Children’s education will suffer to cover the unfunded teachers’ pay award, school leaders say. Nearly nine in ten school leaders in Wales say they will have to make cuts to afford this year’s 5% teachers' pay award, with councils not covering that in full.
Savings will have to be made by shedding staff, including teachers, and scaling back the curriculum, with some schools already facing deficits running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The 2023/24 pay award for teachers in Wales consisted of a 5% uplift.
A survey by the school leaders’ union found 87% of members would have to make savings elsewhere to help fund the 2023/24 award for teachers and leaders. Money earmarked for school maintenance, equipment and support for pupils would have to go, it said. Schools recently warned they were having to fundraise for basics like paper and you can read more about that here.
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The NAHT said it had been told by all 22 local authorities in Wales that they could not offer the additional money the union said was crucial to ensure the “much-needed salary uplift” was fully-funded. "The pay award in Wales has not been fully funded. Schools simply cannot afford to meet it," the NAHT said. Support award-winning journalism with WalesOnline’s Premium app on Apple or Android
After teachers went on strike over pay last year a deal was agreed giving teachers in Wales an 8% pay rise for the 2022-23 financial year. That included a 6.5% increase in annual pay and a one-off lump sum payment of 1.5%. A 5% increase in annual pay has also been agreed for 2023-24, up from the original offer of 3.5%
"School leaders in Wales simply have no choice but to make cuts if they are to try to meet the pay award, " the NAHT report warned. Its report, Fair Funding For Wales, published today (TUES JAN 23) shows more than three quarters (76%) of the 816 heads in their survey said they did not have enough in this year’s budget to cover the pay award for teachers and leaders.
Members were most likely to say they would have to reduce spending on equipment for the school (71%), cut the number of hours of teaching assistants (66%) and reduce staffing by not recruiting when staff left or retired (58%). Half said they would have to cut spending on additional, targeted support for pupils, while 44% said senior leaders would need take on additional teaching duties, while 42% said they would cut non-contact time for their additional learning needs (ALN) coordinator. You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Nearly a third said (31%) they would be forced to reduce the hours of teaching staff and cut non-educational support and services for children (32%), while a quarter said they would need to scale back or change the curriculum (24%).
More than half said they would have to cut the maintenance budget (53%), delay repairs or refurbishment (52%) or reduce energy use (37%). The NAHT Cymru blamed reductions in UK government funding to Wales while the Conservative opposition in Wales blamed the Welsh Government.
The union said real-terms funding for schools had fallen by around 6% since 2009/10. At the same time, schools are facing inflationary pressures of £177m in 2023-24 and £114m in 2024-25. One primary school head, with a £215,000 deficit already, said they could shave that down to a £90,000 deficit but with repercussions which would be "severe and ripple through the school".
Another head said the educational quality in their school had been "severely impacted by insufficient funding". They described how lack of funds for literacy interventions "has further diminished the quality of education provided by the school" and "the loss of staff due to budgetary constraints since the 2022/23 budget for education is significantly impacting the school's capacity to deliver quality education."
Describing the cuts the NAHT Cymru said: “The Welsh Government has maintained a number of grant funding streams to try and support schools through the Pupil Development Grant. But it has had to propose reductions of £11.5m to the universal primary free school meals programme, £40m to capital funding from the sustainable communities for learning programme, and £8.5m from the post-16 budget."
Laura Doel, NAHT Cymru national secretary, said the pay award was needed to address a decade of real terms pay stagnation and recruitment and retention crisis. But it was a “hammer blow” that it was not being funded in full and that schools would have to find money to cover the shortfall from their own budgets.
She said: " Schools were already struggling to balance the books even before the pay award, so it is a hammer blow for many of them to learn this award is not being fully-funded, despite some additional funding from the Welsh Government to support it. They are now at breaking point and facing really unpalatable decisions around reducing staffing, teaching assistant hours, and support for pupils who need it most.”
She called on Cardiff Bay and councils to plug the gap: “We urge local authorities and the Welsh Government to recognise this and work with us to ensure all schools have the funding they need both to deliver fair pay for staff and offer the learning experience pupils deserve.”
NAHT general secretary, Paul Whiteman, said: “This new report isn’t about playing the blame game. It’s about urging politicians and public servants to acknowledge the unsustainable pressures facing schools in Wales and the impact they will continue to have on children’s education without urgent action.”
The NAHT wants school budgets across Wales “to be properly and equally funded to cover the cost of the pay award”. It is asking for a commitment from local authorities and the Welsh Government to protect education funding. It is also calling for the Independent Welsh Pay Review Body, which recommends on teachers’ pay, to itself be reviewed “to see whether it is meeting the needs of teachers and school leaders”.
The union said it wanted more transparency around schools funding “with clear breakdowns of what money is coming in, where it goes and how calculations on spending are made”. It want local authorities to work with education professionals to lobby for improved funding from the Welsh Government to address what it described as “widespread regional differences in money allocated per pupil”.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We have re-prioritised funding within the education budget so we can protect school funding as much as possible, spending more in areas under the greatest pressure and increasing the Welsh Government grants going directly to schools.
“However, the UK Government’s austerity agenda means our overall funding settlement is not sufficient to meet all pressures and allow us to do all the things we want to do. As a result, the 2024-25 draft Budget presented the most stark budget choices for Wales in the devolution era. We will continue to work with bodies and individuals across the sector to ensure the best possible outcomes for our learners.”
Wales shadow education minister Laura Jones MS blamed Mark Drakeford's government. She said children's education would not suffer because teachers fought for a pay rise, but because of Welsh Government decisions.
"It’s clear that our educators deserve to be rewarded for their outstanding work. However, with the Welsh Government lumping all the additional money in local government budget to achieve this pay rise, it will mean money taken from other pots meant to be for children’s education. Welsh Labour are once again selling our learners short. The Education Minister may be focussed on his leadership campaign but it’s time he got back to the day job and ensure that the children and young people of Wales get the very best education possible."
