“This is an extremely disappointing submission from the Secretary of State to the pay review body. The pay award that she proposes will not be sufficient to reverse years of pay erosion, make teaching salaries suitably competitive, and address severe teacher shortages across the country. Those shortages are often most serious in schools serving disadvantaged communities and it will be very difficult for the government to fulfil its objective of ‘breaking the unfair link between background and opportunity’ if there aren’t enough teachers to teach these children.
“The inadequacy of the proposed pay award is compounded by the government’s intention that schools should foot the bill out of their existing allocations. Given that per-pupil funding will increase on average by less than 1% next year, and the government’s proposal is for an unfunded 2.8% pay award, it is obvious that this is in fact an announcement of further school cuts. This is the exact opposite of fixing the foundations and will inevitably result in more cuts to the curriculum, increased class sizes, and reduced pastoral support.
“We call upon the School Teachers’ Review Body to assert its independence once again by making a recommendation on teacher pay sufficient to address the recruitment and retention crisis and ensure that staff are fairly remunerated for their superb and important work. And we call upon the Treasury to fund the recommended pay award in full and support the education system with the money that is necessary to pay the bills.”