Opposition grows among teachers to 6.5% pay offer in England

Concerns over how the rise promised to teachers in England will be funded, and dismay at the lack of a long-term agreement on pay, has stirred opposition to the government’s offer among union members.

The deal announced between the government and England’s four school teaching and leadership unions would mean an across-the-board 6.5% pay rise from September, with a slightly higher increase for new teachers to bring their starting salary up to £30,000 a year. Mid-career teachers’ annual pay would go up by about £2,500 to £3,000.

But Rishi Sunak’s rhetoric that public sector pay increases will not be funded by higher taxes or borrowing, and his comments that the government will “find this money” through higher visa fees and surcharges on migrants, risks alienating teachers already angry at the below-inflation increase.

Teachers on WhatsApp groups and social media have expressed concerns that their pay rises are being funded on the backs of immigrants, and whether it comes at the expense of existing school budgets.

Groups within the National Education Union (NEU) have begun organising to oppose to the deal, with national executive members allied to the Socialist party campaigning for members to reject the pay offer in a union-wide ballot to be held later this month.

The NEU’s executive has scheduled an emergency online meeting on Monday evening to explain the details of the offer and funding to members.

Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, stressed that the deal did mean more new money for schools, despite efforts to disguise it by Sunak and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.

The deal assumes schools have budgeted for a 3.5% pay rise, with the extra 3% to come from the Department for Education’s central budgets. The DfE has won permission from the Treasury to use its departmental budget underspends to part-fund the £900m required in 2024-25. The remainder will come from what the DfE described as “reprioritisation” of future spending.

Courtney said: “We’ve been given guarantees by the government that none of the £900m will come from schools, it’s not going to come from frontline services, with explicit guarantees that it’s not coming from special education needs, early years, 16-19 [years], or school capital budgets.”

Daniel Kebede, the incoming NEU general secretary, also sought to reassure teachers: “Members have achieved so much. They have moved the government from 3.5% to 6.5%. They have won extra funding for schools. The deal is NOT perfect or ideal… Whichever way the vote goes, the fight for pay restoration is NOT over.”

But Debs Gwynn, one of the executive members opposed to the deal, told colleagues: “The offer is short of what we were asking. It is not inflation proof, it does not redress the real-term losses we have suffered over the past 13 years and it does not address the chronic funding and staffing crisis in our schools.”

All four unions are to ballot their members over the offer, with the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders, NASUWT and the NEU all recommending that their members accept it.

The unions are continuing to hold strike ballots alongside the vote on the offer. The NASUWT announced last week that it received enough votes to pass the legal threshold for strike action, while the remaining ballots close at the end of this month.