New universal minimum pay and conditions for school support staff will kick in next April “at the earliest”, the government has confirmed. The Department for Education has published its response to its consultation last year on plans to establish a school support staff negotiating body (SSSNB). The SSSNB will negotiate pay, terms, and conditions for school support staff, ministers have said. The negotiated terms will replace the current system, which exempts academy trusts from following national pay and conditions. At present, only support staff in council maintained schools have their pay and conditions negotiated on a national level, though in reality many academies base their own conditions on the same terms. The government hasn’t set out what the new pay and conditions rules will be because they will need to be negotiated by the SSSNB and unions representing support staff. Here’s what schools need to know… Who will the new pay and conditions apply to? For the purposes of the SSSNB, the DfE has said “support staff” will mean “directly employed staff, other than teachers, who support the operation of schools, including supporting pupils, school facilities and school processes, up to and including middle leadership roles”. This will include academy trust employees in support staff roles who work from locations other than one or more academies. However, it will exclude executive leaders working for academy trusts. Ministers recently announced that they will in future require trusts wanting to pay executives over £174,000 a year to get government approval. It will also exclude senior staff with “strategic responsibilities”, including finance directors and senior business, finance and operational leaders. The government has also said it won’t extend the SSSNB to cover agency workers “at this stage” given “limited evidence” and a “lack of clear consensus”. “The initial focus of the SSSNB will be on staff directly employed by local authorities, governing bodies and academy trusts in England.” Will those with more favourable conditions lose them? The government said it heard during its consultation from workers currently enjoying pay and conditions above the levels currently negotiated for maintained school staff. Its response confirmed that the SSSNB will establish “minimum statutory terms and conditions”, but won’t put “ceilings” on them. In practical terms, this means staff who currently have more favourable terms than any minimum set by the SSSNB “will retain them”, while those whose terms fall below SSSNB minimums “will be uplifted to the statutory floors”, the DfE said. “Employers will continue to have the flexibility to offer more than the statutory minimums, ensuring they can respond to local needs and labour market conditions.” When will the rules change? The DfE has said responses to its call for evidence emphasised the importance of “moving smoothly” from existing arrangements. As a result, staff will keep their current arrangements for the rest of this financial year, which ends in March 2027. SSSNB outcomes, which again are yet to be negotiated, will then apply from the 2027-28 financial year “at the earliest”. Government said the “initial focus of the SSSNB will be on establishing new minimum levels for terms and conditions with incremental changes to contracts that lead to cumulative improvements in support staff terms and conditions each year”.