Government accepts recommendations of Independent School Teachers’ Review Body

• School teachers to receive fully funded 5.5% pay award
• Further steps to reduce workload and restore teaching as the go-to profession for graduates
• Advanced British Standard to be cancelled, as Chancellor sets out challenging economic picture

School teachers and leaders will receive a fully funded 5.5% pay award, reflecting the vital contribution they make to children’s life chances.

The decision means the recommendations of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) have been accepted in full.

Schools will receive almost £1.2billion in additional funding to cover their costs, fully funding the pay award for teachers and support staff in financial year 2024-25 at a national level.

The investment marks an important step on the path towards the government’s pledge to recruit 6,500 new teachers.

As the Chancellor has set out, the poor position of the public finances means that a number of programmes must be cancelled across government – including the Advanced British Standard.

Today’s pay award reflects the value the government places on the country’s six million public servants, and the cost to the country of not accepting public sector pay awards.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said:

“The Chancellor has laid out a grim picture – our public finances are in a devastating state and tough choices need to be made to help rebuild the foundations of the economy.

“But while the impact teachers have on children and young people’s life chances can’t be measured in pounds and pence, those working in education must be in no doubt about their value.

“Teachers lay the foundations of children’s lives. An investment in them is an investment in the next generation, and this government is determined to make sure every child – whatever their background – has the opportunity to succeed.”

The Education Secretary has recognised the delay in confirming pay and funding arrangements for next year due to the timing of the general election.

The 5.5% award will apply from 1 September and is equivalent to an increase of over £2,500 for the average teacher, which would take the median salary for 2024/25 to over £49,000.

The pay award applies to maintained schools, with academies continuing to have freedom over their pay and conditions.

The government is also today announcing further steps to reduce teachers’ workload, reset relations with the sector and make teaching an attractive profession again.

Alongside the pay award, the requirement for schools to use thePerformance Related Pay (PRP) system – which can lead toschools and teachers going through an overly bureaucratic process to agree individual teachers’ pay rises – will be removed from September.

The government will also clarify that teachers can carry out their planning time at home, improving flexible working for staff.

Today’s award builds on the Education Secretary’s work to reset the relationship with education workforces since taking up post, including a letter to all education workers in week one in the role, a reception with almost 200 stakeholders, and a webinar with up to 14,000 front line staff.

Sector Reaction

Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

“We are very pleased that the independent pay review body has recognised that teacher pay must be significantly improved to support recruitment and retention, and that the government has fully accepted their recommendation. This will go some way to addressing the erosion of pay that has taken place over the last decade, and is in stark contrast to the below inflation awards that teachers have had to become accustomed to in recent years. We also welcome confirmation that schools will no longer be obligated to use performance-related pay, and the increased flexibility around non-contact time.

“The acknowledgement that schools require additional funding in order to afford this much-needed pay award and overall costs is reassuring and suggests the government understands the financial pressure that schools are under. We will be closely examining the detail to ensure the award will genuinely be affordable for all schools.

“We sincerely hope that the recent trend of teacher pay awards being resolved later and later in the academic year will now end. While we accept the extenuating circumstances of this year’s general election and subsequent change of government, going forward we see no reason why these decisions cannot be made earlier to give school leaders the time they need to plan their budgets for the following year.”

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said:

“If we want to repair and rebuild our country – and secure higher growth – we need strong public services, investment in infrastructure and a plan to make work pay.

“That’s why the Chancellor is right to respond positively to the recommendations of the pay review bodies.  

“Her approach stands in stark contrast to the previous government who played political games with the pay review bodies.   

“I hope this is the crucial first step in dealing with the recruitment and retention crisis blighting our schools and hospitals. And it will need to be accompanied by a long-term plan for the public sector workforce.  

“The Tories’ toxic economic legacy – which has been laid bare for all to see – cannot be allowed to define our future. Working people have paid the price for far too long.  

“We shouldn’t shy away from having a national conversation about how we fairly tax wealth. Policies like equalising Capital Gains Tax with the taxes paid on earnings will ensure those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share.”

David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges, said:

“The Chancellor’s statement committing to meet the school teacher pay body recommendation is good news for schools. However, it is disappointing that funding was not found to allow colleges to match that award. The result is a no-change position for college finances and pay in the short-term. 

“Back in May, AoC’s Employment Committee deferred its recommendation on FE college pay until the Department for Education (DfE) had confirmed its decision for schools. Today’s announcement that the DfE will accepting a 5.5% increase and will be providing funding to schools makes the position for colleges difficult because FE funding rates are simply not rising enough to match that, with the 16 to 19 study programme budget the only college funding increasing at all, and only at 1.9%. That budget makes up about half of the average college income. The next meeting between FE employers and unions is in September and that looks likely to be the start of a set of difficult negotiations – with a significant gap between the pay awards colleges want to be able to offer, and the funding available.   

“Colleges face significant staff recruitment and retention problems, mainly because of the £10,000 pay gap with schools which is likely to widen, making it increasingly challenging to run the high value technical courses which are needed for economic growth, the NHS and the drive to net zero. Indeed, AoC research published last Autumn found that colleges had waiting lists for courses last year in key shortage areas like construction, health and digital due to staffing shortages – all of which will hamper delivery on the government’s five missions.  

“Colleges were hit hard by the austerity years of the last government, and are struggling with rising prices for key services, staff vacancies, funding that hasn’t kept up with inflation, Treasury restrictions on borrowing and the costs of rising student numbers. More 16 to 18-year-olds enrolled in college last autumn and a rising population means there will be more demand in September. Colleges provide many of the skills needed to help young people and adults into work, to fill vacancies in the NHS and to support companies in growing sectors.   

“AoC and colleges will continue to work with government on practical solutions to deal with these issues and in building the evidence base for the spending review and the budget where we hope to secure the funding colleges deserve. We want this to be a high priority for the government because it underpins their ambition for economic growth and fairness.”

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said:

“Failing to invest in further education is simply not good enough. There is already a pay gap of £9000 between school and college teachers, and £400 million per year is needed just to keep per pupil spending at its current level over the coming years. This means our colleges – and the staff who are their backbone – are set to fall even further behind. Ultimately, this decision is at odds with Labour’s core missions for government. We had come to expect such neglect from the Tories but we expect more from a Labour government which aims to spread opportunities for working class people and kickstart a decade of national renewal. Our colleges, at the heart of every community, will be the foundation stones for any project of rebuilding Britain. Without investing in college staff and establishing national collective bargaining structures for them, our members will continue to suffer from the inequalities and degraded living standards they experienced under Tory rule. Further education staff and students deserve better. Britain deserves better. We therefore urge the Chancellor to rectify this deeply damaging neglect of further education in her first full Budget by properly investing.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: 

“Leaders and teachers will welcome today’s above-inflation pay offer – it is another clear sign that the new government is serious about resetting the relationship with the profession.

“While pay remains below 2010 levels in real-terms, a 5.5% uplift is a significant step on the journey towards pay restoration, which we have long called for. We are currently in the midst of the worst recruitment and retention crisis in living memory – in part because under the last government the pay of leaders and teachers was cut by 20% in real terms. Teaching needs to once again be a sought-after, competitive career, and pay is an important part of that picture.

“We are particularly pleased the chancellor has pledged additional funding for this deserved pay rise, which is crucial at a time when many school budgets are stretched. It is also positive to see that the government has considered the impact of support staff pay awards when allocating additional funding.

“As the government has acknowledged, schools will feel the impact of this uplift differently depending on their unique circumstances and it will be important that those already under the most significant financial pressures, such as special educational needs schools, small schools and alternative provision, get extra support where necessary.

“NAHT has long called for the end of performance related pay – it has been proven to be ineffective in education and is a bureaucratic burden on schools, so we are pleased that the obligation to use it will be removed from this September. Given the timing, schools may need to think carefully about how they implement this change, but we will be encouraging them to do so as soon as possible.”

Responding to the Chancellor’s announcement this afternoon that plans for an Advanced British Standard qualification will be scrapped, Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“The Advanced British Standard was announced by the former Prime Minister without any consultation with or input from the profession, and NAHT did not believe it would provide a qualification offer which met the needs of all students, The previous government’s proposals lacked ambition and were an expensive repackaging of the current A levels and T levels, creating blunt choices for 16-year-olds.

“School leaders also raised significant concerns about the proposals to reshape 16-19 qualifications in light of the much more pressing concerns in the education system. Recruitment and retention, supporting students with SEND, the crumbling school estate – these are just some of the crises facing education which our members believe should be prioritised above qualification reform.”

Jack Worth, School Workforce Lead at the NFER, said:

“We welcome the funded teacher pay award of 5.5% as a necessary first step in addressing the chronic issues with recruitment and retention that are affecting schools and risk damaging the quality of pupils’ education.

“Crucially, the Secretary of State has confirmed this will be a fully funded pay award. We support and echo the STRB’s conclusions that the deterioration in teachers’ pay competitiveness compared to other professions needs addressing, that this pay award represents good value for money for taxpayers and that the DfE should begin work on a strategic and transparent workforce plan for the teaching profession immediately”

Joana Cardim Dias, Senior Researcher for School Workforce at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said:

“A decade of declining pay competitiveness has contributed to continuing struggles to recruit and retain teachers. Today’s announcement, which follows a 6.5% pay award for in 2023-24, is a positive step towards restoring the pay competitiveness of the teaching profession. Importantly, the pay award is supported by a £1.1bn grant to schools.

“We also welcome the government’s decision to allocate this new grant based on a combination of a per-pupil allocation, a lump sum and a considerable weighting for disadvantaged pupils. The previous Teacher Pay Grant did not acknowledge the extra staffing costs often faced by schools with more disadvantaged pupils, and so this is an important correction.

“Nevertheless, this grant is only for 2024-25 and the government has rightly acknowledged that it will not cover the full years cost of the teacher pay award. In order to support schools to plan effectively, the government needs to provide them with a longer-term funding settlement.”