Payroll update 1 October 2025

 

Kia ora koutou

We hope you’re enjoying the term break. This payroll update has information about a new collective agreement, new leave legislation, new salary assessment letters, and some tips for using our website and protecting your school from phishing campaigns.

School Caretakers, Cleaners and Canteen Staff Collective Agreement (SCCCA) 2025-2027

The new SCCCA collective agreement (CA) features an increase in pay rates and travel allowance rate for all employees covered by the CA from 10 July and its corresponding Individual Employment Agreement (IEA) from 2 September. Employees are eligible for camp overnight (ONIGH) and first aid (FAID) allowances, and overtime has been increased from 1.25 to 1.5 for cleaners and canteen staff. Groundstaff are reclassified as caretakers and the new agreement has been renamed to reflect this. For more information, see the SCCCA agreement on the Ministry’s website.

What you need to know

From 14 October, payslips will show the new pay rates and allowances, and the new agreement code will show in the SUE report.

New hires

From 6 October, schools can select the new SCCCA and IEA from the contract details drop down list in EdPay. The previous award (Caretakers, Cleaners, Canteen and Groundstaff) CA and IEA, and the designation Groundskeeper, will no longer be available.

If you recently submitted a new hire with the old award and designation before the new agreements were available in EdPay, you don’t need to do anything. We will update these as needed.

Current employees on an IEA

For current employees who sign the new IEA, please use the IEA change screen in EdPay to enter the date they signed, then submit the screen. If they signed before 30 September, the change will be back dated to 25 August. We will process these changes from pay period 15.

Go to EdPay > My School > Administration > IEA Change. For instructions, see the IEA change screen on our website.

Proposed employment leave bill

The government has proposed new employment leave legislation to reform the way leave is accrued and paid. Education sector workers won’t be disadvantaged because their current entitlements are broadly equivalent to the proposed bill, but we will need system and practice changes to comply with the new legislation

Until the legislation is implemented, the Holidays Act 2003 and existing leave entitlements under collective agreements will continue to apply, and the Ministry will continue to pay remediation until the schools’ payroll complies with the new legislation.

We will update you when we have more information.

New salary assessment letters

We’ve been developing new salary assessment letters which we will begin using soon. In response to your feedback, our goal was to make the letters and the process more user-friendly and easier to get right the first time.

Using the advanced search on EdPay.govt.nz

Here’s a tip for getting better search results on our website by using the advanced settings.

Cyber security advice from Network for Learning (N4L)

We’ve been upskilling ourselves at Education Payroll. Due to the rise in the amount of phishing emails targeting schools and other organisations that hold personal and financial information, we have had extra training in cyber security. N4L’s blog site has some good advice about how to recognise email scams and protect your school from phishing campaigns.

Kia tino pai te wiki. Have a great week.

Ngā mihi

Education Payroll