A school leaders’ union has said that if its members reject the government’s “inadequate” teacher pay offer, “it is clear that industrial action will be necessary”.
The day after the government’s pay offer to education unions was made public, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “We do not believe that this offer addresses the pay erosion the teaching profession has seen for more than a decade.”
Mr Whiteman also said that the union’s national executive committee did not believe that “sufficient funding is being made available to meet even this inadequate offer”.
After a period of intensive talks, the Department for Education has made all four teaching unions - NAHT, the NEU and NASUWT teaching unions and the Association of School and College Leaders - the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
The government is proposing to provide a non-consolidated £1,000 payment for 2022-23, but only 0.5 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent pay award for 2023-24 will come through new funding, leaving schools to find the majority of the increase from existing budgets.
Yesterday, the NEU teaching union, which has been holding strikes over pay, urged its members to reject the pay offer from the government to show the DfE that members “will no longer put up with their treatment of the profession”.
The union has said that a rejection of the offer by members will result in two further days of strike action on Thursday 27 April and Tuesday 2 May.
NAHT will now be asking members whether it should accept or reject the offer. The union will also ask members if they would be prepared to vote in favour of industrial action if the offer is rejected.
Mr Whiteman continued: “Creating a situation where school leaders must make cuts to afford a pay deal that the government says is designed to make teaching a more attractive profession would be perverse.
“We will be asking members to confirm or correct our early analysis that this pay offer cannot be afforded from existing school budgets.”
Mr Whiteman said that the offer ”takes us to a crossroads”.
He added: “NAHT is putting this offer to its members to consider because, despite the obvious crisis in education, as well as all the campaigning on this issue, the offer is apparently the limit of the government’s ambition. It is the best that the government is prepared to make. If members reject the offer, it is clear that industrial action by NAHT members will be necessary.”
The union previously said it was “committed to balloting again” on industrial action after its last strike ballot failed to meet the legal turnout threshold.
It comes after the union’s first strike ballot on pay in its 125-year history fell short of the 50 per cent figure needed under government rules.
Dr Paul Gosling, president of NAHT, said today that he would be rejecting the pay offer from the government and that the union “need to send a strong, united message to the government that the offer is nowhere near sufficient”.
While NASUWT appeared to be taking a more neutral stance at first yesterday evening, general secretary Dr Patrick Roach later stated that the union was “not recommending acceptance of the government’s offer” as it “falls short of what the union has demanded from the government, both for pay restoration and on non-pay improvements”.
The union said it believes “that it is right to hear what our members think about the offer as it stands” and has sent out a survey.
As well as asking members’ opinions on the pay offer from government, NASUWT is also asking members what they would be willing to do to obtain a fair pay offer, with answer options including strike action and action short of strike action.
The Association of School and College Leaders has not yet commented publicly on the details of the pay offer.
General secretary Geoff Barton said that the union would be asking members if the union should reject or accept the offer over the coming days.
