SCHADS Award First Aid Allowance

Under clause 20.6 of the SCHADS Award, a full-time employee is entitled to the weekly first aid allowance when both of these are true:

• the employee is required by the employer to hold a current first aid certificate; and
• the employee (other than a home care employee) is required by the employer to perform first aid at their workplace.

For home care employees the second limb is different: the allowance is payable where the employee is required by the employer to be, in a given week, responsible for the provision of first aid to employees employed by the employer. That makes home care eligibility a week-by-week question — it can be payable in some weeks and not others, depending on who carries the designated responsibility.

Both limbs turn on what the employer requires. An employee who holds a first aid certificate voluntarily, without being required to hold it and use it, has no entitlement — and equally, an employer can't avoid the allowance by relying on a worker's certificate while claiming they never formally "required" it.

The allowance is a wage-related allowance set at 1.67% of the award's standard rate per week, which from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 works out to:

The pro rata rule comes from clause 20.6(b): eligible part-time and casual employees receive the allowance proportionally, on the basis that full-time ordinary hours are 38 per week. Paid across a full year, the allowance is worth roughly $1,114 to a full-time designated first aider — not nothing, and exactly the kind of amount that becomes a meaningful back-pay liability when it's been missed across a team for several years.

Because it is wage-related, the amount rises automatically each 1 July with the Annual Wage Review — hard-coded figures from previous years will underpay.

Four errors account for most missed first aid allowances:

• Paying it only when first aid is actually performed. The allowance compensates the standing responsibility, not the incident. A designated first aider is paid every week they carry the requirement, whether or not anyone needed first aid.
• Missing the pro rata entitlement for part-time and casual staff. The $0.56 hourly rate applies to every eligible hour, capped at the weekly amount.
• Treating certificate reimbursement as the allowance. Paying for the first aid course covers the training cost — it doesn't discharge the weekly allowance for carrying the responsibility.
• Home care: setting it and forgetting it. Home care eligibility is assessed per week based on who is responsible for first aid provision that week — rosters change, and the allowance should follow the responsibility.

CrossVault's Timesheet Validator checks allowances like this against every timesheet, so a designated first aider who stops being paid the allowance shows up as a flag — not as a surprise in a Fair Work audit. See all SCHADS allowances at current rates in our allowances guide.