Schools will struggle to meet extra Covid costs and a £250 pay award to staff earning less than £24,000 a year, headteachers have warned. 

This morning the government published evidence to the School Teachers’ Review Body, revealing that no more than 6,400 teachers will qualify for a pay rise this year under its plans.

But the Association of School and College Leaders has pointed out that because schools will also have to pay many non-teachers the £250 increase, alongside extra Covid costs, it will actually be difficult for them to afford.

Exclusive: Schools left to pay £42m Covid costs by DfE

News: Heads and teachers condemn pay freeze ‘kick in teeth’

Related: Only 6,400 teachers to get 2021 pay rise - of just £250

Heads: ‘The pay freeze is a slap in the face for teachers’

In the Department for Education’s STRB evidence, the government calculated the total cost of the teacher pay rise as £1.6 million.

“Accounting for employer National Insurance and Teacher Pension Scheme contributions, this would rise to approximately £2.2 million,” it says.

Coronavirus: Schools ‘will have difficulty covering pay rise’

“The burden is split across phases broadly proportionally, and is affordable from current school budgets, which are increasing by £2.2 billion in 2021-22 compared to 2020-21.”

But Julia Harnden, funding specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, told Tes that schools will still have difficulty meeting the cost of the award as they are facing other extra costs due to Covid.

She said: “At face value, it is difficult to argue against the government’s assertion that the extra costs involved in the £250 pay award to unqualified teachers can be met from the £2.2 billion increase in school budgets.

“However, the pay award will almost certainly affect a significant number of other non-teaching staff who are paid less than £24,000 per annum, and schools are also facing considerable uncertainty over the extent of any Covid-related expenditure they will incur, all of which will need to come from the same budget.

“The combined effect is that schools are not going to have pots of money available to meet all these extra costs, as the government seems to be suggesting, and that they will remain financially hard-pressed.”

The £250 salary increase for those in schools earning less than £24,000 comes amid a general public sector pay freeze announced by the chancellor in November.