Capital City College Group awards staff above-inflation pay rise

Capital City College Group’s Governors have agreed an innovative pay award for the Group’s staff, which staff will receive before Christmas.

The agreement, which has the endorsement of both the UCU and UNISON unions, will see all staff currently paid less than £55,000 per year receiving a 5% pay rise. Part-time staff including hourly paid will get their rise pro-rata. Senior management staff paid between £55,000 and £76,000 will receive a smaller rise of 3%. Both rises will be backdated to September 2018.

Executive staff paid more than £76,000 will not receive a pay rise.

Group Chair Alastair da Costa said: “It’s widely accepted that the further education sector has been under-funded for many years – resulting in a situation where staff have been under-paid too. We want to do something about this and we are fortunate that as a Group with some financial strength, we are in a position to do so.

“At the same time, there has been much talk in the sector and the media about pay gaps between different groups, including organisations’ executives and their staff. We are happy to be able to start to close this gap, by adjusting our pay award so that lower-paid staff get a proportionately larger raise than their higher-paid colleagues.”

Vice-chair of the UCU union’s further education committee and local lead negotiator Sean Vernell, said: “The UCU have campaigned for many years for fair pay for FE staff, and we are very happy that the Capital City College Group has agreed to make this pay award to all its staff. We are pleased that our local campaigning led to the Group negotiating positively with us. We hope that this is the start of a more constructive relationship between the Group and the union.”

Chief Executive of the Collab group Ian Pretty, said: “Retaining high quality teaching staff in our colleges is vital if we are to boost skills so that our economy can thrive. So it is welcome that the Capital City College Group – London’s largest college group – can reward its staff with an above-inflation pay rise.”