How pay increments work for council staff

The Green Book does not give council staff an automatic yearly increment. It says basic pay is a point or points on the national pay spine, and it leaves each council to decide whether a grade is a single fixed point or a scale of several points, and what earns you a move up the scale. Many grades do have increments, but the rules, the dates and the number of points belong to your employer.

Fixed points and scales

Each grade is built from spinal column points (SCPs). The Green Book guidance sets out the two options open to local employers. A fixed pay point, sometimes called a spot salary, gives one rate for the job. A salary scale has several points, so pay can rise as you gain experience.

The guidance describes fixed points as simple and transparent, and a good fit for jobs where there is little to learn after the first few months. Scales can reward experience and help with recruitment and retention. They are less transparent and, in the guidance’s words, can be more open to challenge on discrimination grounds if a scale has a large number of increments. Traditionally, manual worker grades used fixed points and clerical and professional grades used scales. Councils can still use a mixture, but one that does not use a single system throughout needs an objective justification for treating jobs differently.

What decides whether you move up

The same guidance lists the approaches councils have used for progression within a grade:

• length of service
• skills and competencies
• contribution
• performance
• a combination of these

The Green Book does not choose one. The Single Status Agreement lets councils replace the traditional automatic progression by length of service with something else. The guidance also records that the Local Government Pay Commission recommended moving away from long service-based scales, towards a small number of service increments followed by progression based on skills or contribution.

Pay based on length of service has a legal limit. The Equality Act 2010 allows it up to five years. Beyond that, the employer must reasonably believe that longer service fulfils a business need, such as rewarding experience that improves performance. A scale with many points that you climb only by waiting is therefore the hardest kind for an employer to defend.

Where progression depends on contribution or performance, the guidance expects clear and relevant criteria, transparent assessment by managers and training for the managers doing it. It also expects an equality impact assessment.

How increments sit alongside the pay award

An increment and a national pay award are separate. The national award changes what each point is worth. The 2026 award agreed on 24 August is 3.3% on points 3 to 43 and on allowances, backdated to 1 April 2026 (see the 2026/27 NJC pay award). An increment changes which point you are on.

Suppose your grade runs from one point to a point three places higher. In a year when you move up one point, your pay changes because you are on a new point, and the award then changes the value of that point. The step between points varies along the spine, so no single figure shows what an increment adds. Check the pay table your employer publishes for the grade, or use the NJC pay spine guide to see how points are laid out.

What the Green Book leaves to employers

The Green Book text does not say when increments are paid, how many points a grade has or whether yours depends on performance. Those are local decisions, set out in your contract, a local pay policy or a collective agreement with the recognised unions.

Staff at the top of a grade get no increments, only the national award, unless the job is regraded. The regrading guide explains what happens then, and how councils grade jobs covers the evaluation that puts a job in a grade in the first place.

What to check

• Your contract or offer letter: does it name a grade with a single point or a scale?
• The employer’s pay policy or intranet page on progression, including the date increments are applied.
• Whether progression is automatic or depends on an appraisal or objectives.
• The point you are on now, shown on your payslip or a pay change letter, against the published grade.
• If you are part-time or term-time only, that the increment has been applied to the full-time point before your pay is scaled down. Pro rata salary explains the scaling.

If a progression decision looks wrong, start with your manager or HR, then use the grievance procedure and ask your union rep to help.