Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of energy costs on the ability of schools to fund teacher pay rises.

This Government is committed to providing a world class education system for all children. The Autumn Statement announced an additional investment of £2 billion in each of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years, above the totals announced at the Spending Review 2021. Total funding for both mainstream schools and high needs schools will total £58.8 billion in 2024/25. This is the highest ever level in real terms per pupil, as measured by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Of the £2 billion of additional funding announced in the Autumn Statement, £400 million will be allocated to local authorities’ high needs budgets, with a new condition placed on local authorities to ensure that a fair share of that will be passed directly to special schools and alternative provision. The remaining funding will be allocated to schools through the new Mainstream Schools Additional Grant (MSAG) and through boosting the pupil premium funding rates, which are increasing by 5% in 2023/24 compared to last year.

For mainstream schools, additional funding through the MSAG is worth an average 3.4%, or £192, per pupil in 2023/24. This is being provided on top of the allocations based on the national funding formula (NFF) announced in July 2022. An average primary school with 200 pupils will receive approximately £35,000 in additional funding through the new MSAG, and an average secondary school with 900 pupils will receive approximately £200,000. This will support schools to manage costs.

In March 2023, the Department made an offer on pay, conditions and workload to the education unions, as set out here: https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/03/28/teacher-strikes-latest-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-teacher-pay-offer/.

This offer set out that, taking account of the most up to date assumptions for both energy prices and support staff pay for 2023/24, the Department has calculated that a 4% teacher pay award should be affordable within existing funding. The Government’s judgement of the affordability of teacher pay increases is, as usual, based on national figures which equate to the position for an average school. This assessment considers the impact of national level changes in energy prices, inflation and support staff pay for an average school to assess the affordability of teachers pay increases for schools. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) assessed that the most recent teachers’ pay offer, if it had been accepted, would have meant school funding was still growing faster than costs.

Following unions’ rejection of the Government’s offer in March 2023, the independent School Teachers’ Review Body has submitted its recommendations to the Government on teacher pay for 2023/24, as part of the normal process. The Department will be considering the recommendations and will publish its response in the usual way.

The Government has announced that from April 2023, the Energy Bill Discount Scheme will mean eligible schools will receive a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024. This replaces the previous Energy Bill Relief Scheme which ran from October 2022 to 31 March 2023 and provided a price reduction, protecting schools from excessively high energy bills over the winter period.

In addition to the support for schools’ day to day running costs, as set out above, the Department allocated £500 million of additional capital funding in 2022/23 for schools, sixth form colleges, and Further Education (FE) colleges to help improve energy efficiency. This comprised £447 million for schools and sixth form colleges and £53 million for FE colleges to spend on capital improvements to buildings and facilities, prioritising works to improve energy efficiency. The Department has also published guidance for schools and colleges on steps for reducing energy use and small scale works to improve energy efficiency which can be implemented relatively quickly.

The Department recognises that every school’s circumstances are different, and where schools are in serious financial difficulty, they should contact their local authority or the Education and Skills Funding Agency.