Teachers’ pay rises should be lower than the past two years and return to “a more sustainable level” next year, the government has recommended.
However, the Department for Education has not spelt out an explicit pay rise percentage for 2024-25 in evidence submitted to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) unlike in previous years.
In its evidence, published today, the DfE said the STRB should be “mindful that pay awards achieve a careful balance between recognising the vital importance of public sector workers, whilst delivering value for the taxpayer and not increasing the country’s debt further”.
The DfE has also revealed it believes there is only headroom in next year’s financial budgets for schools to raise spending by 1.2 per cent, or £600 million.
The DfE added it was important that the STRB’s pay recommendation “carefully balances a range of factors, including recruitment and retention, the existing offer for teachers, the school funding context, and wider economic factors”.
Last year, the government accepted the pay body’s recommendation that teachers receive a 6.5 per cent pay rise from September 2023. The deal came after a long-running dispute over pay and months of strike action by teachers.
In 2022-23, experienced teachers received a 5 per cent pay rise.
In its evidence for pay awards this year, the DfE told the pay body it is “important to consider the context of the most recent pay awards”.
The government said today that the “exceptional macroeconomic environment in recent years” made the higher awards “appropriate”.
Economy in ‘technical recession’
But it added the “wider economic context has moderated, with inflation more than halving from its peak in late 2022 and wage growth easing from the high levels seen in the summer of 2023”.
“While the economy fared better over the last year than many forecasts initially predicted, it ended 2023 in a technical recession.”
The DfE added: “Given this economic outlook over 2024-2025, and following two unprecedented years, it is appropriate for teacher pay awards to also return to a more sustainable level.”
The department said that the STRB may also want to “consider the wider factors that make teaching an attractive career, and that are supporting and improving the competitiveness of the teacher reward package”.
It also told the STRB that, this year, “it would be appropriate for the pay award to be distributed equally across all pay points on each pay range and across all allowances, without any additional targeting”.
Schools’ costs
Alongside its STRB submission, the DfE has also published an analysis which estimated schools’ costs are increasing by around 6.7 per cent in 2023-24, while funding has risen by 7.6 per cent at the same time.
It said this would imply that mainstream schools could, on average, raise their spending by a further 0.9 per cent in 2023-24, or by around £400 million at national level.
The DfE said it expects schools’ costs to increase by 1.9 per cent on average in 2024-25. This does not cover a pay award for teachers or support staff for 2024-25 as these are not known yet.
Core funding to schools is set to increase by 3.1 per cent at the same time, which the DfE said leaves space for a 1.2 per cent increase in spending (around £600 million).
“This estimate will inform the department’s overall assessment of what pay awards, for both teachers and support staff, might be absorbed within schools’ existing aggregate budgets,” it said in a technical note on school costs.
‘Rise needs to be at least 3%’
However, experts have said that a pay rise of just 1-2 per cent in the current economic situation would be “totally unsustainable”.
Jack Worth, school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research, said a lower pay rise next year “would be damaging for the already precarious teacher recruitment and retention situation”.
And Luke Sibieta, research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “I just think that a pay rise of 1-2 per cent is totally unsustainable.”
He added that the rise needs to be “at least 3 per cent…given the state of the teacher labour market”.
Indicative union ballot over teacher pay
Responding to the department’s STRB submission, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the DfE evidence means teachers can not expect “a pay award that takes a step towards correction [and] that seeks to avert the recruitment and retention crisis”.
Earlier this year, the NEU made the decision to hold an indicative ballot over next year’s teacher pay award.
The NEU said the ballot aimed at gauging members’ appetite for another round of strike action over pay and conditions will launch on 2 March and conclude ahead of the union’s annual conference at Easter.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that he presumed the government had chosen not to set out the level of pay award it considers affordable “because there isn’t actually enough money in the education system to afford very much at all”.
Mr Barton said the “recruitment and retention picture is a disaster” and “teacher pay has failed to keep pace with rising costs over the past decade making it uncompetitive in the graduate market”.
“The STRB must now assert its independence - as it did last year - by recommending a pay award that addresses these issues and ensures that children and young people have the teachers they need,” he added.
This year, the government missed its recruitment target for secondary teacher trainees by half - continuing a broader trend of missed teacher workforce targets.
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