Five unions have today condemned the Department for Education’s pay rise announcement, warning that schools have been put “on the brink of a full-blown funding crisis”.
In a joint statement issued today, teaching union the NEU, the NAHT school leaders’ union, the Association of School and College Leaders, the NASUWT and Community said they had “grave concerns over the potential damage to the country’s education system of the government’s botched teacher pay award for 2022-23”.
On Tuesday the DfE announced that teachers who have been in the profession for more than five years will get a 5 per cent pay rise in September 2022 - an increase on the 3 per cent initially proposed by the government.
Headteachers and senior leadership teams are also set to receive a pay rise of 5 per cent.
However, heads’ leaders have criticised the “unfunded” rise, warning it will put schools in deficit, and today’s union statement echoes these concerns.
Teacher pay rises: ‘A masterclass in mismanagement’
Today Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the government had ”managed at a single stroke to put schools on the brink of a full-blown funding crisis while also further damaging the teacher supply line on which they depend. It is a masterclass in mismanagement that puts educational standards at risk”.
In the joint statement, the five unions highlighted that this year’s pay award represents a “significant real-terms cut to the salaries of most teachers and all school leaders”, adding that it would “further risk the supply line of staff on which schools depend”.
They warned that the pay award “must be fully funded for it to have any impact”.
And Patrick Roach, general secretary of NASUWT, said the government was being “dishonest” with the sector by “offering the illusion of a pay award” while “refusing to provide the means for schools to deliver it”.
Teachers facing a ‘pay lottery’
“By failing to give schools additional funding whilst also rejecting the reintroduction of national pay scales, the government is subjecting hundreds of thousands of hardworking and dedicated teachers to a pay lottery,” he said.
The unions said that schools will have to “foot the bill” for the pay award from their own budgets, which are “already under severe strain”.
“The award is higher than the Department for Education itself deemed affordable in its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body, so it beggars belief that it comes with no additional funding,” they said.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said that higher starting salaries for early career teachers had been promised since 2019 but recruitment targets are still being missed.
And the unions said teachers had already suffered a decade of real-terms pay cuts of 20 per cent since 2010.
Mr Whiteman added that the “below-inflation pay award after a decade of cuts will do little to stem the loss of experienced teachers and leaders”.
He said adding pressure to school budgets was “no way to ensure that children receive the quality of education they deserve”.
“It is a reckless gamble with the future of the country,” Mr Whiteman added.
‘No solution’ to teacher recruitment problems
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, said the “real-terms pay cut will intensify the recruitment and retention crisis” and therefore “damage education”.
And Helen Osgood, national officer at Community: the union for education professionals, said it was ”very disappointing” that the £30,000 starting salary ambition had “still not been achieved and will not be achieved until 2023”.
Ms Osgood said this will mean that four years will have passed since this promise was made.
Yesterday the NEU said it would be looking to consult its members in the autumn in “the largest ballot of teachers for a generation”.
And Mr Barton said the ASCL will be consulting members “to see whether they wish to take industrial action in response to this decision”.
Earlier this year both the NEU and the NASUWT said they were considering balloting members over industrial action if a significant pay increase was not offered, with inflation rising.
Mr Whiteman also said yesterday that there was a “depth of frustration amongst [NAHT] members” that he had “not seen before”.
Because of this, the NAHT will be embarking on a consultation with members over the summer.
“At this stage, I would rule nothing in or out,” he said.
School leaders have been warning that the “unfunded” increase in the teacher pay award announced this week has left them facing budget deficits of tens of thousands of pounds next year.
A Department for Education spokesperson said the department had accepted the recommendations of the STRB for September and is “awarding teachers the highest pay awards in a generation”.
The spokesperson said that the pay award was a “responsible solution” which recognised “the hard work of teachers and supports with the cost of living, and the sound management of schools’ budgets”.
The department added that funding for the pay awards “will come from the generous school funding settlement at last year’s Spending Review”.
“The settlement is heavily frontloaded with £4 billion extra going into schools this year and a total increase of £7 billion over the three years up to 2024-25”.
