To talk of teachers now all being paid the same does not reflect reality. Teachers who are more effective are paid more and are promoted more quickly.

The details of the process still need refining but it is not payment on results. Clearly staff involved have to demonstrate that they do and can make a difference in the achievements of the pupils they teach.

That is part of professional competency which looks at how individual teachers prepare their work and how they plan and take responibility for their own in-service training.

The new career structure will improve teaching as a profession, attract a greater number of high quality graduates to it and raise standards in all our schools. Threats of boycott, I suspect, will prove to be empty rhetoric.

The pound;1 billion of new money cannot be allowed to be a payment for all, and more effective teachers do deserve to be paid more.

The employers of teachers support the Government in its determination to bring the teaching profession’s conditions of service, including salaries, into the 21st century.

Graham Lane, Newham Council, East Ham, London E6