On 13th July the DfE issued several communications around Teachers’ pay including the School Teachers’ Review Body 33rd report: 2023, a joint statement on Teachers’ pay issued by the Prime Minister, the Education Secretary, the General Secretaries of the four education unions and General Secretary Elect of NEU and a new service Calculate Teacher Pay for school teachers and leaders in England to use to see how their salary could change following the 2023 pay award.
Key Messages:
- The government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) recommendation of a 6.5% pay rise for teachers (including school leaders) in England from September 2023
- Teacher starting salaries outside London and the fringe will reach £30,000 from September 2023 meaning teachers outside London and in Outer London areas will see a 7.1% and 6.8% rise respectively compared with 2022
- 3% of the pay rise will be covered by additional DfE funding, while schools will be expected to meet the rest of the rise (3.5%) through existing budgets
- The DfE has clarified that extra money found within the department to fund these pay rises will not come from any frontline services, including special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and schools’ capital funding
- A hardship fund of up to £40 million is available to support those schools facing the "greatest financial challenges”
- The ASCL, the NAHT, the NASUWT, and the NEU (currently in dispute with the government over pay) - have said they will recommend that members accept the pay award
- It is expected that the unions currently balloting members for strike action - the NEU, the NAHT and the ASCL - will continue their ballots
- Members of the NASUWT voted to back strikes in a ballot that closed earlier this week, but the union will now recommend they accept today’s pay deal and end their dispute
- Each union will ballot members in a short electronic poll on whether to accept the new pay deal
- The ASCL have indicated that it’s likely members would be invited to vote in a poll between Monday and Friday next week and the NEU has announced that the union will set up an electronic ballot of members, which will run from 18-28 July
- Should members vote to accept the offer, strike action involving teacher members in the autumn term will not go ahead
- The government has confirmed this is a final offer and it will now refuse to enter into any further pay talks
- School leaders may wish to direct staff to the new service Calculate Teacher Pay for school teachers and leaders in England to see how their salary could change following the 2023 pay award before they decide on how to vote in the upcoming ballots regarding the pay offer
In addition to the pay proposals the Secretary of State, Gillian Keegan, has confirmed that further collaborative action to deliver a meaningful reduction in workload is an immediate priority and the DfE will launch a workload reduction task force “to explore how we can go further to support trust and school leaders to minimise workload for teachers and leaders” with the aim of reducing “working hours by five hours per week”. To support this aim reference is made to a plan to “reinsert a revised list of administrative tasks that teachers should not be expected to do into the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document.”
We await the publication of the Draft STPCD 2023 and will further update our website once this is published.
