Teachers’ pay 2018/19

The Department for Education (DfE) announced its proposals for the 2018/19 pay award for teachers on Tuesday 25 July, which was in response to the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) 28th Report. This is the first time that the DfE has not accepted in full the recommendations of the STRB, and the proposals are not being funded by new monies from the Treasury. There is therefore quite a lot of questions yet to be answered. Employer Link has now had an initial conversation with DfE officials to try and gather some more clarity. As a reminder the pay award is for:

• 3.5 per cent to the minimum and maximum of the unqualified pay range and main pay range
• 2 per cent to the minimum and maximum of the upper pay range, leading practitioner pay range
• 1.5 per cent to the minimum and maximum of the leadership pay ranges
• 2 per cent uplift across all allowances across all pay ranges

The DfE will be investing £508m through pay grants that will apply to the end of the current spending period i.e. to the end of March 2020 (£187m in 2018/19, and £321m in 2019/20). This investment will cover the difference between the 1 per cent (which it is assumed that schools will already have budgeted for) and the proposals set out above and apply to all publically funded schools. Details of the grant have yet to be worked out completely. However, we have been told that they would like to minimise the administrative burden on employers and that funds will be made available as quickly as possible. At the moment the thinking is that individual schools and academies will receive funding through normal channels. They have asked us to comment, and we would therefore welcome thoughts from our subscribers on:

What approach would be most effective in calculating what schools and academies would be eligible to receive. Should it be using a national formula, or based on actual values based on the specific workforce profile of the organisation. 

If it is based on a formula, what should that be? One option is to have a simple per pupil calculation (with some weighting for key factors e.g. phase)

Can you envisage any reasons why any employers would be disproportionately affected if any particular formulae were adopted? Especially if it were based on a per pupil basis. For example

• impact on a multi-academy trust in comparison to a stand-alone academy; or 
• Academies in comparison to maintained schools; or
• Specific parts of the workforce linked to sixth form provision in schools/academies; or
• Special Education Needs; or
• On-costs; or
• The differential nature of the award across work groups

What mechanisms would be needed to counteract any such inequalities?

Employer Link would also like any more general views you have on the proposed pay award for teachers. The National Employer Organisation for School Teachers (NEOST) will be submitting a response as the statutory employer consultee. Although there is no formal role for Employer Link subscribers in this process, we would welcome your views that can be passed onto DfE. In particular:

• Given the STRB recommendations, whether the DfE could consider a different approach (other than implementing in full) – and if so what they would be and why (taking into consideration the key aim that the STRB were set in respect of recruitment and retention, affordability and autonomy in the pay system).
• How these proposals are likely to impact on recruitment and retention
• What financial impact (if any) these proposals will have in your organisation
• What impacts you believe the precedent of not following STRB could have
• What impact the funding coming from the existing DfE budgets could have

The consultation process is running over the summer holidays, which we appreciate makes it difficult to collate a wide response. However, we would welcome the views of Senior Management team (Heads of Resources and Heads of Workforce in particular) by Friday 17 August

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