Yesterday in the House of Commons, Ruth Cadbury asked the Schools Minister, Nick Gibb MP, about the impact a teachers pay rise will have on the financial sustainability of school budgets without proper government funding.
Speaking afterwards Ruth Cadbury said: "True to form, the Minister avoided answering my question. Hounslow's Headteachers & Governors want to know what will happen to the funding of the teachers' pay rise after 2020. He also ignored my invitation to him to come to meet local school leaders to discuss the challenges of planning school budgeting at this difficult time."
The NAHT, the Association of School and College Leaders and the National Education Union said in a joint statement that: "The pay award is not fully funded. The Department for Education is still expecting schools to fund 1% of the cost from severely strained budgets and is only funding the additional expenditure above 1%."
Teachers' pay costs for primary schools in Hounslow represented 73% of their expenditure in 2017/18. Schools being able to properly fund their pay costs is critical to the financial sustainability of our schools.
The Government have announced a teachers pay rise, however the Institute for Fiscal Studies said only 40% of teachers in England would be eligible for the higher 3.5% pay rise, while the remainder would receive increases below the current rate of inflation of 2.4%. 60 per cent of teachers would therefore suffer a real-terms pay cut.
Clip of questioning available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIo0SYVnnk