Staffing incentive status
Staffing Incentive Status is a provision of the teacher Collective Agreements. It provides incentives, such as the Staffing Incentive Allowance and reimbursement of Transfer and Removal costs, for teachers to take up positions in hard-to-staff schools.
Eligibility
Boards may qualify for Staffing Incentive Status under the category of location, or serious staffing difficulties as follows.
Location eligibility criteria
Primary, intermediate, or special schools may qualify for Staffing Incentive Status on the basis of the school’s location from the nearest professional and commercial services. To qualify, boards are required to demonstrate that to access regular services teachers must travel:
- 40 kilometres or more on a state or provincial highway; or
- 30 kilometres or more on a sealed secondary road offering easy driving conditions;
- 20 kilometres or more on a sealed secondary road containing more than 10 kilometres in total of winding, narrow, or undulating road.
Serious staffing difficulties eligibility criteria
To qualify, boards must demonstrate serious difficulty filling permanent full-time nationally-advertised vacancies, during the previous 12 months. This excludes those vacancies that may have arisen where the board has granted leave without pay, discretionary leave for which relief teacher reimbursement is not payable by the Ministry, study leave, sports or cultural leave and maternity leave. Boards must demonstrate continuous and positive efforts to recruit teachers to advertised vacancies, including advertising in the Education Gazette.
Consideration may also be given to granting SIA status where a board can demonstrate unusually high staff turnover and difficulty in recruiting suitably qualified relieving staff.
Application process
Boards that meet the location or serious staffing difficulty requirements may apply at any time for Staffing Incentive Status. Applications can be made on the Staffing Incentive Status Form available from the Ministry website at www.minedu.govt.nz/resourcingforms.
Review of status
Location: Boards with Staffing Incentive Status approved on the basis of location will retain this status for three years. The Ministry will review a school's Staffing Incentive Status after three years and annually thereafter, to ensure that the criteria are still met.
Serious Staffing Difficulties: Boards with Staffing Incentive Status approved on the basis of serious staffing difficulties will retain this status for three years from the date of approval.