Teachers have not received an overall pay rise in excess of 1 per cent since the coalition government honoured a recommendation by the pay review body to increase salaries by 2.3 per cent in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, their pay was frozen altogether.

As Tes went to press, the government was under mounting pressure to change tack. Cabinet ministers, including environment secretary Michael Gove, have made sympathetic noises about lifting the public sector pay cap.

However, Gove was accused of being “disingenuous” by the NASUWT union when he said the government would wait to listen to the advice of its pay review bodies.

As the union points out, education secretary Justine Greening instructed the School Teachers’ Review Body in December that it needed to make its pay recommendation within the context of the 1 per cent cap. And the DfE has had the STRB’s resulting report since the spring. Lifting the cap is one thing. But an actual teachers’ pay rise above 1 per cent might also require Greening to ask the STRB for a second set of recommendations, or potentially disregard a first set and order a higher teachers’ pay rise.

A sting in the tail?

And if those obstacles were overcome, where would that leave funding for schools? In its December submission to the STRB, the DfE said schools would have to find any teacher pay increase out of their own pockets. Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT heads’ union, says the government could “walk out tomorrow and promise a 10 per cent rise for every teacher in the country”. But it would be “making promises with other people’s money” unless additional funding is provided to cover it.

Hobby says the government needs to “line up” its funding and pay strategies. “I can’t think of many things better for a school to spend its money on than teachers,” he says.

But public sector pay could deliver one final sting in the tail. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that it could cost £4.1 billion per year in 2019-20 to increase pay across the public sector in line with inflation.

Coincidentally, the Tories promised during the election to increase the overall schools budget by £4 billion by 2022. Teachers may have to face the hard truth that the more money allocated to increase wages in public services, the less is available for schools.