Programme/course leaders - do you get paid extra?

[YanTanTetheraPetheraBumfitt]

Not sure what the differences are nationwide but I currently get a few £hundred extra a year for this. The university have said they are looking at removing the payment. It’s not a massive payment at all but just feels like yet another kick in the teeth after years of below inflation pay rises.

I know in secondary schools HoDs get extra payment to reflect the extra responsibility.

Feel like saying stuff it, won’t do it then. 😂

No. They floated the idea a couple of years ago but it went quiet. This year they have changed the workload so we don't get any set hours for it - it is done at the HoD's discretion...

I’m supposed to get hours for it but it’s all gone quiet and nobody will tell me how many hours. Work load planning doesn’t seem to be shared with the actual individual employee anymore. I asked to see my chart last year and all emails were ignored 🤷‍♀️. I know I’m way over 100%. But if I can’t see it how can I argue it?

No, alas.

@YanTanTetheraPetheraBumfitt I hate the whole farce of workloading. It should protect us but it's just a stick I find.

Totally. Although I have been told I have too many teaching hours. No shit, we’ve lost over 25% of the dept to redundancy what do they think was going to happen 🤷‍♀️. Someone needs to do the teaching.

Guess I should be glad I had a few years of the payments 😁. I assumed most universities did it. Seems not.

We don't get paid extra for programme or departmental leadership things. I think the exec used to get an extra £200 a year but that disappeared at some point. We are supposed to get workload time but it's a token amount. Like others, we have been hit with redundancies and the workload time is now moot.

Same at our place. There's a minor uplift for head of department if you're not already on the higher pay scale or something but it's not much.

The actual job is lecturer/senior lecturer/principle lecturer and the responsibilities are just roles until you get if Head of Institute level.

We get hours but no money. I stopped doing it two years ago and it's now done by someone who's eager and keen to progress/impress.

We get hours but no extra money for programme leader. We do for the level above but that is basically lead at faculty level for all the programmes within that which in my faculty is about 25. However this is only £1k per year which works out at £80 something a month before tax so after all the deductions it equates to less than a cup of coffee per day. I have been programme leader for a while and it is extremely stressful and I’m responsible for a programme that brings the university hundreds of thousands in fees (there’s around 250 per cohort).

Crazy really, can’t think of many other sectors where you’d get no recompense for such responsibility and leadership.

Maybe it’s time to hand the reins over.

Retired now, but programme leader was a senior lecturer role, so no extra money if at that grade.

It's on your cv now so there's proof that you're capable and experienced. Don't drag it out any longer than you need to. They'll find you something else anyway. I'm employability lead now. Lucky me!! It came with 50 hours and was just UG. This year they've added PG and CPD courses and reduced the hours. Professional courses so lots of external work with employers and potential for reputational damage if I mess up; sort of role that used to get you principal lecturer.

My experience is that the programme lead is whoever they can convince to pick up the role. Never been any pay premium for the role. It tends to be sold as “an opportunity” that could be used to support promotion applications. We’ve had a promotion freeze for the past two years so that’s wearing a bit thin.

I'm FE rather than HE but no, no extra money or hours.

No extra money but it does have a workload allocation.

I’ve no interest in promotion or how it looks on my cv, am counting down to when I can afford to leave and get a minimum wage job. 😁

No, not just for course or programme leadership - it’s seen as a normal part of one’s duties at SL and above, and a useful part of a promotion case for lecturers ( humanities, Russell Group). It’s seen as an essential experience for my junior colleagues once they’re past probation.

I’ve been paid an HoD allowance when I’ve done that job ( for a lot of the last 25 years!) but IME, HoD is a much harder job than simply heading up an MA programme, or convening a big first year module - and I’ve done all those things.

But our largest cohort size is around 150 students - our first year intake, so I assume it’s quite different in really big intakes of over 200.

We don’t have a promotion freeze - yet. That sucks for people who got jobs against all the odds two years ago. I’m sorry to hear that it’s being implemented in other institutions.

At my place, professors had their last pay rise two years ago and there’s a freeze on further rounds. Better that way round, of course, although the more senior one is at my place the more one is expected to do. Like the rest of HE, professorial status is no longer the sinecure it was. The only reason they leave me alone is that I bring in a very large chunk of external funding every few years.

And yes, convening has a workload points allocation at my place.

It is also unpaid workload allowance at my place

We had a restructure about 10 years ago and I got a senior role (that I did really want) and got an extra £250 a month! Woo!
However after 3 years that was stopped although I carried on the role - the alternative was someone else taking it on who was (I thought) quite useless and I couldn’t face being subordinate to them.
I still do that role, plus PL, plus other responsibilities for no extra money at all 😥It is workloaded, I try not to work weekends and I have a good amount of autonomy in running my team, so it’s just about manageable.
They’re getting a bargain though!

Interesting this is considered a SL role in other institutions. I’ve been PL of a successful professional doctorate for over 5 years at a RG uni, top of my pay scale, and unless I get funding (which is nigh on impossible in the social sciences) I am stuck at G8. It’s so frustrating what the university doesn’t value.

Edited to add no extra pay only hours on the workload.

Do any of you have a clear Course Lead job description? They have been rewriting ours for 18 months and with this new discretionary hours thing, it's all a bit up in the air.