Allowances
Allowances is the term used for extra pay given in compensation for working antisocial hours. The University proposal on pay reform has the following attributes:
- Reduction in rates – e.g. whereas the rate for weekend work at present is double time for most hours worked at the weekend (after the first four hours on Saturday), the University’s proposals effectively cut this to time and a quarter
- Changes in how the rates are applied – e.g. rather than a shift allowance on all hours worked, the University’s proposal gives staff who work shifts or otherwise antisocial hours a variety of different allowances (such as night pay and weekend pay)
- Arbitrary exclusion of some staff – e.g. staff in BOPS (formerly know as catering) are excluded from the vast majority of allowances
We’ve summarised the changes in detail below along with some of the union’s concerns. You can also download a summary of the changes in Excel table format.
In general we feel that the changes are rushed, and could have negative consequences for the staff who work these working patterns,
The talks on the pay spine were meant to be about increasing pay – the University has no financial reason to make these changes to our contracts, so why are they trying to force this through?
If you are reading this and thinking that you don’t need to worry about the changes because you don’t get any of these allowances or you think the pay increase outweighs them, we’d urge you to consider that:
- If the changes reduce the incentive to volunteer for additional overtime. This in turn could result in increased pressure on staff to work antisocial hours on a compulsory basis.
- Any increase in pay will be eroded over the years by inflation – an allowance is more resilient to this because it mulitiplies your basic pay. As a very basic example:
- if you had an allowance that gave you 20% on top of a £15 salary that would give you a rate of pay of £18 an hour.
- If they replaced that by increasing your basic pay to £18, then you might think you are no worse off.
- But imagine the next year’s pay rise is an increase of £1, taking you to £19 an hour
- You would have been better off having a £1 an hour rise on your old salary with the 20% allowance. This would have given you a basic salary of £16 plus £3.20 of allowances, taking your rate of pay to £19.20
- In general it’s important for union members to stick together and to vote down deals that would have major impacts on our colleagues as well as on us personally
The specifics of the University’s proposal are below.
Overtime (most contracts)
What it is
Working more than 36 hours a week (unless you are on an annualised hours contract in BOPS)
How it could change
Current rate: 1.5x
Proposed rate: 1.5x
Union concerns
No change to this allowance – but because of other changes it could become more important, to the detriment of staff who work part-time. This rate only applies if someone works more than full-time, even if you are contracted to work less than this (it is not an enhancement for working more than you are contracted to work).
Who gets this allowance (and who could be affected)
All full-time staff not on BOPS annualised hours contracts. Includes staff who do voluntary overtime as well as staff who have contractual overtime (such as security).
Working at the weekend (Mon-Fri contract)
What it is
Currently if you normally work Monday to Friday, you get enhanced pay for working at the weekend because these are your rest days.
How it could change
Current rate: Saturday 1.5x for first four hours, 2x after this; Sunday 2x for entire shift
Proposed rate: 1.25x (time and a quarter) for both days
Union concerns
This is a significant change and it could have some serious ramifications. As an example – many areas will rely on volunteer staffing to cover occasional events, which has been straightforward until now because of the attractiveness of the rate. Time and a quarter is obviously much less attractive and many staff will not see this as worth the loss of their time off. This could result eventually in pressure to make weekend work compulsory for more groups of staff.
Who gets this allowance (and who could be affected)
Library staff, Estates staff, anyone who works weekends, anyone part-time who works weekends likely to be particularly seriously affected. We should note that if your weekend shift takes you over 36 hours a week you’ll get the 1.5x “overtime” enhancement described above.
Working at the weekend as normal working days
What it is
Some staff have weekend work included in their contract as normal working hours, without being on a BOPS annualised hours contract. This could be on an “any 5 in 7” basis or on a fixed basis (e.g. you might work Wednesday-Sunday and have Monday and Tuesday off).
How it could change
Current rate: plain time / no enhancement
Proposed rate: 1.25x (time and a quarter)
Union concerns
While this is a positive change, time and a quarter is a very modest enhancement. Most staff this will cover will only see a marginal improvement in their pay. For example – cleaning staff who work weekends tend to work 1 in 8 weekends or 6-7 weekends a year. A typical shift would involve working three hours a day. 3 hours a day x 12 days a year divided by 4 gives a total of only 9 hours of additional pay across an entire year.
Who gets this allowance (and who will be affected)
This new allowance is likely to apply to cleaning staff on 5 in 7 contracts, security staff (as a partial replacement for shift allowance, sport centre staff.
Working on your days off (if you normally work the weekend)
What it is
If you are contracted to work the weekend but on a “standard” contract (not annualised or 5 in 7) you currently get an enhanced rate for working on your days off in the week.
How it could change
Current rate: 1st day off 1.5x for first four hours 2x after this; 2nd day off 2x for entire shift
Proposed rate: no enhanced rate proposed / single rate
Union concerns
As with the changes to weekend work this could have wider ramifications. While these staff will benefit from the new (small) allowance for additional weekend work, they will get a much worse rate if they ever work in the week. This could devalue the principle of giving everyone at least two days off – the value of giving up your day off has been drastically reduced.
Who gets this allowance (and who could be affected)
Anyone who has the weekend included as normal working time, particularly if they work extra hours in the week.
Night pay
What it is
This is a new allowance largely to replace shift allowance.
How it could change
Current rate: largely covered by shift allowance (see below)
Proposed rate: 1.5x on hours worked between 11:30pm and 5:00am
Union concerns
Our concerns relating to this are tied up with our concerns about removal of shift allowance, and the ramifications of this.
Who gets this allowance (and who could be affected)
Security, accomodation staff, energy centre staff, sport centre cleaners
Bank holiday and closed day working
What it is
An enhanced rate applies to all work done on a bank holiday or University closed day.
How it could change
No changes are currently proposed to this allowance (something achieved via negotiation). The rate remains double time plus time off in lieu.
Union concerns
There is no change to this allowance. We do have unrelated concerns about differences in how the rate is interpreted in different parts of the University.
Who gets this allowance
A lot of staff in many different departments.
Business and operations contracts (BOPS, formerly known as catering)
What it is
Staff in “BOPS” (the rebranded catering department) have contracts that exclude them from many allowances. This is continuing under the new system.
How it could change
The University’s proposals do not change the situation for these staff, but this of course does not make this fair. The following enhancements effectively do not apply to these staff:
- Overtime – they only get the 1.5x rate listed above when they work more than their yearly contracted hours. In practice this allows managers to avoid paying overtime altogether by unilaterally reducing working hours.
- Weekend / rest day working – no additional rates apply for weekend or rest day working for BOPS staff, even if they work more than 7 days in a row
- Night pay – no additional pay applies for working late for BOPS staff (and this is entirely possible for those doing bar work or working at events)
- Bank holiday and closed day pay – this should apply to all staff in BOPS still following interventions from UNISON, but we have had reports of new staff being excluded from this allowance too.
Union concerns
The University state that their goal in reviewing pay and allowances was to “ensure that any new pay arrangements were simple, transparent, easy to use, fair, commercially competitive and aligned to market pay” (emphasis added). We simply do not see how it could be fair to continue to exclude a large group of staff from your new system of allowances – this is building in unfairness and inequality right from the start.
The original decision to exclude staff from the vast majority of allowances was made by excluding them from many of the central support staff terms and conditions – which clearly sets a worrying precedent. We feel that now is a good time to make a stand about this, now that the University is seeking to change the contracts of all staff.
Shift allowance
What it is
Shift allowance is currently an additional percentage applied to the pay of staff who work particularly antisocial working patterns. It is quite complicated and often unfairly applied but the principle behind it is to recognise the negative impact these working patterns have on work life balance in general, rather than the impact of any particular element of the working pattern.
How it could change
Current rate: varies – could be 5%, 16%, 18%, 20% or 23% on all hours worked depending on area and how disruptive the working pattern is
Proposed rate: removed / replaced with new allowances
Union concerns
This is a major change which runs the risk of removing the incentive to work what are very disruptive working patterns. The change also involves a major change in principle – there will no longer be a broader recognition of how disruptive a non-standard working pattern can be on your worklife balance. Concerns raised by staff who work these working patterns include that they could lose considerable amounts from their overall salary, a lack of predictability in their pay and vulnerability to losing the replacement allowances if their specific working hours change.
Who gets this allowance (and who could be affected)
Sport centre staff, accomodation staff, sport centre cleaners, security, energy centre.
On call allowance
What it is
This is a single flat rate paid to staff for agreeing to be “on call” and attend campus if needed to resolve urgent issues.
How it could change
Current rate: normal working day – £28.26 for 24 hours; day off or bank holiday / closed day – £56.52
Proposed rate: £28.26 for 12 hours
Union concerns
In practice this is a neutral change – any “on call” shift on a normal working day will be 12 hours in length, while any shift on a day off or bank holiday or closed day will be 24 hours by default. By far the biggest portion of income from being on call comes from attending campus when needed – staff who work in this way will be much more negatively impacted by the changes to weekend pay.
Who gets this allowance
Largely staff in Estates who attend urgent maitenance tasks out of hours
BMSU and horticultural pay
What it is
This is a special rate paid to staff in the biomedical services unit and horticultural staff for work they might have to do outside normal working hours.
How it could change
Current rate: 1.75 x point 28 of the current pay spine (lower graded work); 1.75 x point 39 of the current pay spine (higher graded work)
Proposed rate: £24 an hour (lower graded work); £27 an hour (higher graded work)
Union concerns
This is a small increase to current rates but the long term impact of this will be negative on the whole. This is because mathematically a multiplier will eventually be more beneficial than a flat rate – even if the flat rate is increased every year as part of pay talks.
As an example:
- Imagine that the hourly rate for people who do this work is £15.43. A £27 allowance for them is around 1.75x their current hourly rate
- Over a number of years their pay would increase – imagine that they now get an hourly rate of £17.50. This is an increase of 13.4%. If the allowance increased by the same amount it would take it to £30.62.
- £17.50 x 1.75 is £30.63, making it slightly better than the flat rate allowance
Though this is a small change, it does have the impact of gradually reducing the multiplier applied to an element of antisocial working.