Teachers Pay Still Going Backwards With Current Offers Very Disappointing

14th March 2022

So where are we now -

Scotland
Employers' Side revised pay offer - February
The Salaries Committee of NASUWT has unanimously rejected the latest pay offer from employers' body COSLA.

This added only 0.22% to the previous offer and, with inflation currently measured at 7.8% (on the Retail Price Index) and 5.5% (on the Consumer Price Index), represents a huge real-terms pay cut to teachers who have worked tirelessly to keep the education sector going during the pandemic.

The NASUWT will report this decision to a forthcoming meeting of the SNCT Teachers' Panel.

See the offer HERE

4 March 2022
EIS committee wants members to accept teacher pay offer
Teaching union says the focus should be on campaigning for a 10 per cent pay rise in 2022-23.
A revised pay offer to teachers should be accepted, the salaries committee of Scotland's biggest teaching union has said.

The EIS teaching union committee has agreed that the current offer, which applies from April 2021, should be accepted so that the union can instead focus on campaigning for a 10 per cent rise for 2022-23.

The salaries committee is concerned that rejection of the offer would see the proposed pay increase simply "subsumed" into the 10 per cent campaign. It also wants money in members' bank accounts as soon as possible, as the upcoming council elections in May will require a break in pay negotiations.

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The committee held a special meeting on yesterday (Thursday 3 March) to consider a revised "best and final" pay offer from local authorities' body Cosla, which is summarised as:

A 1.22 per cent increase at all Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) pay points with effect from 1 April 2021.
A further 1 per cent increase at all SNCT pay points effective from 1 January 2022.
A one-off non-recurring payment of £100 to each SNCT member of staff (pro-rata for part time) for all SNCT members in post on 31 March 2022 and based on working hours at that time.
This fourth offer from Cosla - which includes an £800 cap to the percentage increase for those earning £80,000 and above - is described by the EIS committee as "a very modest improvement on the previous one, equating to a 2.23 per cent uplift on the current pay scales along with a one-off payment of £100".

However, in a message sent to EIS members this afternoon, the union says it has been told by Cosla that what is currently proposed is the "best and final offer". The salaries committee describes it as "the best offer achievable through negotiation".

The committee also says that "any further improvement would now only be achievable following significant and sustained industrial action by members (following a successful statutory ballot) between now and the summer, rather than through further negotiation".

With local government elections taking place in May, it advises that "failure to agree a pay deal this month will see any further negotiations on the current pay claim pushed back to beyond the summer", adding: "By that point, there would have been no increase in members' pay for almost 20 months."

The message to members says that the EIS is "committed to a major campaign" for a 10 per cent pay rise for 2022-23.

It adds: "The current pay offer was due to be paid in April last year and salaries committee believes there is a strong imperative to secure a settlement and money into members' bank accounts as soon as possible. The committee would rather build upon any increase achieved this year, rather than risk having the current claim subsumed into our 10 per cent pay claim for the coming year, which would be a strong possibility."

The committee unanimously agreed that members should be consulted on the revised offer and, by a majority of 15 to 1, agreed to recommend that members accept the current offer for the April 2021 pay round and switch the focus to the 2022-23 pay claim for 10 per cent.

The alternative to members accepting the offer would be a ballot for industrial action.

The decisions of yesterday's salaries committee will need to be approved by the EIS council on Friday 11 March, with members consulted after that.

Last week the NASUWT teaching union said that the revised pay offer for teachers in Scotland still represented a real-term pay cut.

Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said: "This offer, while a marginal improvement, is not a significant step forward on its predecessors and is therefore unlikely to be welcomed by members.

"Teachers' patience is wearing extremely thin. Our members expect and deserve a decent pay settlement."

Mike Corbett, NASUWT national official for Scotland, said last Friday that teachers "want a pay offer that demonstrates the value of the challenging work they do and the risks they have taken to their own safety in continuing to maintain education provision for children and young people throughout this pandemic".

He added: "The latest offer fails to meet these benchmarks."

England
Institute for Fiscal Studies report 11 March 2022
Last week, the Department for Education published its evidence to the independent School Teachers' Review Body (STRB), which will then publish its own recommendations for teacher pay in England this summer. This includes proposals for teacher pay in 2022 and 2023, which will deliver on a manifesto commitment to raise teacher starting salaries to £30,000. In this observation, we analyse how these proposals will affect levels of teacher pay and their overall affordability for schools. This comes in the context of rising and uncertain levels of inflation, particularly for energy prices, and other pressures on school budgets.

What are current plans for school funding in England?
In the 2021 Spending Review, the government set out a three-year settlement for school funding in England. The total schools budget will rise by £4 billion in 2022-23, and by a further £1.5 billion in each of 2023-24 and 2024-25. This makes for a total rise of £7 billion between 2021-22 and 2024-25. This does, however, include just over £300 million in extra funding per year to compensate schools for the extra cost of the employers' component of the new health and social care levy from April 2021.

In our annual report on education spending, we showed that this settlement allows for a 15% cash-terms and 7.5% real-terms rise in core school spending per pupil between 2021-22 and 2024-25. This was projected to restore school spending per pupil back to 2010 levels by 2024-25.

These figures were based on inflation forecasts from Autumn 2021. Recent inflation forecasts are much higher, partly driven by rapid rises in energy prices, which have spiralled upwards further since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the actual cost rises faced by schools will be mostly determined by the salary rises offered to school staff, with staff costs taking up more than 80% of school budgets.

What are the Department for Education's proposals for teacher pay?
In its evidence to the STRB, the Department for Education set out its proposals for teacher salary rises in 2022 and 2023 (which apply from September of each year). This includes large rises at the bottom of the pay scale to deliver £30,000 starting salaries by 2023. In particular, the government proposes rises of 9% in 2022 and 7% in 2023 for teacher starting salaries outside of London, making for a total rise of over 16% between 2021 and 2023. The government proposes smaller salary rises of 3% in 2022 and 2% in 2023 for more experienced teachers on the ‘upper pay scale', which account for over half of all teachers according to the Department for Education. Slightly smaller rises are proposed in London, but with the same overall approach.

This will intentionally flatten the teacher pay scale, with higher initial salaries and smaller pay rises as teachers gain more experience. This approach is based on empirical evidence showing that teachers' decisions are more sensitive to pay and salary supplements early in their career. Teachers also have a high propensity to quit early in their career, with only about two-thirds of teachers remaining in the profession five years after qualification. A flatter salary profile may help retain newly qualified teachers. By international standards, the teacher salary schedule in the UK is also quite steep, with lower starting salaries than in many other countries. That being said, the scale of the difference in proposed pay awards by level of experience is quite stark.

In previous analysis, we showed that teacher salary levels fell by 4-5% for new and less experienced teachers between 2007 and 2021, whilst salaries fell by 8% in real terms for more experienced teachers over the same period. The smaller cuts for new and less experienced teachers reflect larger increases for such teachers in more recent years.

The freeze in teacher salaries in England in 2021 was part of the explanation for real-terms cuts to teacher salaries over time. However, this was calculated on the basis of an inflation forecast from Spring 2021 of under 2% in 2021-22. According to NIESR forecasts, CPI inflation is now likely to be closer to 4% in 2021-22. If we adopt this forecast, teacher salaries for more experienced teachers will have fallen by 10% since 2007 or 9% since 2010, as shown in Figure 1.

Looking to the government's proposals for 2022 and 2023, the large proposed increases to starting salaries will allow for real-terms increases in salaries at the bottom of the pay scale, with a 5% real-terms increase in starting salaries between 2021 and 2023.

In contrast, the proposed increases of 3% in 2022 and 2% in 2023 for more experienced teachers would imply further real-terms salary cuts of 5% between 2021 and 2023. Adding this to past changes would equate to real-terms cuts of 14% between 2010 and 2023. In today's prices, this is the equivalent of a pay cut from £46,000 to £39,000 for experienced classroom teachers at the top of the pay scale (nearly one-third of all teachers).

These are calculated on the basis of the latest NIESR forecasts for CPI inflation of 7% in 2022–23 and nearly 4% in 2023–24. There is, however, huge uncertainty about what the actual level of inflation will be as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions.

Affordability of pay rises and other pressures
A natural question to ask is whether a bigger salary rise would be affordable within the existing school funding settlement, given other pressures on school budgets. The short answer is: yes, probably a bit more.

The Department for Education estimates that each extra 1 percentage point on pay settlements for all staff (teachers and non-teaching staff) would cost schools about £250 million in the 2022–23 financial year. However, this only covers 7 months for teachers as any new salaries would apply from September 2022. The long-run full-year cost would be about £350 million.

The proposed settlement for teachers in 2022 amounts to an average pay award of just under 4% across all teachers over a full academic year (incorporating the high awards for new teachers and lower awards for more experienced teachers). Using the above figures, the government's proposals would cost schools about £1.4 billion over a full year to deliver a 4% rise for all school staff (teaching and non-teaching staff). A higher average award of 5% would cost £1.75 billion, whilst 6% would cost about £2.1 billion.

It is highly likely that non-teaching staff will need to receive a larger average salary rise than teachers in 2022, given that the National Living Wage is rising by 6.6% in April 2022. As an approximation, one could therefore think of an average award of 6% as incorporating a lower pay award of 5% for teachers and a higher award closer to 7% for non-teaching staff. This would enable schools to fulfil their obligations to pay the new higher National Living Wage.

The £2.1 billion cost of an average award of 6% (5% for teachers and 7% for other staff) would also seem affordable within the overall school funding settlement. Excluding extra funding for the cost of the health and social care levy, school funding is due to rise by £3.7 billion in 2022–23. The £2.1 billion cost of a 6% average award would represent just under 60% of this extra funding. A 6% average award would probably allow for increases of about 4–4.5% for more experienced teachers.

This would leave about £1.6 billion to meet other pressures, such as rising energy prices and demand for spending on special educational needs and disabilities and on education recovery following the pandemic. Schools spent about £650–700 million on gas and electricity in 2019–20. This is probably now closer to £700–800 million, so a 50% rise in the cost of energy could cost schools about £400 million. The government is also due to publish a review of the special educational needs and disabilities system, which might further add to cost pressures. However, this review has been promised for nearly three years now. It is incumbent on the government to set out the conclusions and the likely cost pressures. There is also likely to be demand for extra support to help pupils recover any lost learning following on from the pandemic. But providing such support will also require a pay and remuneration package that allows schools to attract staff.

Looking to 2023, the government's proposals amount to an average pay award of about 3% across all teachers. Based on Department for Education estimates, an average pay award of 3% across all staff would probably cost schools just over £1 billion. School funding is due to rise by £1.5 billion in 2023–24 and other pressures on school budgets are likely to continue. In contrast to 2022–23, there seems little room for a higher pay award in 2023–24 without additional funding.

Conclusion: greater risks from a low pay award
Whilst there are clear pressures on school budgets, it is also important to see the risks of further real-terms cuts to teacher pay for the ability of the system to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. During the pandemic, teacher recruitment and retention briefly improved, unsurprisingly, given the lack of other economic opportunities. However, there are already clear signs that recruitment to teacher training is now falling below 2019 levels. Further real-terms cuts to average teacher salaries could therefore be a genuine risk in terms of the system's ability to recruit and retain high-quality teachers, and potentially hamper government efforts to level up poorer areas of the country.

In conclusion, the government's proposals for teacher pay in 2022 and 2023 would likely deliver salary rises well below expected inflation, following on from more than a decade of overall real-terms cuts to teacher pay. A higher average pay award of 5% for teachers in 2022 (and 7% for other staff) seems affordable in the context of a £4 billion rise in school funding in 2022–23. A higher award than that proposed by the government may therefore carry fewer risks than a lower one.

Read the full report with links to more information HERE