Those of you on Deaflink will already have seen this request, please, if
anyone here feels able, I would be delighted to have your responses, all
will be treated as confidential.
Many thanks
Dear colleagues
At a recent CHESS meeting the issue of payment for Non Medical Helpers,
Notetakers in fact, was raised by me. This was in response to the recent
notetakers conference where there was a great exchange of views and
experiences, I had two members of staff there.
There would seem to be a wide ranging scale of payment and I wonder if this
isn't something which could be collectively looked at and agreed?
Here at NTU I formulated a payscale which was informed by NATED rates for
notetakers, I tied the suggested scale to APT&C scales and implemented
increments to offer fairness and to allow for movement between the scales
linked to achievement and length of service. The rate begins at £7.40 per
hour and the ceiling is at £10.80, this is for manual notetaking, where
£7.40 is paid to a graduate with no formal notetaking training and £10.80 is
paid to someone who probably has the CACDP notetaking certificate, stage 1
BSL (possibly stage 2) and various other things in between, a PG
qualification, years of experience.
The exact details of people's employment are hopefully being changed so that
they may become contracted members of staff rather than visiting.
On costs have previously been charged at a blanket rate, but it is my
intention to address this also.
What I would really appreciate is some transparency here from colleagues
about what they pay, what they offer and what they charge. Any pointers to
where or how the rates were obtained from would also be extremely helpful.
I would add that we act as brokers for students and pay the notetakers each
week on presentation of a timesheet and charge the students or their LEA's
at the end of each term. The students 'contract' is with us as suppliers,
not directly with the notetakers, I would be most interested in hearing from
colleagues who operate in a similar way.
I promised I would feed this back to the CHESS working party, and I have
delayed in writing this, if anyone can give me quick answers I'll be most
appreciative.
Responses on or off list are fine, I will check with you before any
information is used.
Many thanks all, look forward to hearing from you soon.
Chris Baxter
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