WHO CAN JOIN THE SSTA
Membership is open to:
- Registered teachers working in post-primary education in Scotland
- Registered teachers working as education support staff, such as education officers, advisers, members of local authority education departments, development officers, etc.
- Students studying for a secondary teaching qualification.
Membership of the Association shall be incompatible with membership of any other organisation having negotiating rights on the same national negotiating body as the Association.
The Association shall not accept liability for events or actions relating to an individual which have had their inception prior to his/her admission to membership or during a period when membership had lapsed.
Subscription Payments
An annual subscription, the amount of which shall be determined annually in December by Council on the recommendation of the Finance Committee shall be due and payable by each ordinary member (but not by a life member). The timing and method of payment of the subscription shall be determined by Council on the advice of the Finance Committee. Any member who fails to renew the annual subscription for any year before 1 March in that year, shall be deemed to have forfeited the rights and privileges of membership until such time as payment is made. Any member who has elected to pay the annual subscription by a monthly Direct Debit and who fails to make a monthly payment shall be deemed to have forfeited the rights and privileges of membership until such time as all arrears of payment have been made.
Current Subscription rates can be found at the SSTA website www.ssta.org.uk/subscriptions
Special Offers
‘50% off subscription fees for the first 12 months’.
The Special offer is available to:
- New* members.
- Applicants who have previously been in paid membership of the SSTA but have not been in membership for 3 or more years prior to making an application for membership.
Applications must be accompanied by a completed direct debit mandate with valid bank details.
The special offer is not available to existing members. Applicants who have been paid membership within 3 years of their application are to pay the full subscription rate.
* Applicant has never previously been in paid membership of the SSTA.
OVERPAYMENT OF SUBSCRIPTIONS/REFUNDS
The SSTA deals with thousands of financial transactions annually. As well as reporting in detail on subscription income, it is also appropriate to monitor and report on financial transactions where refunds related to membership subscription payments are made.
When refunds/subscription credits can be made?
Refunds on membership subscriptions will be made only in the following circumstances:
- Where an SSTA processing error has resulted in the SSTA overcharging the member for their subscription. For example, a member may have been incorrectly transferred from student membership to full newly qualified membership either because there is an incorrect training completion date recorded or because of a data processing error.
- Where a processing or system error has resulted in, or allowed a duplicate membership record to be set up and charged.
- Where a member has contacted the SSTA to cancel or amend a membership payment but where the SSTA has been unable to process that request in time to prevent further payment being taken, providing the cancellation request was submitted prior to the payment collection date. Telephone requests to the SSTA will ordinarily be processed immediately. Written requests (including email) to Membership are expected to be dealt with within 3 working days, but at peak workload times, this standard may not be met. It should be noted that even if a member contacts the SSTA before the collection date, because of lead times required for Direct Debit collections it may still not be possible to prevent collection of payment.
- Where a member has changed contract to a membership category with a lower annual cost having already paid in advance for a higher cost category. (For example, an annual payer transferring from full to retired membership part way through the membership year).
- Where a member wishes to transfer to monthly Direct Debit payments having already paid annually in advance.
- Where a processing or transaction error attributed to the SSTA has resulted in the member incurring bank charges.
Members who have paid their annual subscription and cancel their membership part way through the year are entitled to a refund based on the balance remaining calculated on the monthly rate to the end of the membership year
Refunds for members whose contracts have changed resulting in them being in a membership category with a lower cost but failed to notify the Association of the change at the time, will be limited to either:-
- a credit toward future subscription fees equivalent to that of the difference between the two subscriptions rates for up to a maximum of 12 months.
- a refund equivalent to that of the difference between the two subscriptions rates for up to a maximum of 12 months.
Who can authorise a refund?
In order to maintain effective monitoring and control, the authorisation of refunds will be managed as follows:
Temporary staff will not be allowed to authorise refunds, but can request the action of a refund. They are able to process correspondence relating to a refund they have requested to be authorised.
All refunds must be authorised by a Membership team or the Office manager.
Membership categories
- 9 to 1.0 FTE Permanent – Full Subscription
- 9 To 1.0 FTE, Full-time temporary – Half Subscription
- 0 to 0.89 Part-time (Permanent & Temporary) – Half subscription
- Job-share – Half subscription
- Retired – half subscription
- Probationer/NQT on the induction scheme– free membership for first 16 months date of first teaching post
- Probationer/NQT on the Flexible Route – free until the GTCs Standard for Full Registration has been met.
- Associate member/Student in training – Free
November 2016 v1.20
