School leaders should plan for a “range of potential outcomes” on pay this year when making budget decisions, the government has said.
Speaking to leaders and teachers at a Department for Education webinar on school funding this afternoon, officials said it would be “sensible” for schools setting budgets to plan for different possible outcomes ahead of a decision by the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).
The briefing was arranged this week ahead of further strike action by NEU teaching union members tomorrow, which comes after all four education unions rejected the government pay offer made at the start of the month.
During the briefing, officials said that schools have to “approach their budget setting for the year without certainty over pay since we’ll only have certainty on teacher pay when the process concludes”.
“As such, for those who are budgeting, it will undoubtedly be sensible, as part of the budget setting process, to think about the range of potential different outcomes on pay that there might be this year and what the different implications for your schools might be,” they said.
Schools’ uncertainty over teacher pay
Each year the STRB, an independent body made up of economists and experts in pay and education, invites evidence from unions, the government and other interested parties before setting out recommendations to government on teacher pay for the following academic year.
The DfE then makes its final decision on teacher pay.
During the presentation, DfE officials also said that “things can be trickier” for small single schools or academies that are in single-academy trusts because they do not have the “wider protection that multi-academy trusts can afford”.
The presentation was made by Tom Goldman, a DfE senior expert on school funding, and Graham Archer, director for disadvantage, international and sustainability at the department.
And addressing leaders at the beginning of the meeting, education secretary Gillian Keegan said she wanted to “reassure” school staff that she “understands the importance of funding”.
After a period of intensive talks, the DfE last month 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.
Leaders voiced concerns about 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.
In a survey of members, school leaders’ union the NAHT found that most members (92 per cent) felt the offer was unaffordable and they did not have the headroom in their budget to be able to afford the proposed pay offer for the 2023-24 academic year.
Responding to this figure in the webinar today, civil servants told school staff: “We’re clearly not saying that we know better than every individual head what the position is in their school.
“What we are saying is that, on average, using the methodology that we use year on year, our assessment is that there is sufficient in the budget to make a 4 per cent pay rise affordable.”
The NEU teaching union, NASUWT and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) are all set to ballot members this term, with the NAHT expected to follow.
