The education secretary has said she will look at “how we can fund” any pay rise recommended by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), but said a grant would be “hard to guarantee”.
Asked in a broadcast today whether the next round of pay increases for teachers and support staff would be fully funded, Gillian Keegan said: “The difficulty in answering the question right now is I need to be given the challenge first, which is what the STRB will come back with.
“Then we need to figure out what that is and how we can fund that.”
Ms Keegan added that it is currently “hard to guarantee” any funding for pay rises when the department does not know what pay rise the STRB will recommend, but said she “has a track record”.
Her comments come after Tes revealed last week that multi-academy trust leaders have raised concerns that a pay rise above 2 to 3 per cent for 2024-25 would be “unaffordable” within funding allocations set for next year.
Funding had to be moved to award grant last year
Trust leaders also told Tes that a low pay rise could lead to industrial action, and called for another teacher pay grant to help fund any increase after receiving details of their “spectacularly inadequate” funding levels for next year.
The education secretary said today that last year, some funding had to be moved from capital into revenue streams to provide the Teachers’ Pay Additional Grant.
“Once you’ve done that it’s difficult to do it again,” she added.
The Department for Education did not recommend a specific figure for this year’s pay rise in its evidence to the STRB, but said any increase should be set at “a more sustainable level” compared with the previous two years.
Teachers received a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023 following months of strike action, and had received 5.4 per cent the previous year.
Inflation has been ‘very volatile’
The STRB has yet to publish its recommended pay rise for this year.
Earlier this month, members of the NEU teaching union voted against moving to a formal ballot for strike action over pay and funding next term, instead choosing to wait until the government makes a formal pay offer.
“I understand there has been inflation within schools,” Ms Keegan said, in response to several questions during the live broadcast about difficulties with school funding.
“That’s why we have got additional funding. I think £60.7 billion is our total schools budget, which is more than it’s ever been, any way you look at it.
She added that inflation has been “very volatile”.
Over the past few years, the government’s responses to STRB recommendations have been published in July. Unions and trust leaders have urged the government to bring this forward to allow schools to plan and budget for pay rises.
The DfE secured £2 billion in additional funding towards the teacher pay rise the year before last.
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