Could an FE review body finally end teacher pay snubs?

Sector leaders are discussing how a pay review body could close the salary gap between school and FE teachers

Sector leaders are discussing how a pay review body could close the salary gap between school and FE teachers

Long read

The college sector was snubbed by Labour when it handed schoolteachers an inflation-busting pay rise. Would the formation of a pay review body help? Anviksha Patel investigates 

The merits of a pay advisory quango for FE has topped the sector’s agenda since schoolteachers got £1.2 billion of government cash to raise their pay 5.5 per cent. 

College leaders and unions have begun talks about how a separate pay group could close the near-£10,000 salary gap between school and college teachers. 

The Department for Education’s decision to exclude FE colleges from the £1.2 billion pot in July sparked sector-wide anger. 

And a kick in the teeth for many was the fact £80 million of this was earmarked for school sixth-form teachers. 

Why did Labour ministers do this? Their excuse was because colleges do not have a pay review body – independent panels that evidence and provide the government with advice each year on public sector pay. 

“Funding for further education, as with other workforces which do not have a pay review body, will be taken as part of the forthcoming multi-year spending review which will set out funding for 2025-26 and beyond”, the DfE told FE Week.  

That spending review won’t conclude until spring. 

Meanwhile, the government unveiled plans last week to revive the School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) to “ensure all school staff have access to fair pay and conditions”. 

The great pay gap 

Funding cuts have squeezed college pay for over a decade.  

Research published last year by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that in 2010-11, the median salary (at today’s prices) was around £48,000 for a school teacher and £42,500 for a college teacher. But median pay is now around £41,500 for a school teacher and £34,500 for a college teacher. 

Last week the Association of Colleges (AoC) recommended colleges offer staff a “disappointing” 2.5 per cent pay rise for 2024-25. 

The move strayed from the membership body’s previous ambition to achieve parity with schools by matching the 5.5 per cent pay recommendation made by the arms-length School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB). 

Put simply, most colleges cannot afford a pay rise equivalent to schools without extra funding. 

Labour’s new team of education ministers have repeatedly expressed their sympathy with colleges and recognised the huge pay gap they suffer. 

Two weeks ago, education secretary Bridget Phillipson told the STRB its 2025-26 recommendations should consider the impact on the FE teaching workforce in England. 

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said Phillipson’s amendment to the STRB’s remit was a “helpful step” that will highlight the “enormous discrepancy which has no justification”. 

But there is no sign ministers are considering an equivalent pay review body for FE. 

In the soon-to-be-legislated employment rights bill, the SSSNB will be reinstated to negotiate on matters relating to the remuneration, terms and conditions of employment, and training and career progression of school support staff. 

The then education secretary Michael Gove abolished the quango in the advent of the 2010 coalition government, citing it did “not fit well with the government’s priorities for greater deregulation of the pay and conditions arrangements for the school workforce”. 

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, said Labour has “perhaps observed the damage caused” by the abolition of the SSSNB, which “cemented systemic low pay for support staff”, adding that a “consistent approach on pay will help ease the support staff recruitment crisis”. 

What is a pay review body? 

There are currently eight supposedly independent pay review bodies – soon-to-be 10 with the addition of the reinstated SSSNB and an adult social care negotiating body – which consider the pay and professional duties of half of the public sector workforce, including NHS workers, the armed forces, police officers and senior civil servants.  

Pay review bodies (PRBs) consult with trade unions, employers and local authorities before making recommendations to the government on pay, which the government can accept or not. 

They have existed since the 1960s and the education sector has seen various iterations over the years such as the Interim Advisory Committee and Burnham committees from the 1980s, which conducted collective negotiation of teacher pay. 

The School Teachers’ Review Body was set up in 1992 and marked the rollout of pay review bodies to “displace” collective bargaining and “undermine” existing non-statutory PRBs, according to a report by the Institute of Employment Rights. 

The STRB delivers an annual report of pay recommendations to the education secretary and prime minister. The panel’s members are appointed by the prime minister and the secretary of state, which has concerned unions. 

Kebede claimed the STRB’s reports have been used as a “political football”, with the previous government “routinely leaving its publication for many weeks – and too late for heads to plan their next-year budgets accordingly”. 

He added: “Government requires it to work within the existing inadequate funding envelope.  This means the STRB does not undertake an objective review of pay and conditions.” 

Is a PRB right for colleges? 

Colleges have been able to negotiate pay with the National Joint Forum – made up of the five FE unions – for almost 30 years since they came out of local authority rule and formed independent statutory corporations in 1992. 

But since the reclassification of FE colleges into the public sector in 2022, questions have been raised as to why FE doesn’t have its own pay review body. 

PRBs seek to publish recommendations that address longstanding workforce issues. 

The STRB last year introduced a starting salary of £30,000 for young graduates to attract teachers into schools. 

The government also accepted the NHS pay review bodies’ 2023 recommendations in full, awarding a 6 per cent pay rise for most doctors, between 8.1 to 10.3 per cent for junior doctors and 5 per cent for senior leaders. While “expensive”, the acceptance was necessary to “stem the flow” of staff out of the NHS into the private sector, the Institute for Government said

Meanwhile, the AoC is talking with unions about moving to a binding collective bargaining agreement and has gathered views from its members before it lobbies for changes. 

AoC pay recommendations are non-binding. Depending on what is agreed between the parties, changes could make it legally binding for colleges that are part of negotiations.  

However, if pay awards are negotiated through a statutory pay review body, all colleges would be “bound” to implement whatever is recommended and accepted by government, lawyers say.  

“If this is the government’s proposed route, colleges should seek assurance that any nationally imposed pay increases are fully funded,” said Jean Boyle, head of education at Stone King. 

The University and College Union said the current non-binding recommendations were “broken and need replacing”. 

“We need functioning national pay talks that are fully funded and implemented by all colleges,” it said. 

Hughes said: “The unions have been clear they want to see colleges come under a pay review body and believe that will be the best way to secure the investment colleges need to put pay back where it should be.” 

However, college leaders are “nervous” about this as they “fear losing the freedom to set pay at a level which maintains their financial viability”. 

Hughes admitted the chancellor’s decision to “find £80 million or so for school sixth forms for teacher pay and nothing for comparable colleges was wrong on several counts, and has heightened interest in how a pay review body could work for colleges”. 

He said: “Any changes will need to be fully understood, assessed and analysed before decisions are made that would impact around 180 independent college corporations.” 

In the sixth-form college sector, teacher pay is agreed between the National Joint Council, a body for collective bargaining, and the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA). 

Graham Baird, director of HR Services at the SFCA, said: “The issue at hand is a funding issue and should not be sidetracked by whether current collective bargaining in FE could receive additional government pay funding if it were covered by an unrepresentative pay review body approach.” 

Anne Murdoch, senior adviser in college leadership at the Association of School and College Leaders, said policymakers must address the oversight of pay discrepancies between college and schoolteachers, “whether that is through a new pay review body or another mechanism”.  

“Something has got to change,” she added. 

The drawbacks 

Hughes said establishing a PRB could be a long process. It requires ministers to select and appoint members, decide on a remit and enshrine it in law. 

“Ultimately, English colleges make decisions with the system they operate within, and there is a lot of variation between pay arrangements and contracts between different colleges,” he said.  

“Both Scotland and Wales have more standardised arrangements but moving towards this would be a long process.” 

Lawyers told FE Week the new employment rights bill comes as a warning to colleges as legislation will bring support staff in academy trusts into the SSSNB’s negotiating remit, which is going to be “hard” for academies to transition. 

“Academies have been doing their own thing in relation to support staff pay and conditions for the last 15 years,” said Boyle. “If they now suddenly transition to a nationally agreed pay structure, what happens? You would expect the funding to come with that.” 

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said while the idea of a pay review body was “certainly worth exploring”, it’s not “inevitable” that having one would guarantee more money and higher pay for colleges.

“Ultimately, having a pay review body doesn’t mean the government will find extra money to meet its recommendations, and the government can set the remit for the pay review body (to say, for example, that it must take account of the public finances),” he said.

He added that there would be a trade-off of colleges having local flexibility over pay versus the collective weight of an independent body saying college pay should rise.

Imran Tahir, research economist at the IFS, said local flexibility would mean principals were better able to respond to local labour market conditions. 

Members of the Royal College of Nursing last year, whose pay is under the remit of the NHS Pay Review Body, voted to no longer submit evidence to the PRB as it wanted “more direct and effective negotiations with employers”.

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