Staffing Review 2025 Frequently Asked Questions

A: The new job families pay and grading framework for support staff, for introduction at the commencement of the Seventh Senedd, provides a robust framework to enable Members as the employers of support staff to determine the appropriate pay-band and salary for each job role employed by them. 

The framework provides for four job families which reflect the various types of work undertaken by support staff, as identified by Beamans during their research and engagement with Members and staff. These four job families are:  

• policy and research; 
• communications;  
• casework; and  
• business administration.  

 

It also provides for four pay-bands:  

• Senior Advisor;  
• Band 1; 
• Band 2 and  
• Band 3.  

These replicate the pay-bands included within the current framework; the current Chief of Staff pay-band still remains but it is not included in the framework, on the basis that this is a specific role unique to Senedd Political Groups.  

Except for Band 3 each pay-band is divided into four incremental pay-points with staff to progress through the pay-points on an annual basis (i.e. on the anniversary of the date of commencement of employment) subject to satisfactory performance. Band 3 is divided into three pay-points. The number of pay-points per pay-band reflects the number of years within which support staff can reasonably be excepted to reach full competence within their roles. The four pay-points for most pay-bands also reflects that, from 2026, Senedd terms will last four years.   

This job families model reflects the job families pay and grading frameworks in operation in the UK and Scottish Parliaments, although some differences exist e.g. differing numbers of pay-bands.

A: In response to representations made by Members, Party Groups and Support Staff, the Independent Remuneration Board of the Senedd (the Board) has undertaken a review of the pay and grading framework for support staff in the Senedd as part of a strategic work programme to develop a Determination on Members’ Pay and Allowances for the Seventh Senedd.  

Among the aims of the review are to ensure that the framework enables Members and Groups to provide fair pay for Senedd Member Support and Group Staff and enables Members to recruit and retain staff with the necessary experience, knowledge and skills.  

The introduction of a new pay and grading framework provides for greater transparency in terms of the grading of roles and, consequently, salaries applied to job roles which more accurately reflect the level of responsibility and complexity of each role and that similar roles are paid equally.  

A: The Board undertook the review of the framework in two Phases. It commissioned the external pay and grading consultants Beamans to review the current pay and grading framework. During Phase One of the review, Beamans sought the views of a significant number of Members and support staff on the current framework. As set out in this report, Beamans concluded that the current framework requires fundamental change and has several constraints and inconsistencies.

The Board consulted Members, political groups, support staff and trade unions on its preferred option for a new framework based on the job families model. This is similar to the model adopted in the Scottish and UK Parliaments. There was broad support for the Job Families approach.  

The Board then commissioned Beamans to develop a new pay and grading framework for support staff in the Seventh Senedd, based on the job families model (Phase Two of the review). Beamans have engaged with support staff representatives and a number of Members to test the classification guide which sets out the proposed new job families and job characteristics at different pay-bands (but not salaries). 

The Board is now seeking the views of its stakeholders on a draft new pay and grading framework for support staff including revised salaries based on the findings of the benchmarking undertaken by Beamans. This is a consultation and the Board would welcome views from Members, staff and unions, prior to finalising its decisions in the summer. 

A: Members, support staff and trade unions representing support staff in the Senedd have been involved in the development of the new job families framework. Beamans engaged with a significant number of Members and support staff as part of their review of the current framework. The Board consulted all Members, political groups, support staff and trade unions on the recommendations made by Beamans following their review and the Board’s preferred model for a new framework. 

A number of Members and support staff and trade union representatives (including the Board’s Member and Support Staff Representative Groups) provided views on a draft classification guide (which sets out the new job families and job characteristics at different pay-bands, but not salaries) during its development by Beamans. 6 Members agreed to meet with Beamans to ‘test’ the guide against job roles currently employed by them, with the framework refined on the basis of this testing.    

Beamans also benchmarked the salaries of Welsh public sector job roles comparable to those undertaken by support staff and developed new pay-bands for inclusion in the new framework on the basis of this benchmarking work.  

All Members, support staff, trade union representatives and political groups are now being consulted on a draft new framework. The Board will take account of responses to the consultation before agreeing in the summer on whether to introduce a new framework and the final version of the framework.  

Summer 2025: The Board is expected to take a final decision on whether to introduce a new pay and grading framework for the Seventh Senedd including new salaries.     

Autumn 2025/early 2026: Members standing for re-election would be expected to grade job roles they intend to employ in the Seventh Senedd, in accordance with the new pay and grading framework. Guidance and advice will be available to Members to support them through this process.  

This process would need to be completed in advance of dissolution of the Sixth Senedd at the latest in order that support staff are employed in line with the proposed new framework and salaries from the beginning of the Seventh Senedd. Members of the Seventh Senedd would be able to pay staff salaries from the staffing budget available to them via the Determination on Members’ Pay and Allowances only where such staff are employed in line with the proposed new pay and grading framework.      

A: Yes, the Board has sought specialist external legal advice on many aspects of the new framework and the advice has helped shape the development of the new framework. This advice has not been published as it was provided to the Board on a confidential basis.

A: The Chief of Staff is a specific role employed within political groups. As only one pay-band is provided for the Chief of Staff job role the guide need not be used to identify the appropriate salary for a Chief of Staff.  

The nature of the Chief of Staff role is markedly different to the nature of other roles set out in the framework and classification guide and is not therefore reflected in the guide.   

A: The Senior Advisor role was introduced during the Fifth Senedd to provide Members with a specialist resource to assist with the scrutiny of Welsh Government policy and legislation. This specific remit means that the Senior Advisor role is typically focused on the areas of policy, research or communications. This was confirmed by Beamans’ research into the work undertaken by support staff.  

The casework and business administration job families do not therefore apply to the Senior Advisor role within the new framework. The nature of the Senior Advisor role, particularly when based in the constituency office, is such that there may be some oversight of casework or managing and co-ordinating staff but these areas will not be the main focus of their role.   

1. Beamans undertook benchmarking analysis of current support staff salaries using the Brightmine pay database, one of the UK’s most extensive pay databases. This work focused mainly on the pay for similar job roles or jobs with similar responsibilities within the Welsh public sector although pay within other sectors and geographical areas were also reviewed.

Beamans also considered the salaries paid for similar job roles within other legislatures and the Senedd Commission. This included consideration of the salaries paid for advertised job roles similar to those employed by Members including job roles employed by Members of Parliament. 

On the basis of this review of extensive data on salaries Beamans identified median salaries paid in the jobs market for job roles of the types employed by Members.  

These medians were considered by the Board alongside other factors including the Board’s own guiding principles and affordability to construct new pay ranges for support staff at each pay-band. 

A: Yes. Beamans’ benchmarking work took into account the salaries available to the support staff of Members of the UK and Scottish Parliaments as well as the salaries payable to Senedd Commission staff. 

In 2024-25, the salaries of Members’ support staff in the Senedd ranged from a minimum of £24,243 (pay point 1 of Band 3) to a maximum of £49,752. The salaries of support staff in the UK Parliament based outside of London ranged from a minimum of £22,318 to a maximum of £52,793. In the Scottish Parliament, salaries ranged from a minimum of £23,303 to a maximum of £52,556.  

Senedd support staff receive incremental pay progression to the maximum pay point in their pay-band, whilst the Scottish and UK Parliamentary support staff are often paid ‘spot salaries’ meaning their salaries are set at a particular level within the relevant pay-band and that their salaries may not reach the maximum of the pay-band.  

Furthermore, analysis of recent job adverts suggest pay for similar roles is often significantly lower than the maximum of Senedd support staff pay-bands (see further details in the consultation document). 

The benchmarking analysis showed that the current pay levels for support staff were broadly similar to median salaries for similar roles within the Welsh public sector, the Senedd Commission and support staff in the UK Parliament.  

112. The benchmarking work undertaken by the external consultants Beamans identified median salaries within the Welsh public sector for job roles comparable with those undertaken by support staff. The proposed new pay-bands are based on those median salaries with the maximum of each pay-band at 112.5% of the median and minimum of each pay-band at 87.5% of the median. This provides for a consistent pay-band width of 25% for all proposed new pay-bands. The current pay-band widths vary between 20% and 36%.

Different considerations apply to Band 3. Calculating the proposed new pay-bands in this way (87.5% - 112.5% of the median) would result in a new Band 3 minimum of £23,783. As set out in the Determination, the Board is committed to the principle that support staff salaries should not fall below the Real Living Wage which is currently £24,243. As such the proposed new Band 3 minimum is £24,243 (to be increased annually in line with the Annual Survey of Household Earnings (ASHE) figures for Wales) and will be subject to any adjustment to ensure pay points do not fall below the Real Living Wage.  

To note, the proposed new salaries (set out in the consultation document) were developed on the basis of benchmarking against Welsh public sector pay data for 2024-25. Those salaries will therefore be subject to the same ASHE Wales increase as will be applied to current salaries on 1 April 2025 and it is anticipated that they would also be subject to a further increase in line with the ASHE figure published in November 2026, prior to the new salaries taking effect in May 2026.  

It is proposed that the number of pay-points per pay-band in the new pay structure will reduce from the current five to four for all pay-bands except Band 3 for which there will be three pay-points.  

This reflects the Board’s view on the time period which support staff at different pay-bands can reasonably be expected to reach ‘full competence’ in their roles and therefore maximum pay i.e. four and three years respectively. Senedd terms will also reduce from five to four years from the Seventh Senedd onwards meaning support staff appointed at the beginning of the Senedd will reach full competence in their role (and their salary range maximum, subject to satisfactory performance, as now) by the end of that Senedd term.  

The Board is of the view that pay progression through the incremental pay-points on an annual basis should continue. The Board has rooted the proposed new salaries in Welsh public sector pay averages and the views of Members and staff that incremental pay progression should continue. Annual pay progression through pay-bands is the norm within the Welsh public sector (but not elsewhere) and the Board’s view is that this approach should be retained for the Seventh Senedd. The Board also notes that Members will continue to have discretion, where justifiable, to appoint support staff to a higher starting pay point. 

1. No. While the same 5 support staff pay-bands are retained (Chief of Staff, Senior Advisor, Band 1, Band 2 and Band 3) the pay points in the proposed new framework do not equate to the pay points in the current framework. The number of pay-points per band in the new pay framework will reduce from the current five to four for all pay-bands except Band 3 for which there will be three pay-points. The pay-ranges, due to the benchmarking of salaries, will also change. This means that salaries of current pay points will not ‘map’ exactly across to the new pay points on the new framework.

The proposed framework should therefore be considered a brand new framework rather than a revised version of the current framework. As such the pay-points on which to employ staff should be determined by Members taking into account factors such as the level of experience and competence possessed by staff, rather than the pay point at which they were employed at the end of the Sixth Senedd.  

1. The pay-bands within the proposed new framework are based on identified median salaries for job roles within the Welsh public sector comparable to those undertaken by support staff. The maximum and minimum of each pay-band lie a consistent percentage above and below those medians (referred to as the pay-band widths). 

Very narrow pay-band widths would be needed to avoid any overlaps between pay-bands. Very narrow pay-bands would not provide for much pay progression for individuals from the minimum (the usual starting salary for job roles) to the maximum of their pay-band. The current pay-band widths are between 20% and 36%. The Board has determined pay-band widths of 87.5% and 112.5% of the identified medians (i.e. pay-band widths of 25%) with four pay-points in the majority of pay-bands. Such pay-band widths provide for a fair amount of pay progression from the pay-band minimum to the maximum to reflect the progression of a staff member’s competence in a role over time whilst also avoiding extensive overlaps between most pay-bands.    

Limited overlaps between pay-bands are not an unusual feature of organisations’ pay and grading frameworks. Generally the overlaps between pay-bands within the new pay and grading framework are limited to the highest pay-point of one pay-band and the lowest pay-point of the next pay-band only.  

There are more extensive overlaps between the Senior Advisor and Band 1 pay-bands. This is because the competencies expected of staff employed at these two pay-bands are not markedly different with the complexity and level of responsibility of the Senior Advisor role only marginally higher than those of Band 1 roles.  

87. The pay-bands set out within the new pay and grading framework are based on median salaries identified via benchmarking for job roles within the Welsh public sector which are comparable to those undertaken by support staff. Proposed new pay-bands have been set at 87.5% – 112.5% of those identified medians. 

The Welsh public sector median salaries identified for job roles comparable with those at Chief of Staff, Band 1 and Band 2 are higher than the current mid-points of those pay-bands. Consequently the maxima and minima pay-points for those pay-bands are higher in the new pay and grading framework than in the previous framework. 

The median salaries identified within the Welsh public sector for job roles comparable with those undertaken by support staff at the Senior Advisor and Band 3 job grades are lower than the current mid-points for those pay-bands (2.3% and 3.1% lower respectively). It is worth noting that: 

• the proposed new pay-band width of 87.5%-112.5% is wider than the current Senior Advisor pay-band width of 90%-110% - the ‘starting salary’ would therefore be lower than at present but the maximum salary slightly higher in the new framework. 

• the proposed new pay-band width of 87.5%-112.5% is narrower than the current Band 3 width of 85.5%-114.5% - the ‘starting salary’ would therefore be higher than at present (and always reflective of the Real Living Wage as a minimum but the maximum salary would be lower in the new framework than at present. 

1. It is anticipated that staff on pay-point 5 of Band 3 at the end of the Sixth Senedd who return to the Seventh Senedd on Band 3 under the employment of the same Member would be facing a salary reduction directly as a result of the introduction of the proposed new salaries. These individuals would be offered pay protection (or ‘red-circling’) for a maximum of 2 years in line with the Board’s proposals. 

Any support staff facing a salary reduction for any other reason would not be offered pay protection, for example due to their employing Member assigning a lower pay-band to their job role in the Seventh Senedd or a lower pay-point within the same pay-band. Any such reductions in salary would result from decisions made by employing Members on the application of the new pay and grading framework and would not result directly and inevitably from the introduction of the new framework and pay-bands.  

1. The proposed new pay framework, including the new pay-bands and pay-points, are subject to consultation. The Board intends to finalise proposals in summer 2025 and Members who are standing for re-election in May 2026 would be expected to undertake a review of all current job roles before the end of this Senedd term. New salaries would commence from the start of the Seventh Senedd term.

A: Newly elected Members of the Seventh Senedd would employ their staff in accordance with the new pay and grading framework and salaries from the outset of the Seventh Senedd. 

If you are a current Member and are seeking re-election in May 2026, you would need to review the roles and change the contractual terms of employment of any current staff who would continue their employment into the Seventh Senedd to reflect the proposed new pay and grading framework and salaries. As the employer of staff it would be your responsibility to undertake the contractual change with your employees. 

If you did not change the terms and conditions of employment to reflect the new pay and grading framework your employees would remain employed on their existing terms but you would not be eligible to claim reimbursement of staff salaries from the staffing budget made available to you via the Determination on Members’ Pay and Allowances. You would have to find alternative ways to pay your staff salaries. 

A: Should the Board decide to introduce the new framework for the Seventh Senedd you would need to have identified the appropriate job family, pay-band and pay point for all job roles you intend to continue to employ in the Seventh Senedd, in advance of the election. You will also need to have consulted with staff and changed their contractual terms by day one of the Seventh Senedd (i.e. the first day after polling day for the election).  

 

It is envisaged that Members standing for re-election would wish to commence this job grading process by no later than autumn 2025 to ensure that the process is concluded in advance of day one of the Seventh Senedd.  

A: No, you would not need to undertake this work. 

A: Beamans have produced a classification guide which sets out the characteristics and responsibilities of job roles within each job family and at each pay-band. Views on the draft classification guide are being sought as part of the Part Two consultation. If the Board decides to introduce the proposed new framework and guide following consultation, the Board’s Determination will require Members to follow the guide when grading job roles.  

In addition, template job descriptions would be available to help identify the job roles needed to support your work and the appropriate pay-band for each job role. The classification guide and job descriptions would be supplemented by a step-by-step guidance document being prepared currently on the process to follow in order to grade job roles.  

The Senedd Commission’s Members’ Business Support Team would provide generalist HR advice and guidance to you to support the move to the proposed new framework. 

Where needed, additional funding to help meet the costs of any specialist external support needed by you would be available via the Board’s Determination, if the Board decided to introduce the new framework.  

1. The Board recognises some jobs would not fit neatly into one particular Job Family and there may be ‘hybrid’ roles that undertake activities or responsibilities from two or more families. This was raised in feedback from Members during the process of testing the draft framework which Beamans’ undertook. This feedback has informed the development of the guidance for Members. 

Guidance on how to grade hybrid job roles will be set out in the classification guide and the step-by-step guidance on the job grading process. Such roles should be graded on the basis of the main or substantive focus of the role and the appropriate job family for that type of work.  

A: The decision on the grading of job roles lies with you as the employer. All job roles to be employed in the Seventh Senedd would need to be reviewed and a decision made by you on the appropriate job family, pay-band and pay point for each job role.  

The Senedd Commission’s Members’ Business Support Team would be able to provide generalist HR advice and guidance as required. 

A: Yes, as Group Leader you would be responsible for ensuring that all job roles employed by you are graded in line with the new framework in advance of the commencement of the Seventh Senedd.  

A. The Board has considered the impact of the changes in the Band maximum pay points and has reflected this in its proposals for the staffing budget for the Seventh Senedd (see consultation document for more information). 

A: A final decision on the introduction of this new pay and grading framework and support staff salaries for the Seventh Senedd will be taken by the Board in the summer.  

If the framework is implemented, your employing Member would review your job role in line with the new framework in advance of the Seventh Senedd to identify the appropriate job family, pay-band and pay point for your job role. You would be involved and your employing Member should formally consult with you as part of the process. Full guidance and support would be provided to Members following the Board’s decision in the summer. 

Your employing Member would be required to change your terms of employment to reflect the new job description and any changes to the pay-band and salary for your role, and to do so in advance of the commencement of the Seventh Senedd in order to be able to continue to pay your salary from their staffing budget.  

Your salary in the Seventh Senedd would depend on your employing Member’s decision on the appropriate pay-band and pay point for your job role.  
 
If you are employed at the Band 3 maximum salary at the end of the Sixth Senedd and continue to be employed at Band 3 in the Seventh Senedd, you would be offered pay protection as the maximum salary for that Band is reduced in the proposed new pay and grading framework. Pay protection would be offered for a maximum of two years.  

Pay protection would mean your salary would be protected at the 2025-26 level meaning you would continue to receive the salary paid in 2025-26 (the last year of the Sixth Senedd) for the shortest of two possible periods – two years or the date on which the new salary for their job role surpasses the salary paid in 2025-26 (as a result of annual cost of living increases in line with the Annual Survey of Household Earnings). On the earliest of those two dates your 2025-26 salary would change to the new salary set in accordance with the new pay and grading framework.  

1. The Board recognises some support staff job roles will not fit neatly into any of the individual Job Families set out in the new pay and grading framework. Some staff undertake ‘hybrid’ roles that include activities or responsibilities which fall into two or more Job Families.

Guidance on how to grade hybrid job roles would be set out in the guidance on the process for grading job roles that would be available to Members. Such roles should be graded on the basis of the main or substantive focus of the role and the appropriate job family for that main type of work.  

1. No, any Members who are standing down at the at the next election would not need to undertake this work as your role will be made redundant at the election. If you are recruited to a role with a new employing Member following the election, you would be appointed on the new pay and grading framework.