Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the effect of the public sector pay cap on the level of (a) recruitment and (b) retention of staff in schools; and if he will make a statement.

The public sector pay cap is no longer in place and we have adopted a more flexible approach to public sector pay. The remit to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) stated that they should utilise this flexibility to target the next pay award to promote recruitment and retention.

Research suggests that pay is not the main driver of teachers leaving the profession, and teachers do not tend to leave for better-paid jobs.

The fundamental changes to teachers’ pay that have been introduced over the last four years following the STRB’s recommendations have given greater discretion to schools to decide how to reward their staff. This increased flexibility helps schools to attract and retain the best teachers and to target any school-level recruitment and retention problems they may have, including addressing teacher shortages in specific subjects.