Any teacher pay rise above 2-3 per cent will be “unaffordable” for many schools this year, MAT leaders have warned after receiving letters setting out “deeply troubling” and “spectacularly inadequate” funding levels for next year.
The warning has come after trusts recently received their general annual grant (GAG) statements for 2024-25 - which leaders say won’t be enough to fund a satisfactory pay award for teachers.
Some trusts have warned that awarding a pay rise of just 1 per cent would leave some schools in the red and facing making staff cuts - but they believe the level set needs to be higher or teacher strikes will be “unavoidable”.
Leaders have said the government will have to issue a teacher pay funding grant again this year to ensure schools can survive without having to make “further cuts in provision to balance the books”.
Per-pupil funding for next year is ‘spectacularly inadequate’
Leigh Academies Trust CEO Simon Beamish has written to MPs, representing the Kent and South London constituencies where the trust’s schools are based, to warn he is “exceptionally concerned about how we will make ends meet given inflation, salary pressures and the rising cost of energy” after receiving the grant levels for his trust.
He said the trust’s 14 primary academies will see an average funding increase of 0.89 per cent for next year, from a range of -0.19 per cent to 2.6 per cent, while the trust’s secondaries will see a rise of 1.47 per cent.
Mr Beamish told Tes that the grant letter setting out what the trust’s schools will receive per pupil next year was a “shock and is deeply troubling”.
“The rises that currently look affordable would definitely lead to strike action by unions later in the year. What’s been offered so far in terms of funding for next year is spectacularly inadequate,” he added.
‘Not enough to help recruitment crisis’
Meanwhile, Sir Dan Moynihan, CEO of the Harris Federation, said his trust - which has 54 secondary and primary schools across London and the South East of England - has currently budgeted for a 3 per cent rise after having “wrestled” with its pay award assumptions. But this “is more than we’re funded for, and that’s not going to be enough to help the recruitment crisis”.
The Harris Federation’s funding letters for 2024-25 are showing an increase of around 2 per cent per school.
Mr Moynihan said the government will need to provide a teachers’ pay grant again this year “if it is more than 2 per cent...or schools won’t be able to manage budgets,” he added.
“We’d like to assume it will be more than 3 per cent, but that will lead to some other people in the sector having to make redundancies,” he added.
The Department for Education said earlier this year that it had calculated schools will have enough headroom in their budgets to raise spending by 1.2 per cent for 2024-25.
However, it did not set a fixed pay rise recommendation in its evidence to the pay review body this year, unlike previous years.
‘Normal staffing looks completely unaffordable’
Rob McDonough, CEO at East Midlands Education Trust, said that after getting GAG statements through, his trust had started doing budget calculations with a pay rise assumption of 5 per cent included.
He said the trust quickly found this meant its schools’ budgets were “miles out” and had to remodel assumptions trying successively lower pay assumptions until they got to 1 per cent.
“What we found is virtually every one of those is unaffordable for our schools in a manner I have never seen before,” he said. “It leaves many in deficit.”
“Our schools have been able to have stable staffing for many, many years, but now the normal staffing structures look completely unaffordable at this moment in time.
“If we don’t get that teachers’ pay grant, we’re in trouble. But if the pay award is even marginally affordable for schools [based on the funding allocated] we’re going to be heading for industrial action.”
‘Further staffing reductions to fund pay increases’
Matthew Shanks, CEO of 15 primary school trust Education South West, said anything above a 2-3 per cent pay rise for teachers, which it has budgeted for, “would need to be funded”.
Gary Lewis, CEO of the Lighthouse Schools Partnership, which runs 30 mostly primary schools in the South West in England, said the trust’s funding uplift of 1.32 per cent for next year meant he was “acutely concerned” and “resigned to having to make further staffing reductions to fund pay increases, as in our trust we just do not have the headroom to absorb another year of unfunded costs”.
He added that trusts are “involved in an elaborate and high-stakes guessing game” about pay costs.
Mr Lewis said the trust has modelled for a 3 per cent teacher pay increase and a 7.95 support staff pay increase in its budget - though hopes anything above the 1.2 per cent headroom the DfE calculated would be funded for the teachers’ pay award.
‘Not an acceptable way to run the school system’
Mr Beamish’s letter to local MPs called for help pressing the government for more funding for schools next year to help them avoid making cuts.
He is also calling for early agreement on teacher and support staff pay to help school leaders plan, alongside a pay settlement that is both affordable and helps schools avoid strikes.
He added that ”schools are in the dark, not knowing whether they should take a risk and end up falling into huge deficits or begin large and painful redundancy programmes which turn out to be either necessary or unnecessary - which is just not an acceptable way to run the school system”.
David Clayton, CEO at Endeavour Learning Trust, said schools will be forced to make “difficult decisions” about allocating resources under current circumstances. The trust, which has six schools in the North West, has budgeted for a 2 per cent pay increase for teachers.
“We have significant concerns about the implications for recruitment and retention if this is the pay award that is granted, but it will be imperative that the DfE ensure that any increase is fully funded,” he said.
Teacher pay rises should be set at a ‘more sustainable level’
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.
Members said that if the pay offer is “rejected with a convincing turnout” in a snap poll, the union should then move to a formal ballot.
Last year, the government accepted the recommendation from the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) that teachers should receive a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023 following months of strike action by teachers.
However, in early 2024, the DfE told the STRB that next year’s teacher pay rise should be lower than the past two years and return to “a more sustainable level”.
‘Average national funding increases mask low changes for schools’
For the past few years, decisions around the pay award and the government’s response to STRB recommendations have been published in July. However, unions have urged the DfE to bring forward the process to enable schools to better plan and budget for the rise.
Chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), Leora Cruddas CBE, said: “We know that trust leaders are concerned about the continuing squeeze on finances.
“The current funding formulas can mean that average percentage increases in funding nationally, mask very low changes for particular schools - a serious concern which we have raised with the Department for Education and the Treasury.”
A DfE spokesperson said that overall school funding is rising to its “highest ever level in real terms per pupil” to over £60 billion in 2024-25, and teachers have received pay awards “totalling over 12% in just two years”.
