Close To The Limit – Why Pay Restraint Is Damaging The Teaching Profession
If the government continues to limit teachers’ pay, argues ATL‘s Simon Stokes, it risks making the already parlous state of recruitment and retention within the teaching profession even worse Teachers, along with the rest of the public sector, are currently suffering under Treasury-imposed pay restraint. A two-year pay freeze has been followed by three years […]
- by Simon Stokes
If the government continues to limit teachers’ pay, argues ATL‘s Simon Stokes, it risks making the already parlous state of recruitment and retention within the teaching profession even worse
Teachers, along with the rest of the public sector, are currently suffering under Treasury-imposed pay restraint. A two-year pay freeze has been followed by three years of a 1% limit on pay rises, which the government has recently extended by a further four years. If the Chancellor has his way, it will be 2020 before teachers see even a possibility of a decent pay increase.
While teachers do not go into teaching expecting high salaries, ATL believes this pay restraint is having a negative impact on the recruitment and retention of teachers, and is fuelling the shortage of teachers. We think all teachers deserve a significant increase in their salaries, including on any allowances they receive.
A widening gap
The Department for Education has said teacher recruitment is facing a ‘challenge’; we believe there is already a crisis. We know that new graduates entering teaching earn less than graduates in other professions. According to High Fliers’ UK Graduate Careers Survey 2015 [PDF], ‘The average starting salary that finalists expect to earn as new graduates has risen to £23,700, some £700 more than in 2014 and the largest annual rise for seven years.’
This compares with a starting salary of £22,244 for a newly qualified teacher outside London, making non-teaching careers begin to look much more attractive – especially when students have loans to repay.
Salary increases in the private sector are on the rise. Earnings data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that real average weekly earnings grew by 2.9% from July-September 2014 to July-September 2015. If the government insists on limiting teachers’ salaries, then the gap between teachers’ pay and what they could earn in the private sector will continue to widen, which is a disincentive to go into teaching. We have seen this damaging cycle of playing catch-up all too often with teachers’ pay.
We believe the public sector pay policy has depressed teachers’ real earnings over recent years. With the end of national pay scales, and the linking of pay progression and the annual cost of living increase to performance appraisal outcomes, teachers are no longer sure what they are likely to earn in the future, making it harder for them to plan their lives. The annual uplift of teachers’ pay scales to take account of increases in the cost of living should be entirely separate from progression based on performance.
A ‘bully’s charter’
Our members are greatly concerned about the Secretary of State asking the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to look into enabling teachers to opt to step down from the upper pay range to the main pay range [PDF]. None of the unions or the National Employers of School Teachers (NEOST) have asked for this facility, despite the government stating in its evidence [PDF] that this is a ‘consistent message’ from schools, local authorities and head teacher unions. We are concerned this would not be a voluntary process and would, in some schools, become a ‘bully’s charter’ with head teachers pressuring teachers to relinquish their entitlement to be paid on the upper pay range.
The government is also asking the STRB to consider the introduction of non-consolidated payments. It believes this flexibility ‘Could have a strong impact on both motivation and retention’ – but we believe it is more likely to be divisive and demotivating. When the pot of money available for salaries is so small, schools will only be able to afford a non-consolidated payment for one teacher if they deny an increase to their colleagues, which will not improve morale in schools. We are urging the STRB not to implement either of these suggestions.
ATL believes a national service teaching should have a national pay structure, with clear career progression as teachers develop their knowledge and experience.
For more information, visit atl.org.uk or @atlunion
