Pay cap could end for nurses and teachers

TEACHERS and nurses could have the 1 per cent pay cap lifted next year, ministers hinted last night.

Treasury chief secretary Elizabeth Truss said ‘more flexibility may be required’ when setting pay for public sector workers in areas suffering skills shortages.

Miss Truss made no mention of which workers could see their pay break the 1 per cent cap next year.

But pay review bodies have warned that the Government was facing a shortage of both teachers and nurses unless restraint is eased.

Earlier this month, the Government broke the 1 per cent pay cap for prison officers and the police following advice from independent experts.

In a letter to the pay review bodies last night, Miss Truss said: ‘The last spending review budgeted for a 1 per cent average increase ... there will still be a need for pay discipline over the coming years ... however, the Government recognises that in some parts of the public sector, particularly in areas of skill shortage, more flexibility may be required ... including in return for improvements to public sector productivity.’

The pay cap has been in place since 2010 and was due to last until 2020.

But Tory MPs have put pressure on the Government to act in the wake of the June election, when austerity became a major issue. Mrs May herself was challenged over the issue on live TV by a nurse during the election campaign.

But Chancellor Philip Hammond is resisting the blanket removal of the cap, warning that the £ 4billion cost would blow a hole in the public finances. Instead, ministers are planning to target money tightly on those occupations facing the most acute shortages.

In July, the independent School Teachers’ Review Body, which advises on the pay of 500,000 teachers, called for the cap to be lifted, warning that continued restraint ‘presents a substantial risk’ to school standards. The review body advising on nurses pay warned the NHS was facing a shortage of 30,000 nurses, partly as a result of pay restraint.

Nurses are now threatening industrial action later this year unless the cap is lifted in November’s Budget.

Ministers are widely expected to end the blanket cap. But a debate is still raging within the Cabinet about how far to go, and how to pay for it. The recent rises for police and prison officers will have to be found from existing budgets after the Treasury refused to hand over more cash.

Prison officers were handed a 1.7 per cent rise and police were offered a 1 per cent bonus on top of their 1 per cent rise. But, with inflation running at almost 3 per cent, critics warned both awards amounted to real terms cuts in pay.

Trade unions last night condemned Miss Truss’s intervention as an ‘empty gesture’. Militants are threatening a co- ordinated national strike unless all public sector workers are handed a 5 per cent rise.

Rehana Azam, national secretary for public services at the GMB union, said: ‘Pushing forward with slightly less harsh cuts for a small minority of public sector workers will do nothing to win back the trust and goodwill that has been lost.

‘Today’s announcement also does nothing for the low-paid majority of teaching assistants, local authority workers, police support staff and other public sector workers who are not covered by a pay review body.’