NHS Employers say:
Agenda for Change is a new pay system which is intended to ensure fair pay and an understandable system for career progression. It is intended to pay staff on the basis of the jobs they are doing and the skills and knowledge they apply to these jobs. Instead of grades, all NHS staff will be placed (or “assimilated” into pay bands).
The NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF), which is linked to personal development and career progression, and maintained through annual development reviews and personal development plans, is supposed to ensure that this happens. AfC is designed to replace outdated differences between things that different NHS employees do and allows staff to progress in their careers by taking on new responsibilities. This is intended to allow jobs to be designed around patient and staff needs, improving overall productivity and the job satisfaction for staff. AfC will also introduce standard arrangements for hours, annual leave and overtime.
Besides creating fairer pay, AfC is intended to give flexibility to employers, giving them the ability to:
* design jobs around the needs of patients rather than around grading definitions
* define the core skills and knowledge they want staff to develop in each job
* pay extra when they face recruitment and retention difficulties.
All staff on Whitley Council contracts will be on AfC. Foundation hospitals can also use AfC. The NHS Staff Council (made up from representatives of all NHS staff) oversees AfC. The new pay system is intended to provide benefits for both individual staff and for the NHS as a whole. The NHS Employers organisation say that the key benefits of AfC include:
* a system that is fair and transparent
* recognition and reward for the skills and competencies staff acquire throughout their career
* employer flexibility
* greater support for team working through harmonised conditions
* flexibility to pay retention and recruitment premiums
* an easier system to administer
* a system that should improve recruitment and retention
NHS Employers has produced a very useful handbook of Agenda for Change terms and conditions.
Questions about AfC:
1. KSF is only as good as the manager who is properly trained to appraise workers according to the KSF framework. An appeals system for dissatisfied employees is not yet properly in place.
2. Progression through a pay band is dependent upon KSF which is in turn dependent upon training. In an NHS which is hard-pressed for funding training is the first thing to go. And the less training which is given the less you have to play your employees because they won’t be progressing because they can’t.
3. AfC has basically priced nurses out of a job, because under AfC nurses are now very expensive for the NHS to employ. Nurses voting for Agenda for Change was like turkeys voting for Christmas.
4. I regularly hear of anecdotal evidence whereby employers are not abiding by conditions of service agreed under Agenda for Change, either due to implications of cost for the employer or because they (and staff) are simply unaware of AfC terms and conditions.
5. KSF gives too much power to managers whose role it is under AfC to review (or appraise) staff. If the manager has another agenda (eg., budget) they can place obstacles in the way of professional development.
