Industrial action over teachers’ salaries in Scotland looks more likely today after a deadline was set for a new pay offer.
The teachers’ panel of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) met today to consider the “lack of a revised pay offer from local authority employers”.
The panel unanimously decided that if no further offer is made by noon on Monday 2 September, a formal dispute will be declared.
Crucial meeting of council leaders
Focus will now shift to a meeting of leaders at local authorities body Cosla on Friday 30 August 2024. Any new offer that emerges from that must, the SNCT teachers’ panel said, “meaningfully address the real-terms decline in the value of teachers’ pay”; anything short of that will be deemed “completely unacceptable”.
The teachers’ panel submitted its 2024-25 pay claim in January. However, the 1 August target date for paying new higher salaries to teachers - agreed by both Cosla and the Scottish government - has now passed.
After today’s meeting, the teachers’ panel said in a statement: “Since January, Cosla has only tabled one offer, completely lacking in credibility, that was unanimously rejected by the teachers’ panel on 5 June 2024.”
A pay claim of 6.5 per cent was submitted by Scottish teaching unions in January. The offer that was made to teachers, then rejected by them, came in June: 2 per cent from August 2024, followed by a further 1 per cent in May 2025.
By the 2 September deadline set today, the panel called on Cosla and the government to “avoid this escalation by undertaking all work necessary to table a credible pay offer for Scottish teachers without delay”.
The most recent teacher pay deal in Scotland was struck in March 2023, following strike action that started near the end of 2022. Teachers secured a pay deal worth 14.6 per cent over 28 months.
In England, in late July week the new Labour government accepted the recommendations of the independent School Teachers’ Review Body, meaning that all teachers south of the border would receive a 5.5 per cent rise from September.
Progress in FE sector’s pay dispute
Also this afternoon, college lecturers’ union EIS-FELA has advised its members to accept an improved pay offer from colleges, raising hopes that a “long and painful campaign” of industrial action in the further education sector may soon come to an end.
EIS-FELA said the proposed pay rise of 4.14 per cent in 2025-26 represented a “significant increase” on the previous offer of 3 per cent.
A vote will be held and agreement would end a pay dispute in the FE sector that has lasted nearly two years.
New ballot over Glasgow cuts
Meanwhile, the EIS has notified Glasgow City Council that it will open a statutory industrial action ballot on Monday 2 September, over the council’s plans to cut 450 teaching posts from Glasgow schools over three years. EIS members in Glasgow will be urged to use their vote in the ballot to back a programme of industrial action, up to and including strike action.
EIS Glasgow secretary Jane Gow said that, after a “resounding mandate” for industrial action in a consultative ballot in June, the new, statutory ballot will run until 1 October.
Ms Gow said: “The EIS is crystal clear that the loss of jobs vital to education provision in Glasgow will irreparably damage the life chances of many of the city’s young people and most especially those with additional support needs.”
She added: “Our city contains 35 per cent of Scotland’s children who live in the most deprived areas. These pupils need more targeted teaching and support, more small group learning and more teachers to nurture them towards attainment and achievement, not fewer.”
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