The Department for Education has said it is aiming to announce the teacher pay award for next year as close as possible to the start of the new financial year in April.
Speaking at a national school finance event, Tom Goldman, deputy director of the DfE’s funding policy unit, said the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) process was “being brought forward with an expectation that the 2025 award will be announced earlier as soon as possible after April 2025”.
This comes after repeated complaints from schools that the late nature of this year’s pay award made it difficult for them to plan budgets.
The DfE is expecting to send its evidence to the STRB in December, said Nabil Ali, deputy director for teaching workforce strategy, although this is not confirmed.
Mr Goldman pointed out that the earlier the pay award is announced, the longer the gap between the decision and new salaries being applied - with the risk that factors used to inform the pay decision might change in that time.
“So fundamentally, the greater a chance that the wrong decision is made on pay,” he added, because of other factors such as not having the most up-to-date figures on pay in other sectors.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson wrote to the STRB chair in September, setting out the remit for next year’s pay process.
For this year’s pay process, former education secretary Gillian Keegan issued the remit letter on 20 December 2023. The Association of School and College Leaders pointed out this was more than five weeks later than in 2022.
The STRB recommended a 5.5 per cent increase for teachers this year, which was accepted by the new Labour government and announced on 29 July.
In 2023, the government had offered an average 4.5 per cent rise in March. After teachers went on strike, the government eventually offered the STRB’s recommendation of 6.5 per cent in July 2023.
Mr Ali also said during the finance event that the department is working on the reinstatement of the support staff negotiating body. He said that the earliest year the body will likely make a pay rise recommendation is 2027-28.
Funding for employer national insurance contributions
The DfE also addressed funding for the rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) announced at the Budget in October.
As previously reported, additional funding will be provided to cover the costs for schools: the DfE is awaiting confirmation from the Treasury on exactly how much it will get.
This means the funding for NIC rises will come through a separate grant for schools for 2025-26, but then is expected to be rolled into the National Funding Formula (NFF) from 2026-27.
The funding should match national school costs of the rise but the DfE “cannot guarantee that that will be the case for every individual school”.
“There will be some schools that get a little bit more in funding than the NICs costs they face; there will also be some schools that get a little bit less,” Mr Goldman said.
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