The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has raised “significant concerns” over delays to the start of the process to set next year’s teacher pay rise, which could mean schools will once again have to make “last-minute budget updates”.
“Frustratingly we must, yet again, raise significant concerns over the timing of the publication of the STRB report and the ministerial response,” ASCL said in its evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) over teacher pay levels for next year.
The school leaders’ union’s evidence, published today, called for the STRB recommendation and ministerial response to be published as a “matter of urgency”, to avoid schools having to revise budgets.
It also said a pay increase of 36.1 per cent would be needed for school leaders to restore purchasing power to 2010 levels.
The remit letter from the secretary of state, which kick-starts the pay process, was issued on 20 December, which the ASCL pointed out was more than five weeks later than last year, and “provides no evidence of a willingness” to publish the STRB pay recommendation earlier on.
Last year, the pay body’s report and the ministerial response were not published until the summer.
Accountants noted in the recent 2024 Kreston UK Academies Benchmarking report that trusts will often report deficits further into financial forecasts because they do not have funding information available for things like pay awards.
ASCL pay recommendation
The Department for Education (DfE) published its evidence, submitted to the STRB, on this year’s pay increase yesterday. Education unions were told in February that the department would miss the original deadline.
The DfE recommended that pay rises should return to “a more sustainable level” than that of the past two years.
But the ASCL has recommended that this year’s pay award be above inflation and fully funded.
School leaders would need to see a pay increase of 36.1 per cent to have the same purchasing power as their pay did in 2010, the union said. This is based on inflation calculations using the retail price index.
Even if the “less appropriate” consumer price index is used, the ASCL said a pay increase would need to be 17.3 per cent for leaders to have the same purchasing power as in 2010.
Last year, the STRB recommended a pay rise of 6.5 per cent for teachers after several months of strike action. This was accepted by the government.
The ASCL also balloted for strike action during summer 2023 for the first time, but this was halted when members voted to accept the 6.5 per cent pay offer.
Recruitment and retention
The school leaders’ union recommended in its evidence that starting salaries and teacher pay need to be competitive to address the recruitment and retention crisis.
It said “the number of people wanting to become teachers is falling at an alarming rate”, adding that postgraduate initial teacher training recruitment for 2022-23 was “disastrous”, at 70 per cent of the DfE’s target, and 2023-24 recruitment was “even worse”, at 62 per cent.
The union also said it remains concerned about falling retention rates for teachers and school leaders.
To address this, the ASCL recommended a competitive pay framework be put in place for teaching.
The DfE was contacted for comment.
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