With teachers and school leaders furious at the government’s plans to push for an unfunded 2.8% pay rise, Pepe Di’Iasio says that the Labour Party’s honeymoon is over – but will the marriage survive?
Political choices: The Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House in Westminster, London. Ministers have angered teaching unions with their proposals for a 2.8% unfunded pay rise in September - Adobe Stock

If there was any doubt that the government’s honeymoon period was well and truly over, then it came last week with the gathering storm over teachers’ pay.

The government set the hares running in December with its submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) proposing a 2.8% unfunded pay award (DfE, 2024a).

The problem is two-fold. First, a pay award of 2.8% isn’t enough to correct years of pay erosion and tackle the chronic problem of teacher shortages.

Such a pay deal won’t get close to achieving the government’s manifesto commitment to recruit 6,500 new teachers – particularly as it was actually 10,000 trainees short of achieving its target for postgraduate initial teacher training recruitment this year (DfE, 2024b).

Second, the lack of funding for this proposed pay award effectively means further cutbacks for schools. 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, set the problem out in commendably clear terms last week (Drayton et al, 2025). It found that growth in mainstream school funding per-pupil in 2025/26 of 2.8% in cash terms won’t be sufficient to cover an expected increase in school costs of 3.6%.

The government’s submission to the STRB accepts that schools will have to make “efficiencies”. However, anyone who works in schools will know that every budget line is already pared to the bone and that “efficiencies” will actually mean cuts.

The IFS also said that over half the rise in school funding since 2019 has been absorbed by the rising costs of SEND provision. It is an observation which pinpoints probably the single biggest challenge for the government – tackling the huge pressures on a SEND system where need has outstripped resources, and which is on the brink of collapse.

The report from the IFS was then followed by an announcement that the National Education Union plans to launch an indicative ballot in March over the government’s unfunded pay proposal.

We are actually expecting the recommendation from the STRB – and the government’s decision on the pay award – in April. So, there is still time for things to change. We hope that the review body will once again assert its independence and come up with a pay recommendation which gets to grips with the recruitment and retention crisis.

And we hope that the government – or more pertinently the Treasury – sees sense and puts in place the funding necessary for schools to be able to afford the costs of the pay award without having to make more cuts.

To be fair to the government, it has inherited – as it constantly reminds us – a dire financial situation from the previous administration. And that administration’s record on school funding and teacher pay was, we would all agree, absolutely woeful.

Also in the interests of being fair, one of the first acts of the new government was to announce a 5.5% teacher pay award for this year with additional funding for schools (unfortunately, the failure to match this for colleges soured the otherwise good news).

However, that is not remotely a case of being job done. Certainly, it is impossible to square the government’s “opportunity mission” – to break the link between a child’s background and their future success – with a financial settlement which fails to address teacher shortages and leads to another wave of school cuts.

Everybody understands the financial constraints but ultimately spending decisions are political choices, and if the government is to live up to its rhetoric it has to get this right.

So, the honeymoon is over. Let’s hope the marriage works out.

 

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