Labour demands funding for teachers’ pay rises

LABOUR IS calling on the Government to provide ring-fenced extra funding to schools to enable them to implement teachers’ pay rises.

Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner said lifting the cap on public-sector pay, including for teachers, is “meaningless” unless it is backed up by funding. Ms Rayner said: “Even the Conservatives have been left with no choice but to admit they have left teachers thousands of pounds worse off.

“It is no wonder they have created a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention when they are asking teachers to take realterms pay cuts year after year. “Their promise to lift their own cap on public-sector pay is meaningless without new, ring-fenced funding to ensure that teachers, as well as support staff, can finally get a real pay rise after years of cuts.”

She said: “The next Labour government will give our teachers the pay rise they deserve, with a fully-funded plan to end the public-sector pay cap and increase wages in our schools.”

Mr Rayner pointed to an Office for Budget Responsibility report from November which warned that public-sector pay rises in the wake of the lifting of the cap would have to be met by “squeezing non-pay spending and by reducing the workforce”.

She said analysis of Department for Education sources show that the average teacher was £4,000 a year worse off in 2016 compared to 2010. The School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) is currently considering its recommendation for this year after submissions closed in February.

Last year, the STRB recommended a one per cent hike to all teachers’ pay ranges, apart from the main pay range, which it said should see a two per cent increase at the minimum and maximum of the scale. The recommendation was accepted by the Government. Since then, the Government has signalled that it will look at easing pay limits.

Earlier this year, five teaching unions said teachers and school leaders have faced seven years of pay cuts at a time of “unprecedented levels of change” in the education system, in a joint statement to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).

The DfE’s submission to the STRB stressed its plans to increase spending on schools by £1.3bn over the next two years.