The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has
today called for an uplift to all teacher pay scales over the
next three years in line with the government’s proposal to
increase starting salaries to £30,000 by 2022/23.
In our evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB),
we say a significant increase is needed across the board to
address the erosion of pay since 2010.
In order to move towards the £30,000 starting salary and
the necessary increases to the whole of the pay system by 2022,
we propose that the minimum of the main pay range for England is
increased in stages. The first increase would be to £26,000 in
September 2020 – with all other pay ranges increased in line with
the current differentials between pay points – and the second to
£28,000 in September 2021.
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of
School and College Leaders, said: “We are calling for a fair deal
for all teachers which undoes some of the damage to teacher
recruitment and retention caused by years of real-terms cuts to
salaries, and addresses the fact that we are going to need many
more teachers in the near future because of a huge increase in
the number of pupils in secondary schools.
“We welcome the proposal from the government for £30,000
starting salaries for newly qualified teachers but it is
essential that this increase is reflected at all salary points in
the pay scales in order to improve teacher retention. We are
currently haemorrhaging teachers from the profession and we will
never solve the teacher supply crisis unless this situation is
improved.
“It is also of critical importance that increases to the
pay of teachers are fully funded by the government. We are
extremely concerned that the government expects the entire sum of
money necessary to implement its proposal for a starting salary
of £30,000 to come from the extra £7.1 billion it has promised
will reverse the cuts to school budgets. This is a case of giving
with one hand and taking with the other. Schools will once again
be in the invidious position of having to make further staff cuts
in order to afford the cost of the pay award to teachers.”
Our evidence to the STRB says:
The percentage differentials between pay points on the
teacher and leader pay scales must be maintained, and this has to
include the weighting necessary for teachers to afford the cost
of living in London. This is in response to Education Secretary
Gavin Williamson’s remit letter to the STRB in September in which
he said his written evidence will present “a strong case for
schools to move towards a relatively flatter pay progression
structure.”
Our evidence warns that this proposal would create even
more difficulties in retaining teachers because they would not be
sufficiently rewarded as they progressed through their
careers.
And we have provided analysis which shows that on current
trends 44% of the teachers who have qualified since 2008 are
likely to leave the profession over the 10-year period between
2018 and 2028 – at exactly the time when the number of pupils at
secondary schools is projected to massively
increase.
The ASCL evidence warns that the profession will face an
“unprecedented crisis” unless there is a significant improvement
in retention.
The proposed pay uplift comes after years of real-terms
cuts to the salaries of teachers and leaders. ASCL modelling
illustrates the impact of below-inflation pay deals since 2010 at
a sample of pay points for teachers and leaders, adding up to
cumulative losses of between £20,000 and £64,000 compared to how
salaries would have risen if they had been in line with the
consumer price index.
ASCL has been told that the government expects all of the
money for teacher pay rises to come from the additional £7.1
billion allocated to the schools’ budget over the next three
years. However, this sum of money must also pay for the cost of
‘levelling up’ school funding, a massive increase in pupil
numbers, other inflationary costs such as support staff pay
awards, and badly needed improvements to high needs
funding.
Our submission to the STRB models the impact on five sample
secondary schools if pay is uprated at just 75% of the existing
differential between pay points and this shows that they would on
average have to cut 10% of their teachers to afford the increased
cost.
