What the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) means for you

If you work with support staff in schools, you may have heard about the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB).

The new forum is being put in place as part of major changes introduced by the Employment Reforms Act 2025.

If you have any questions about the SSSNB, this blog is for you. It looks at who the SSSNB affects, how it will work, and when it comes into effect. It also explains how the body fits with the wider Act.

Why the SSSNB matters to maintained schools and academies

The SSSNB is intended to have far-reaching effects. It appears as one of the sector-specific measures in the Employment Rights Act, sitting alongside other reforms looking at job security and fair pay. Together, they form part of the government’s wider “Make Work Pay” initiative.

Right now, the 800,000-plus support staff at schools or academies do not have a dedicated national forum where they can negotiate on pay, terms and core conditions. Instead, they rely on local arrangements or the National Joint Council (NJC) framework. However, this body was not designed with the school environment in mind.

Soon, things will change. The Employment Rights Act 2025 empowers the SSSNB to bring employer and employee representatives together to agree on the minimum terms that every support staff member should receive. Once an agreement is reached, the Secretary of State ratifies it, and those protections are then written directly into employment contracts across maintained schools and academies. It’s also important to note that the new law prevents any new SSSNB-set minimums from worsening existing staff entitlements.

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Didn’t the SSSNB exist before?

It did, but only briefly. It was set up in 2009, before the incoming government abolished it. That meant none of its agreements came into effect.

So, although the government says it is reinstating the body, to all intents and purposes, this will feel like a change even for those in education fifteen or more years ago.

Who counts as “school support staff” under the SSSNB?

Under the Employment Rights Act, school “support staff” refers to anyone who is not a teacher. They must be employed by a maintained school or academy and work wholly at the school.

They include, but are not limited to:

• Office staff
• Business managers
• Technicians
• Pastoral leads
• Site teams
• Cleaners
• Catering staff

If you are looking for clarity, the final details on who is to be included will be revealed when the results of a consultation are announced (see the section on timelines, below).

How will the SSSNB work with school support staff and employers?

Not everything has been decided. However, at this point, we have a fairly good understanding of how SSSNB will work with staff representatives.

Essentially, school support staff and employer representatives will meet to agree on minimum pay, terms and conditions for school support staff.

Because the SSSNB is established through the Employment Rights Act 2025, it operates under its own statutory framework rather than the NJC arrangements traditionally used for support staff.

The Secretary of State has the power to refer issues to the SSSNB. They can also ratify agreements between school staff and employer representatives via regulations.

Ultimately, this is meant to make things better for staff. It cannot be used to make things worse for them or prevent employers from offering better than the minimum.

It’s also worth knowing that there is an opportunity for the Secretary of State to set out training and career progression via this body.

The timeline: when will the SSSNB start?

Right now, we know that school support staff will remain on their current arrangement for 2026–27. Things will not change until 2027–28 at the very earliest. That way, secondary legislation can be passed, the body can be set up, and a transition can be put in place, moving processes away from the NJC framework.

A public consultation looked into the scope of who should be included, and also looked into pay and conditions. The findings have yet to be released, but many have urged that top teams in academy trusts are not included.

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How does the SSSNB fit into the wider Employment Rights Act?

As we mentioned earlier, the body has been brought about as part of the Employment Rights Act. The ambition is to increase work security, improve pay and employment rights.

Other areas the Employment Rights Act addresses are:

• Zero-hour contracts
• So-called “fire and rehire”
• Reducing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal to six months
• Making statutory sick pay available from day one
• Providing new rights, such as day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave
• The establishment of the Fair Work Agency

What does the SSSNB mean for maintained schools and academies?

There will be some clarity provided by the SSSNB. You will have a national, minimum “floor” when it comes to school support staff pay and conditions. These will come from a process and body that is designed specifically for schools, as opposed to local government.

But remember: anything considered a contractual right cannot be reduced. You either meet those requirements, or go “above” them. This provides safeguarded, local flexibility.

If you currently use NJC as a reference point, then you may want to map against the SSSNB guidance once it is published.

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