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Award of Discretionary and Accelerated increments to academic staff

Birkbeck is committed to rewarding staff contribution in terms of recognising their increasing skills, knowledge and experience at each academic level through annual incremental progression, but also by rewarding those staff whose performance and development is considered, and demonstrated, to be exceptional within their academic role level.

For the purposes of this procedure, exceptional performance and development is defined as delivery that, on a sustained basis, that substantially exceeds that which would typically be expected at the particular academic level and is not therefore recognised through annual Incremental Progression alone.

SCOPE

This procedure applies to all academic staff at the level of lecturer, senior lecturer or reader who have:

  • completed probation at the point of the application deadline
  • are eligible subject to their position on the pay scales and as differs by increment type and as outlined below.

Eligible staff may apply for a discretionary increment or be nominated for an accelerated increment in the same year that they may also have applied for academic promotion. However, if candidates are promoted within the same annual round, any dual application/nomination for a discretionary or an accelerated increment will not be considered.

For the award of either increment type, candidates will be expected to have achieved exceptional performance in at least one of the following four key areas of their full job duties:

a. Education and Student Experience

b. Research or Scholarship

c. Leadership and Management

d. Engagement

ACCELERATED INCREMENT

In very exceptional cases, Executive Deans can nominate their staff for an accelerated increment where they have room for accelerated progression within their grade level.

To be eligible, the nominee’s pay spine point, come 1 October following application, would otherwise be at least one point lower than the top non-discretionary grade maximum, i.e.:

  • Lecturers on spine points 31-41 at the point of application
  • Senior lecturer/reader on spine points 45-47 at the point of application.

PROCEDURE

DISCRETIONARY INCREMENT

Staff whose pay on 1 October, following application, is either at the top of, or at the penultimate point of their core grade, or at a discretionary point below the maximum of the discretionary grade range may apply to be considered for a discretionary increment on the grounds of exceptional performance. This includes:

  • Lecturer at spine points: 42, 43, 44 and 45
  • Senior lecturer/reader at spine points: 48, 49 and 50

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

  • Applicants will submit a discretionary increment application form (Word) (Birkbeck staff only), detailing how they have achieved exceptional performance in one or more of the four key areas of their full job duties.
  • The application must be submitted to their Executive Dean by 12 June 2023.
  • The application should not exceed one and a half pages - applications in excess of this will be returned for revision.
  • Having sought comments from the appropriate Assistant Dean, the Executive Dean will add short comments on the application and email it to  by 31 July 2023.
  • To help the Academic Staff Review Panel in its task, Executive Deans are asked to put their recommendations for discretionary awards in priority order within their school.
  • If support is given to externally-funded staff, the panel will usually require confirmation that the funding body will finance the additional salary increase and associated costs. In exceptional circumstances, the College may fund a discretionary award.