six schools have since converted to academy status and eight schools have not yet completed the required data assurance process.
Schools that have not yet completed the data assurance process or have recently converted to an academy will be included later this year, once that work is finalised.
Community-maintained schools are being treated separately from other council services, because the process needed to be tailored to work for schools.
Payments to eligible staff will not be funded from individual school budgets.
This stage for community-maintained schools is the next part in a planned process which started last year and does not represent a new scheme or a change to the council’s position, the statement added.