The 33rd report of the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) is being published today, setting out their recommendations on teacher pay from September based on evidence provided from statutory consultees, including teaching unions.
I am pleased to confirm that the Government have today accepted the STRB’s recommendations for 2023-24 teacher pay awards in full. This means that teachers and leaders in maintained schools will receive an increase of at least 6.5%, the highest STRB award in three decades. This comes on top of the increases already received last year, and for many teachers will also be accompanied by additional pay rises due to progression, recognising the hard work of our teaching profession. Further information about the implementation of this can be found in the annex to this statement.
These recommendations also include higher uplifts to starting salaries outside London, which mean that as of September, the Government will have delivered its manifesto commitment of starting salaries of £30,000 or more for teachers in all areas of the country.
The award is fully funded, and we will be providing an additional £525 million of funding in 2023-24, and £900 million in 2024-25. That is equivalent to the full costs of the pay award over 3.5% which our evidence states is affordable to schools nationally, and in line with the evidence the Government submitted to the STRB. This Government are committed to living within its means and delivering value for the taxpayer, and therefore we are reprioritising within the Department for Education’s existing budget to deliver this additional funding to schools, while protecting frontline services. The award is consistent with the Government priority to halve inflation.
This support is being provided in respect of mainstream and special schools, as well as school-based early years and post-16 provision. Every school will benefit from this additional funding. We have also published details of its distribution (which can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachers- pay-additional-grant-2023-to-2024) providing schools with the information they need to finalise their budgets. I recognise that this will not mean that no school will face financial challenges and I will also extend the support currently available to individual schools facing the most difficult financial circumstances by up to £40 million.
This support comes on top of the £2 billion a year provided for schools in our autumn statement. As a result, the core schools budget will now total more than £59.6 billion in 2024-2, its highest ever level, in real terms per pupil, as confirmed by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies.
I am also announcing today other measures to promote recruitment and retention across schools which remains a priority for this Government. We will convene a workload reduction taskforce to explore how we can go further to support trust and school leaders to minimise workload for teachers and leaders. We want to build on previous successes and aim to reduce working hours by five hours per week. We also plan to reinsert a revised list of administrative tasks that teachers should not be expected to do into the school teachers’ pay and conditions document (STPCD).
We know that flexible working opportunities can help to recruit, retain, and motivate teachers and leaders and help promote staff wellbeing. Last month we appointed seven flexible working ambassador multi-academy trusts and schools to offer practical advice to school leaders on implementing flexible working and we are currently in the process of recruiting more. This is part of a wider programme, funded by the Department, to help embed flexible working in schools and trusts.
[HCWS942]