I welcome the announcement that teachers will be receiving a very well deserved pay rise. I raised with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury concerns from West Sussex schools, whose budgets are hugely under pressure already and will be completely shot unless the recently announced teachers' pay award is completely funded centrally.
I asked the Chief Secretary to guarantee that it will be completely funded centrally and asked what assessment she has made of the impact on the DFE’s budget for children’s social care, which is already facing a predicted shortfall of £2 billion by 2020.
If you listen closely you will hear the disappointing response that only the additional rise above 1% will be funded completely by central government.
Schools had been advised to budget for a 1% increase which will still have a big impact on their finances but it would obviously have been worse if they had been expected to absorb the whole award locally. It is now down to increasing the pressure on the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review next year to find further resources to fund our local schools fairly at last.