Union on offensive over '2.9% pay award' to teachers

Unions reacted angrily yesterday to claims that the Government would announce pay rises no higher than inflation, including 2.9 per cent for teachers, in its latest review of public-sector salaries.

The National Union of Teachers said the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB) had caved in to pressure from ministers to offer a low award to pay for more classroom assistants.

Council leaders were delighted by the level of the increase, to be published today, because it is less than the 4 per cent local education authorities have budgeted for.

The independent senior salary review bodies for servicemen and senior civil servants are also expected to recommend rises close to the level of inflation, which is 2.9 per cent. The 205,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, many preparing to go to Iraq, are likely to be offered a slightly higher figure of up to 3.8 per cent. But even this may disappoint members of the armed forces, particularly because 19,000 of them provided cover while firefighters were striking in pursuit of a 40 per cent rise.

The STRB will publish its recommendations for this year's pay round for 440,000 teachers tomorrow, after pressure from ministers to keep the award in line with inflation.

In September, the former education secretary Estelle Morris told the STRB that the Government was "strongly of the view that the priority for this year is not a general increase in pay above the rate of inflation but instead action to promote workforce reform and tackle workload issues".

Last month, David Miliband, the School Standards minister, signed a deal with all the main classroom, headteacher and support-staff unions, except the NUT, aimed at cutting teachers' hours. A plan to make more use of classroom assistants underpinned the reforms.

The Government has earmarked £1bn for hiring 50,000 extra classroom assistants and other support staff, but local education authorities said they would need more. The STRB looked likely to give them what they wanted. Teachers wanted a rise of 10 per cent, which they claimed was necessary to stop an exodus. Union members in London have already staged a series of walkouts over pay.

Doug McAvoy, the NUT general secretary, said his members would be "disappointed and angry" that their pay was being pegged at the level of inflation. "Teachers are being denied proper salary levels to pay for an increase in the number of support staff. The folly of the teacher unions who signed the modernisation agreement is today obvious to all."

But Graham Lane, Labour education chairman of the Local Government Association, said unions ought to be pleased because councils could hire more support staff and reduce teachers' workload.

Mr Lane said 2.9 per cent was a "fair settlement" given all the other payments, including the £2,000 performance-related bonus that about 90 per cent of teachers received. "It means schools will be slightly better off. We've put aside 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent because we've always got caught by the pay review body giving more money to teachers' pay than the Government has funded."