School leaders in England will be balloted on strike action over the school funding crisis, staff shortages and the erosion of teacher and leader pay and conditions.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said today that it would ballot members over national strike action for the first time in its history after members voted to reject the government pay offer earlier this month - alongside the NEU teaching union, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the NASUWT teaching union.
The ballot will be held during the summer term with any walkouts expected to take place after the start of the new academic year in September if members back taking industrial action.
In the online ballot over the pay offer, more than half (56 per cent) of ASCL members responded, with 87 per cent of those voting “no” and 13 per cent voting “yes” to the offer.
ASCL also asked those voting “no” to state the most significant factor for their response.
Almost seven in 10 (69 per cent) said the most significant factor in their decision was the inadequacy of the additional funding provided to schools for a 4.5 per cent pay award in 2023-24.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said the ballot was “clearly a significant step” as the union has never formally balloted nationally before, and that it ”reflects the desperate situation regarding inadequate funding, long-term pay erosion, teacher shortages and the intransigence of a government, which we can only conclude does not value the education workforce or recognise the severe pressures facing the sector”.
He added that the union had made “every effort to resolve this matter through negotiations” but the government had now left it no other option but to ballot over industrial action “as a last resort”.
Mr Barton said: “The government’s offer has failed to sufficiently address pay and conditions and, critically, did not provide enough funding for even the meagre proposal it put forward.
“Following the rejection of the offer by all education unions involved - ASCL, NAHT, NEU and NASUWT - the government has made no effort to reopen negotiations and has said only that the issue of pay will now revert to the School Teachers’ Review Body.
“The conclusion of the Executive Committee is that the government has left us with no option other than to conduct a formal ballot for national strike action.
“This action is taken as a last resort and with a heavy heart, but we cannot accept the continued damage to education caused by government neglect and complacency.”
In January, almost seven in 10 members voted to move to a formal ballot on strike action.
Last month, the Department for Education made all four teaching unions the offer of a £1,000 non-consolidated payment for 2022-23 and an average 4.5 per cent rise for 2023-24.
But leaders warned over the affordability of the government offer after it was revealed that just 0.5 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent pay award for next year, plus the £1,000 one-off payment for this year, would have come through new funding.
A Department for Education spokesperson said it had ”made a fair and reasonable teacher pay offer to the unions, which recognises teachers’ hard work and commitment”.
They added: “Next year, school funding will be at its highest level in history - per pupil, in real terms.
“We know schools are facing increased costs like energy and staffing, and are providing an extra £2 billion in each of the next two years to cover those costs. As a result, school funding is set to rise faster than forecast inflation in both 2023-24 and 2024-25.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have made a fair and reasonable teacher pay offer to the unions, which recognises teachers’ hard work and commitment.
“Next year, school funding will be at its highest level in history - per pupil, in real terms. We know schools are facing increased costs like energy and staffing, and are providing an extra £2 billion in each of the next two years to cover those costs. As a result, school funding is set to rise faster than forecast inflation in both 2023/24 and 2024/25.”
HMI and DfE staff could also take strike action
The FDA Trade Union’s Executive Committee yesterday voted to launch a ballot for industrial action, in response to the government’s civil service pay announcement at the end of last week.
This is the first time the union’s committee has approved a national strike ballot over pay in more than 40 years.
Published on Friday, the Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance headline figure is a 4.5 per cent increase with an additional 0.5 per cent for the living wage uplift.
The FDA’s membership includes Ofsted’s in-house inspectors and senior government civil servants.
FDA general secretary Dave Penman said: “In my 23 years at the FDA and 10 years as general secretary, I have never found myself so utterly at a loss as to why the government would want to treat our members and the rest of the civil service in this way.
“If this is, as I suspect, a tactical decision to use the civil service to send a message elsewhere then not only is it a flawed one, but once again demonstrates that there are those in government who simply do not value the civil service in the way they do the rest of the public sector.”
