probationer pay

[Guest]

I am a probationer about to finish my two year probation, i was retained for two years previous to being wholetime.  Currently i am being paid as a third year firefighter approx £19596.  will i have to sit the qualified firefighter exam after my probation in july or do i have to wait another two years for the exam, or is the exam now defunked?  No one in my brigade seems to know!  Further, does anyone know how much money i'll be on by the end of july?

[Guest]

The only answer that is a certainty is the fact that your 2 years retained service don't mean anything other than that you'll get your LSGCM after 18 yrs w/t service as opposed to the 20 yrs for those with no retained time.
For answers regarding the qualified Ff exam or qualifying period you might be better off contacting the IPDS hub at the FSC M-i-M. Or at least direct your Service to do this on your behalf.

[fireftrm]

What is going to happen was made quite clear in the pay Agreement and Position Papers on its implementation:

As a refresher (for you and your management!):

from Section 4.33
Whole-time Firefighters and Fire Control Operators with less than four years’ service on 6th November 2003 will be assimilated to temporary assimilation pay points with effect from 7th November 2003. These assimilation points are equivalent to the current pay points (up to and including fourth year) enhanced by 7% with effect from 7th November 2003, 4.2% from 1st July 2004 and subsequent pay increases. Employees in this position will continue to receive increments on the assimilation points related to their length of service. They will move onto the competent rate of pay once they have completed four years’ service or are deemed competent in IPDS terms, whichever is the earlier

The full pay scales are in the Appendix B, which went with the position Statement on implementation - and was posted to every FBU memebr personally.

Hopefully this answers your question.

PS the qualified exam was only available for those Ffs who, on reaching fifth year, had not passed the L/Ff - you would not have been taking it in your third year anyway. it no longer applies at all. Also as the previous guest says 2 years retained service do not count toward any wholetime service (for pay purposes), the first increment requires 3 years retained and then the next is 6 years (no more).

[Guest]

I am rather puzzled as to what you mean exactly in the last part of your statement re. 3 & 6 yrs retained service. As an expert on the subject perhaps you can enlighten a lay-person such as myself as to how this 3 & 6yrs retained service links to w/t pay. Surely it must also be dependant on competency and not just time served.

[Guest]

I am in the same situation as you. I am also in my third year wholetime, and currently earning £20,283 which is the 'developement 'rate for a firefighter which is a firefighter who is still under supervision and bieng assessed. To receive 'competant rate', 'all neccessary functions should have been assessed and sufficiently achieved by the employee'....
I have just finished and passed my NVQ level 3, which demonstrates competancy in the workplace, but I am still not getting competant pay.
I would like to know what firefighters in my position are getting in other brigades. Is there any body getting competant rate after passing their NVQ ? My brigade cannot tell me what qualifies me as competant. Surely my NVQ should show this otherwise what is the point of doing it!

Any replies or clarification would be appreciated as I am giong to start a formal grevience against my brigade if other brigades are paying competant pay on completion of their NVQ.

[Guest]

above post please read competent instead of competant, and grievance instead of greviance. Sorry for my appalling lack of spelling knowledge!

[fireftrm]

Retained service to pay - under the EXISTING grey book retained service counts toward wholetime service (for pay purposes only) as 1 year WT for 3 RT and 2 for 6. No more. This is unlikey to exist in the new Grey book.

Competent pay is for the full Firefighter role, that is 9 units. The NVQ L3 is awarded after competence has been demonstrated in the 6 core units together with 1 optional - 7 only. To get to full pay it is therefore going to be demonstration of competence against all 9 - though the nicely 'woolly' description about driving in the Joint Secretaries statement of 16/03/04 makes it seem that 8 will suffice?

Ask your brigade how they are to apply the competent pay award and whether you need to demonstrate against 8 or 9!

[ali131]

I wonder if anyone could shed any light on this problem.

Before joining the w/t, I was retained for 7 years, so therefore qualified for the 6 years retained service counting as 2 years w/t.

When I received my contract it stated that the starting salary would be £18,843 but my Brigade paid me £17,982. They said my contract was incorrect and put me on the lower rate as this was the accelerated entry to the scale (22 years and over) and this would increase to £18,843 after one year. I had to fight for 12 months to get my Brigade to admit they where wrong and to pay back pay.

My salary is now £20,283 and thay are saying that I will not proceed to the fourth point until I have completed 3 years service in the rank.

My argument is that I never entered on the accelerated entry (paragraph 5). My Brigade admitted they where wrong at the beggining and my salary was worked out using paragraph 4(4)(g). There is a note to the bottom of this and I quote.

"This provides for entry above the minimum of the scale to be related to service and progression up the scale should therefore be in accordance with normal practice (three completed years of retained service counting as one whole-time year). It is not to be applied in addition to the existing provisions for accelerated entry to the pay scale".

It states that it should not be applied in addition to the existing provision for accelerated entry, which says to me that the section in paragraph 5 which says, "a firefighter shall not proceed to the fourth point until before he/she has completed three years service in the rank" does not pertain to myself. I also asked a friend of mine who is a lawyer and the statement "progression up the scale should therefore be in accordance with normal practice", can have several meanings. One of them being that normal practice in most workplaces being yearly rises.

Also, my probationary folder has been completed and signed by my Station Officer who has deemed me competent. It has now been sent further up the chain to be signed (eventually by the Firemaster).

1. Can I claim for full salary as my Stn O has deemed me competent?
2. Can this be back dated to when he signed the folder off?
3. If Headquarters do not deem me to be competent, would that mean
    that they are would be questioning the competence of my Stn O
    himself as he was the one who deemed me competent?

On a final note. If I pass my L/ffs practical exam, how will they be able to deem me competent to be an L/ff but question my ability as a Firefighter?

Is there anyone else out there with the same prediciment as myself?

[Guest]

Achieving the 'Emergency Fire Services Operations in the Community' NVQ Level 3, does not qualify you as competent for pay purposes. To receive competent pay you demonstrate competence against the Firefighter Role-Map, which contains nine units of competence, the NVQ only contains seven.

N.B.Unit Nine 'Drive, Manoeuvre and Re-deploy Fire Service Vehicles' is not confined to EFAD, it can be any Fire Service vehicle on 'Blue Lights' in the context of your employment.

Hope this helps

[fireftrm]

Ali

The retained extra payment for years works through your service time thereafter, so you move up the scale as if you started with 2 years service. You DO NOT 'stick' until the years are up. tayside have a full NJC decision on this and this is applied in my service (Northumberland) correctly. You would have (though it won't apply to you now) moved into 15 year long-service after 13 years wholetime service. The rule will not exist in the future but you should have had it applied up to now.

Your 'probation' folder is unlikely to mean FULL competence, just the end of probataion, unless it covers a full assessment against the FULL NOS (all 9 units for full competent PAY purposes - though the greyness of the agreemeent on Unit 9 makes that not critical!)

Passing your L/Ff exam DOES NOT deem you competent to anything AT ALL. There is no such role as L/Ff and even if there were this WAS as statutory examination to QUALIFY a person to be PROMOTED to that 'rank', once there you would be able to show competence in that 'rank' - though this was never assessed and no different pay scales were attached on that basis. New role holders will ALL be assessed and  will be 'in development' and only acheive competent pay when so deemed. In order to move into the next role you will HAVE to be COMPETENT in the existing one (thus no Firefighter can ever be put into a Crew Manager development programme/position until they have been deemed competent in the Ff role), go through an Assessement Development Centre (ADC) then be appointed into a development role (each Service will be likely to have a selection criteria as well as the ADC as there may not be enough 'next role' positions to satisfy all the ADC successes). Once in a development role the holder will receive a  development plan, opportunities to demonstrate competence and will be assessed against the relevant NOS/Role Map. Once they have fully demonstrated ALL the competences required they move into the competent pay rate.

Please feel free to contact me for any clarification - I am also happy to discuss by personal email. phone etc after any private message.

[fireftrm]

I assume that my reply answered all - as it stopped the thread!?

[Guest]

either that or no-one could understand what you were saying!! seriously they were pretty good answers although the comment re the agreement on ninth element being a wooly is a little harsh!!

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer fireftrm, my brigade has now decided that they will pay competent pay after 3 yrs if you have passed NVQ 'operations in the community level 3', or 4 years in other cases. at least they have given me an answer, so I know where I stand!

[Guest]

dave, can you contact me privately on oncs@fbu-ho.org.uk

i have some concerns over your brigade using the NVQ standard for pay purposes. the standard is the National Occupational Standard not the NVQ. if you are competent then you are competent. there should be no need for you to obtain a qualification to demonstrate competence. i also have concerns as the brigade would probably need to have their system for moving from development approved by an external verifier, which to my knowledge has yet to be agreed, we are still working on the appeals process and guidance for ADC's currently, which are all linked. it sounds as if the brigade are flying kites to some extent, although im sure that those passing the information are only trying to help. there appears to be some 'money grabbing' going on by some brigades who are insisting on NVQ's (and therefore attracting funding for doing so)and trying to make it appear beneficial to staff, instead of them introducing and implementing procedures to bring people out of development by using the NOS and role maps

thanks

dave bev

[fireftrm]

Dave Bev

The NVQ falls out of any assessments against the NOS, where the additional quality assurance mechanisms and recording systems are used, they are no different other than that - oh and the fact that the NVQ lays down a stricter interpreation of the number of ocasions required. That the NVQ standard is 'different' seems to be a misapprehension held by many - the NOS is the set of standards against which you are assessed in order to gain the qualification (NVQ). The main difference for us is surely that the NVQ is the 6 core units plus 1 option, whereas 'competent' pay is all 9 (the 'guidance' on unit 9 being taken into account!).  As the workplace assessment guidance uses exactly the same methods as the NVQ assessment requirements then this should ensure that anyone being assessed (whether within, or without the NVQ recording and quality assurance systems) will have the same levels of competence?

I am totaly lost on the 'your brigade should have had the move from development approved by an external verifier'....if the brigade is an NVQ centre (and Dave's is part of the Scottish national centre) it will, by default have been approved for the award of the NVQ - how the individual is developed has absolutley nothing, whatsoever, to do with the EV - they are (and should be put in their place if they consider otherwise) only there to ensure the quality assurance of the NVQ assessment process. Previous fire service EVs have had their 'noses' inot training etc - quite inappropriate and quite, quite outside their role.

I am also a little confused as to the ADC and appeals process - the ADCs are for 'promotions' and the appeals should not be necessary where an existing (national approved by an external awarding body by dint of that the QCA) appeals procedure in the NVQ centre - which it MUST, or there would be no centre! If the appeals procedure is for the non-NVQ brigades fine.

Your point about money-grabbing is also a little disingenuous - the vast majority of FS NVQ candidates cost their service money, in registartions and the time spent developing qualified assessors and verifiers and supporting the NVQ process. Yes there is the possibility of getting Advanced Modern Apprenticeship funding for some - but only those who can complete before their 25th birthday! the NVQ process allows the demonstration of competence to also give rise to a qualification, all wihtin a framework that is recognised in most other skill sectors, and is quality assured  by an external agency, this I consider to be a good thing and not to take the brigades to task over!

My concern would be Dave's brigade restricting the competent pay to a timescale of 3 years, with a NVQ the time taken should be candidate led - not set by the employer...............