Switching from private contract to department contract

Pat201 · 29-06-2022 11:07am #1

Hi all

Posting this question on behalf of my partner. She has been privately paid as a teacher in a private school for 7 academic years. Before that she was department paid and had a payroll number in another school. She has been offered a department contract now but is afraid she might go down the increments scales 7 year so in effect taking a paycut. She has been told by principal that it won't happen . Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Pat

rainbowtrout · 29-06-2022 8:18pm

Teaching in a privately paid capacity is counted for incremental purposes in Ireland, what she is missing out on is pension contributions.

Treppen · 30-06-2022 11:46am

The department will recognise her service and put it on the correct scale. It makes take between 1 to 10 months!!

Here's the form.

198399_66ee4d86-4c93-4b51-aee3-b145e9922bdd (1).pdf

What she needs to do is include the service she completed in the dept school before becoming private (get principal of that school to sign off ).

Then complete the record of service in current fee charging school and get that principal to sign off (I think she may need to photocopy a page at the end for multiple principals to sign.

For a full years services it's about 600 hours ( 32 weeks x 22 hrs per week). If it's under this she won't get the full point on the payscale. You just need the principal to say/sign that you did it.

Most important thing is PHOTOCOPY THE APPLICATION FORM WHEN COMPLETED BECAUSE THE DEPARTMENT HAVE A HABIT OF 'LOSING' THE PAPERWORK.

If the fee charging school were paying her the exact same she won't be down... although she will get pension deductions and other nonsense taxes taken off her with the department pay, so be aware of that.

She will be put on the new career average pension scheme which she should be prepared for a shock. Looks like she's 'ten years behind' other people who started on dept pension when they started teaching ... So she may need to consider contributing extra to make up the shortfall, this can be done through AVCs, but a lot of advice would be gotten .

Then again if your pension is privately taken care of through investments like property or shares or whatever then may not be a worry.

Just to add , it was the work of the ASTI that ensured fee charging schools paid the exact same rate as department , and that service would be recognised, so keep that in mind if she's not in a union. Many fee charging school's brook that agreement recently and pay their teachers way less.

Also this can delay a mortgage application as the banks might look for that dept payslip with the new salary scale on it. If there's a delay let the department know that you need it. On the other hand the banks look very favourably on dept pay Vs private.

Pat201 · 02-07-2022 11:30pm

Thanks for the information everyone. This is helpful and also reassuring with other information we've come across to date.

Treppen · 03-07-2022 2:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119282543#Comment_119282543

They should be owed back pay since they started on the department contract also.

Pat201 · 17-08-2023 12:57pm

HI @Treppen

Sorry to resurrect this thread but i believe your warning that private school may have paid less may have been true. My partner has confirmed the following .

She transferred to department pay sept 2022 on scale 10. School had her on salary scale 9 when she finished. She rang department and asked about her increments and was told she should be on scale 13 with the skips she should have got . They could not change here there and then as her increment date had passed ( Thats another issue she needs to sort). After she is placed on correct scale this year ( Scale 14) she will have to return to school to query why she was only on scale 9 after 9 years of teaching .

Pat

Treppen · 17-08-2023 6:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120990234#Comment_120990234

Keep in mind there's no legal obligation for any school to match the department increments (after legal case around 2010). Unless it's in their original contract.

Also there was a renegotiation of increment movements after the crash in 2008 from the department, so privately paid schools may have gone their own way .

Your partner might need to be careful in how she applied to have her service for increments recognised. I think the department requires 600+ hours of classroom teaching to give 1 year full service. There might be a small chance that she informed the department that she did the full 600 every year since she started. The school mightn't have batted an eyelid and signed the form before she submitted it to the department.

If she was staying out part time / not on full hours (more likely in secondary) then it won't reach the 600 hours needed for each scale point. So that 'might' explain what went on with the school appearing to come up short.

If this is the case she'll need to contact the department and tell them to bump back down the payscale 🤣... or take the Ryan Tubridy approach.

Best thing is to carefully sound out a few more privately paid teachers and ask them to check their pay scale. See if everything is being applied correctly.

Pat201 · 23-08-2023 8:20am

Hi @Treppen

Her School contract says that she should be paid in line with department pay. She has asked another colleague with 1 year less experience and she has confirmed she was ahead of my partner on scale so seems to me that school payroll department have made a mistake. I would need to check when exactly she was placed on wrong payscale but basically she has missed out on 3 incremental skip years so we are talking about a substantial sum of money.

I think it best she gets her union involved to navigate how to get this paid back while not causing a big issue. She teaches a primary subject on full time hours so she makes the 600 hours cut off anyway.

Pat

Treppen · 23-08-2023 1:12pm

Sounds good so, once there's another teacher who's ahead then that's the precedent set.

BTW "owed a substantial amount", usually comes with the burden of "owes a substantial amount of tax 😭. Perhaps it might be worth exploring if the amount could be spread out over this year and next year (or 3 years!) to reduce a potential tax burden.

Another way (if they're open to negotiation) is to give a class(es) off of her timetable and not pay the money back. Might reduce her workload or maybe give her the potential to avoid childcare costs if there's kids, or get a chance to bring/collect kids to from school. Just a thought, might be messy but who knows. If they start dragging heels then contact ASTI (regional area rep is usually better than ringing head office in Dublin).

Pat201 · 21-09-2023 9:08pm

Hello just to update on this . My partner has been moved to correct scale with department.

We still have some ongoing questions with the school regarding the salary scale she was on at end.

Below I have the increment scale. She started in 2013 but according to this she would be on scale 5 in Oct 2018. If I count I get that she should be on scale 6 ( 13,14,15,16,16,18). Does anyone know is this a mistake with TUI scale examples or was their a year where she was kept on same scale for 2 years due to a freeze ?

rainbowtrout · 22-09-2023 10:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121140421#Comment_121140421

Great to hear that your partner is on the correct point now.

There was an increment freeze in 2013, for teachers between 35k and 65k they had a 6 month freeze. The increment they were on at the time lasted for 15 months instead of 12, and the following one the same. This would have probably applied to your partner. E.g. my original date was in September and now it's in March as a result of the freeze.

https://circulars.gov.ie/pdf/circular/education/2014/05.pdf

Pat201 · 22-09-2023 3:49pm

Thanks for that @rainbowtrout. It's starting to make sense a bit more now . She only started teaching in 2013 so I wonder was she even on 35k at that time .

Pat201 · 24-09-2023 5:27pm

Does anyone Know when this increment freeze was no longer valid. It started in 1 July 2013 but when did it end ? I want to check did my partner have a 3 month freeze or a 6 month freeze ?

Was there any other increment freezes after this agreement ?

Pat

rainbowtrout · 25-09-2023 2:35pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121151396#Comment_121151396

It was valid from the time that circular was published. It applied to whatever your current salary was at the time, so if you were under the 35k, you had one freeze and if you were above it, you had two. It was a once off, in the sense that it was applied at the time and that was it. I was in the 35-65 bracket at the time so my annual increment which should have been applied in September 2014 came in December 2014, and the next increment came in March 2016 after another 15 months.

Pat201 · 25-09-2023 3:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155108#Comment_121155108

Hi Rainbowtrout

Does that mean that your increments' are still being applied in March now or did you ever revert to September again ?

I don't believe that my partner would have passed the 35k Mark until 2017 so wondering if it was still active then ?

Pat

rainbowtrout · 25-09-2023 8:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155335#Comment_121155335

Yes, once I had the two 15 month increments, I went back to 12 month increments, but they are now applied annually in March.

Switching from private contract to department contract

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