§ Mr. Pawseyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will set out in detail his latest proposals to the teachers involved in the present dispute.
§ Sir Keith JosephOffers of pay increases for school teachers are made by the management panel of the Burnham primary and secondary committee. The last formal offer was made in that committee on 12 September and a copy has been placed in the Library of the House. The offer was constructed on the Government's willingness to see an extra £1,250 million spent on teachers' pay over the next four years in order to develop a new career and promotion structure and to clarify the range of teachers' professional duties. In addressing these objectives the offer proposed:
- (i) the creation of an extra 70,000 promotions, associated with a restructuring of pay scales, from September 1986;
- (ii) an increase of £480 or 5 per cent. for all teachers from 1 April 1985;
- (iii) the merger of scales 1 and 2 from 1 September 1985, providing an additional increment at that date for those on the maximum of scale 1;
- (iv) a further 1 per cent. increase for all teachers from 1 November 1985; and
- (v) an additional increment for all teachers on the maxima of scales 2, 3, 4 and the senior teacher scale from 31 March 1986.
The average increase during the year would have been nearly 6 per cent. and the average increase by the end of March 1986 would have been just over 8 per cent. From September 1986, all new teachers would have received a starting salary of £7,035 a year and all teachers would have been able to progress, even without promotion, to a salary of £10,000 a year or about £2,000 more than that now available for those on the scale 1 maximum. By the same date head teachers and their deputies would have received increases amounting to about 18 per cent. in most cases.
298WThis offer was rejected by the teacher unions after just 20 minutes consideration. Developments since that rejection were outlined in my statement to the House on 22 October at column 152.