The UK government and education unions agreed to begin “intensive talks” in a bid to end a wave of teacher strikes over pay.
(Bloomberg) — The UK government and education unions agreed to begin “intensive talks” in a bid to end a wave of teacher strikes over pay.
No further school strike dates will be announced for two weeks while the discussions take place, four unions and the Department for Education said Friday in a joint statement.
The move raises hope of an agreement to end industrial action in schools across England, one day after the government reached a pay deal with nurses and ambulance workers. Ministers are trying to end months of damaging strikes across multiple sectors, following protests from unions that pay levels are not keeping up with soaring inflation.
UK Offers Nurses 5% Pay Rise in Bid to End Most NHS Strikes
The education talks will focus on teacher pay, conditions and workload reduction, according to the statement. They follow strikes in England on Wednesday and Thursday by the National Education Union that led to about half of schools restricting attendance.
The NEU, NASUWT, Association of School and College Leaders, and National Association of Head Teachers will participate in the discussions with government ministers and officials.
Pay Demands
Education unions are demanding a fully-funded, above-inflation pay rise for teachers and support staff. On Thursday, the government offered a 5% pay rise to health workers for 2023-24 along with a one-time bonus worth 2% of salary for 2022-23 and an “NHS backlog bonus.”
That offer needs to be put to health union members, but it raises the prospect of an end in sight to wider industrial action that has caused chaos across Britain for months. This week alone has seen walkouts by teachers, junior doctors, civil servants and London Underground workers.
It was also announced on Thursday that more than 1,000 passport office workers will go on strike for five weeks ahead of the summer travel season.
Action to bring an end to strikes would boost Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government ahead of a general election expected next year. His Conservative Party has trailed the Labour opposition in polls by a double-digit margin for months, though recent surveys have begun to show a narrowing of the gap.
Funding
Amid the optimism, however, there were questions about where the money to pay for the National Health Service pay awards would come from, after Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt locked in departmental budgets for next year in Wednesday’s budget.
The Department for Health and Social Care said last month that a pay award next year above 3.5% “would require trade-offs for public service delivery.” The Institute for Fiscal Studies on Thursday estimated the 5% offer would add another £1.5 billion to the NHS remuneration bill, relative to a 3.5% one.
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told BBC TV on Friday that the money would come from the NHS budget, adding that Health Secretary Steve Barclay would discuss the matter with Hunt. But Rachel Harrison, national secretary of the GMB union, said the government had given unions a commitment the money wouldn’t come from current budgets.
Reassurances
“We were told that this would be additional money and it wouldn’t come out of existing health budgets,” she told BBC Radio on Friday. “We were given reassurances this was not existing health money.”
Julian Hartley, chief executive officer of NHS Providers, which represents the health service’s trusts, told the same radio program that “it’s important that this pay deal is fully funded and that the NHS is not being expected to dip into its coffers, which are already stretched.”
The health department, for its part, has given a “guarantee” that there will be “no impact on front line services or the quality of care that patients receive as a result of this pay offer.”
–With assistance from Ellen Milligan.
(Updates with details of funding for pay deal starting in 10th paragraph.)
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