.jpg){kind=avatar}
Caroline Voaden, Member of Parliament for South Devon, has shared her anger that teachers’ pay increases will not be fully funded by the government.
The government has accepted recommendations by the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) to implement a pay award for school teachers and leaders of 4 per cent from September 2025. However, this pay award is not fully funded and schools will be expected to find approximately the first 1 per cent of pay awards.
The Education Minister Bridget Phillipson says they can do this “through improved productivity and smarter spending to make every pound count. There will be those who say this cannot be done, but I believe schools have a responsibility, like the rest of the public sector, to ensure that their funding is spent as efficiently as possible.”
Speaking after the announcement, Voaden said “I am furious that any Education Minister thinks schools have not done everything they possibly can already to spend the money they have ‘as efficiently as possible’.
.jpeg?width=209&height=140&crop=209:145,smart&quality=75)
“One school in South Devon told me that finding 1 per cent on teachers’ pay will cost it an extra £95,000 a year. Primary schools are consolidating classes, support staff are being laid off, small and rural schools are finding it particularly tough as they receive less money because of lower pupil numbers.
“The National Association of Headteachers Devon Branch recently told me ‘we are on our knees. There is nothing left to cut’.”
The South Devon MP asked the Schools Minister Catherine McKinnell where schools are meant to find this extra money. Responding in the House of Commons, the Minister talked about the Department for Education supporting schools to save money on things they are buying, on maintenance and management, on energy costs and banking, and by looking at what other schools are doing well.
Voaden said “When we hear about teachers using their own money to buy resources for their classrooms it is nothing short of insulting that the DofE think they can find the huge sums of money required to meet this pay award by cutting back – there is, literally, no fat left on the bone.”