As teachers prepare to strike again next week it has emerged that not all councils will fund the 5% initial pay offer, despite a promise they would. Unions and teachers have warned this will directly affect children’s education with schools having to cut jobs, have larger class sizes and more use of unqualified staff in order to foot the rest of the wage bill.
Hundreds of schools shut when teachers in the National Education Union walked out on February 1 and March 2 and two more strike dates are planned for March 15 and 16. Now fresh controversy over funding is looming with talks to resolve the dispute at a delicate stage.
NEU Cymru members turned down an initial below inflation 5% increase an “insult” and then rejected a revised offer of 1.5% more and a one-off cash payment worth 1.5% as “just not good enough”. The Welsh Government has promised to fund the added 3% but councils are now saying they can't afford the first 5%, despite a pledge from the Welsh Local Government Association that they would.
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In a letter to Education Minister Jeremy Miles, seen by WalesOnline, the WLGA said councils would fully fund the first 5% offered, but one has now publicly stated it won’t and at least four more are also known not to be, say unions - this means schools would have to cover the shortfall from already squeezed budgets.
Vale of Glamorgan Council said rising prices, inflation and interest rates have left it unable to fund the first 5% of the pay offer in full. The Association of School and College Leaders Cymru said it knows of at least four more councils which have told heads they also can’t afford to pay the 5% leaving schools to foot the bill for any shortfall.
A Vale of Glamorgan Council spokesperson said: “The Vale of Glamorgan Council funded 3% of the 5% pay increase awarded to education staff through school budgets at the start of 2022/23 and then recently an additional 1.2 per after the authority’s financial forecast improved.
“That means a total of 4.2% of the 5% increase has been funded by the council, which equates to 84% of its total. The council also increased its 2023/24 budget for education by more than £9m at a meeting last Monday.
“Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover the pay increase in full as, like many other local authorities, the council is in a challenging financial position. We have a £9.7m funding shortfall to bridge in 2023-24 following significant rises in price, inflation and interest rates.
“That means some difficult decisions need to be made in order to protect services for our most vulnerable residents.”
This comes after WLGA leader Cllr Andrew Morgan wrote to the minister on February 15 saying: “Councils will fund the 5% pay award, in full, for this academic year (September 2022 to August 2023) with Welsh Government providing the funding for the additional 3% if agreed by the unions. This offer is the equivalent of an 8% pay rise, with 6.5% consolidated.
“We are committed to continue discussions with the Welsh Government to ensure that any potential increases in pay will be fully funded and will not impact on school budgets.”
The Association of School and College Leaders Cymru said Vale of Glamorgan is not alone and a number of other local authorities have told its members around Wales the 5% won’t be fully paid. Some have said they’ll have to cut spending elsewhere, including jobs, to meet that bill.
With talks on pay, funding and working conditions at a delicate stage, with strike dates planned for next week, trust is being eroded, ASCL Cymru warned. While it is only NEU members who have voted to strike, members of the National Association of Headteachers Cymru are working to rule in protest over working conditions and funding and ASCL members backed balloting for potential action in a consultative ballot.
ASCL Cymru director Eithne Hughes said: “When we’ve told our members what the WLGA said they have been coming back and saying in their areas that’s not the case. In a period of difficult industrial relations we would expect the WLGA to be as good as its word - that’s all we are asking for.
“We expect all 22 local education authorities to pay the full 5% in order that schools are not bearing the burden. The WLGA is crystal clear in that letter that the 5% will be fully funded but I am getting members saying that is not the case.
"Some councils are not fully funding the 5% and some have said they are fully funding the settlement, but are actually only fully funding the “average” wage at 5%. That means there will be winners and losers and those schools with more experienced staff on higher wages will get less."
“If it isn’t fully funded, and schools have to find the rest it will mean they cut costs with larger class sizes, cutting minority subjects where they’ll need one teacher for small classes, such as music. It will mean teaching assistants covering lessons and teaching assistants being lost which will affect vulnerable children.”
Vale of Glamorgan teacher and NEU Cymru executive member Mairead Canavan said: "Schools have less money for resources, energy bill increases, staff wages etc. If pay awards continue to be unfunded we will start to see redundancies."
WalesOnline asked all 22 local education authorities whether they had agreed to fully fund the initial 5% teachers’ pay offer. Only a handful have responded. Of those which have Merthyr, Ceredigion, Torfaen and Caerphilly said they would fully fund the 5% and Vale of Glamorgan said it won’t.
A spokesperson for Isle of Anglesey Council said its initial budget was not enough to cover that pay claim so they increased it: “The initial delegated schools budget was insufficient to meet the 5% pay award for teachers from September 2022. A further £474k has been allocated to schools to meet the additional cost up to the 5% pay award.
“It is unclear what the final pay award will be, we are aware that the Welsh Government has made an offer of an additional 1.5% to teachers with an additional one off payment of 1.5%. It is believed that Welsh Government will provide funding for the additional cost and if this happens, this funding will be passed on to schools.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: "No one wants to see children and young people not in school. We have continued to hold productive meetings with unions and we are looking to make urgent progress to ensure that schools remain open”.
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