Proposals for a 2.8 per cent teacher pay rise for 2025-26 would undermine government plans to recruit 6,500 new teachers, the four main education unions have warned education secretary Bridget Phillipson.
The general secretaries of the Association of Schools and College Leaders, the NAHT school leaders’ union and the NEU and NASUWT teaching unions describe the proposal as “deeply disappointing” and urge the government not to cut schools’ spending power further.
This comes after the government’s pay submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body said that “most schools will need to supplement the new funding” they receive for 2025-26 “with efficiencies”.
‘Efficiencies’ equate to cuts
In response, the letter makes clear that senior leaders already go through a rigorous process of examining every budget line every year, “and the reality is that any further ‘efficiencies’ are likely to equate to cuts to provision”.
“We strongly feel that the proposals set out in your submission would further damage teacher recruitment and retention in England, and lead to more school cuts,” the union leaders write.
The letter sets out that current predictions for Retail Price Index (RPI) inflation from the Office for Budget Responsibility show that a 2.8 per cent increase “is likely to represent yet another real-terms pay cut”.
The union leaders say that a 5.5 per cent September 2024 pay increase must be the first in a series of fully funded, above-inflation pay rises needed to correct pay.
They say that pay has been cut by over a fifth against RPI inflation since 2010, even after taking account of the above-inflation September increase.
The unions also warn that Labour’s plans to recruit 6,500 new teachers “will be undermined if the government continues with the failed Conservative policy of cutting or failing to restore teacher and school leader pay”.
The letter adds that pay cuts are a false economy as they guarantee the continuation of severe teacher and school leader shortages, while undermining the crucial role of education in economic prosperity.
Unions cite a DfE report from November looking at school finances, which found that just 3 per cent of primary schools and 6 per cent of secondaries described themselves as “financially secure”; schools’ responses to financial pressures had included not replacing staff, returning to maximum class teaching allocations and restructuring leadership structures.
Impact on jobs
“Forcing schools further down this road will reduce the quality of education, increase teachers’ workload and further add to the difficulties with staff recruitment and retention,” the letter states.
The union leaders add: “The government must not cut schools’ spending power any further because, after 14 years of austerity, England now has the largest class sizes in Europe, the highest secondary class sizes on record and more than a million pupils taught in classes of more than 30.”
The DfE has been asked for comment.
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