Salary increases are applied in the Costing Tool in 3 ways:
- Pay rise (table): As a salary increment up the salary scale for staff with salary details.
- Salary table inflation: As a pay increase in the stored salary tables for staff with salary details.
- Pay rise (percentage): As a percent increase for staff with no salary details.
Where a funder won't fund pay increases but the costs still need to be accounted for in the project cost, policies can be applied to mark only the pay-rise portion of the staff salary as an ineligible cost.
Pay Rise (table) - Salary increment pay rises
When an existing staff member is added to the costing with their salary level/band+step, the costing tool can work out their annual salary increments. E.g., for a staff member starting at Band A step 4, their salary will increment in the following years up to A-5, A-6 etc., until the top of their salary band. Their monthly salary in months 1-12 will be worked out using the stored rate for A-4, then months 13-24 will use the rate for A-5 etc.
If existing staff need to increment on their anniversary of employment, that increment date can be provided in the supplemental data feed along with the band+post, otherwise they will increment up the scale in months 13, 25, etc.
If an existing staff member is at the top of the band, the costing tool will use the ‘percentage increase for staff with no salary details’.
This type of salary increase is displayed in the ledger as ‘Pay rise (table)’.
Salary Table Inflation - Stored salary scale pay increases
The data tables stored for use by the tool are marked with the date they take effect, so the tool can pick up the relevant rates for a given period.
When working out the salary for each month, the tool takes into account their salary band+step at that point, after any salary increments, and uses the relevant version of the salary scale for that month.
That means the tool picks up vertical movement up the scale (increments through their salary band), and horizontal movement across new versions as they’re published (2022->2023->2024 versions of the pay scales).
Any uplift added by newer versions of the salary scales is tracked separately from the base salary and increments and shows in the ledger as 'Salary table inflation'.
Policies can be applied to mark just the salary table inflation portion of the staff salary as ineligible, where a funder will fund salary increments but not salary inflation.
This type of salary increase is displayed in the ledger as ‘Salary table inflation'.
Pay rise (percentage) - Percentage increase for staff with no salary details
If a staff member doesn't have an available salary increment, such as honorary staff or non-academic staff where no salary details have been applied to their person profile, or for staff added manually to the costing tool and not via lookup, or when staff are at the top of their salary band, a percentage increase is applied instead.
This predefined percentage can be viewed under a costing's details tab > Policies > Oncosts & Overheads > Staff pay rises as specified by salary tables.
This type of salary increase is displayed in the ledger as 'Pay rise (percentage).
Example of salary increment and salary table pay increase
The image below is an example monthly cost showing salary increments + uplifts added over a multi-year costing:
