
In its manifesto, Labour pledged to recruit 6,500 new teachers and the Education Secretary reiterated this a few days after the election. ‘From day one, we are delivering the change this country demands and putting education back at the forefront of national life,’ said Bridget Phillipson. ‘We will work urgently to recruit thousands of brilliant new teachers and reset the relationship between government and the education workforce.’
If that really is her intention, she’s got a funny way of going about it. Last week, I got an email from Ian Hunter, CEO of the multi-academy trust I co-founded, alerting me to a funding shortfall in the next academic year. He’d been notified that the increase in the trust’s general annual grant for 2025-26 is 1.1 per cent, which leaves it about £1 million short.
A third of primaries and four in ten secondaries are expecting to lay off staff in the next academic year
This isn’t just because the Department for Education has under-estimated the impact of the national insurance hike – although that’s a factor. The main problem is the government agreeing to an increase in teachers’ salaries of 2.8 per cent. The upshot is that all but one of the nine schools in the trust is projected to go into deficit. According to Ian, the only way to remain solvent will be to make 8 to 10 per cent of the staff redundant.
Mind you, this is the best-case scenario. Monday brought news that the independent pay review body, which represents 514,000 teachers, has recommended a rise of nearly 4 per cent. Rachel Reeves has made it clear that departmental budgets for 2025-26 are set in stone, yet the government is expected to endorse this recommendation. How will schools be able to find this additional money? The government’s answer is ‘efficiency savings’, which is a euphemism for even more redundancies. So much for recruiting 6,500 new teachers.
I checked with some other school leaders, fearing my trust had been singled out for a punishment beating. But they confirmed they’re in the same boat. Indeed, some are in even deeper water, with one trust chairman telling me the gap in national insurance funding alone will cost his schools £375,000. According to an article in Schools Week, more than a third of primary schools and four in ten secondaries are expecting to lay off staff in the next academic year.
I’m going to try to ask the government in the Lords about what’s happened to the £1.7 billion it said it was going to raise from VAT on school fees – in January Phillipson claimed that ‘ending the VAT break enjoyed by private schools will provide much-needed investment in our state schools’. I know the answer, of course: the tax raid on independent schools won’t yield anything like £1.7 billion and any revenue it does raise will be swallowed up by the Treasury. But it would be good to have a chance to haul the government over the coals about this broken promise.
The tragic thing about the redundancies is that the staff most likely to go are those employed to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Not only will state schools be forced to cut provision for their existing SEND cohorts, but the VAT on fees will inevitably mean a wave of SEND pupils arriving from the private sector. Approximately 22 percent of children in English independent schools have SEND and their parents are among the likeliest to be priced out by the fee increase. These parents scrimp and save to go private precisely because their children’s complex needs can’t be met by state education. Now they’ll be forced to fall back on schools that have just made their SEND staff redundant.
The teaching unions, aware that demanding a 4 per cent pay rise won’t be popular, have threatened strike action if no extra money is announced. As that seems highly un-likely – the PM’s official spokesman said on Monday that there would be ‘no additional funding’ – schools are facing a perfect storm. While dealing with an influx of pupils who were previously in the independent sector – many with SEND – they’ll be forced to cut staff and those who remain will be on strike. Welcome to Starmer’s Britain. Incidentally, teachers got an average rise of 5.5 per cent in 2024-25, and a further 4 per cent would be above the 3.2 per cent inflation forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
‘It’s incredible that the government appears intent on inflicting deep harm on one of the remaining public services that works effectively,’ says Ian, who estimates the shortfall will be more like £2 million if the trust has to follow the recommendation of the independent pay review body. ‘Every parent in the county should be up in arms lobbying their MP about this threat to their children’s education.’
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