Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Ruth Cadbury

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effect of the teachers’ recent pay award on the financial sustainability of school budgets.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

We are fully funding the teachers’ pay award by providing a teachers’ pay grant worth £187 million in 2018-19 and £321 million in 2019-20. This funding will be over and above the core funding that schools receive through the national funding formula.

[Ruth Cadbury]

That is not the experience of heads and governors in Hounslow. The pay award is not fully funded. Schools are expected to pick up the tab for the first 1% of the cost of the pay award, so they are having to make further cuts to school provision and staffing. Also, schools have not been told how the pay award will be funded after 2020. Will the Minister come to meet heads and governors in Hounslow to explain how he thinks they will be able to achieve this?

[Nick Gibb]

The pay award is being funded over and above the 1% for which schools have already budgeted. Incidentally, the 3.5% pay award for teachers on the main pay scale takes the pay range to between £29,600 and £40,300. The 2% pay rise will be funded over and above the 1%, and the 1.5% pay rise for headteachers will also be funded over and above the 1% that schools have already awarded. Pay scales for headteachers, for example, now range up to £111,000 a year for some heads, and £118,000 for headteachers in inner London, although I accept that those figures are not as high as the pay of the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, which is over £200,000.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Gibb and Ruth Cadbury

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, we are spending record amounts on school funding: £42.4 billion this year, rising to £43.5 billion next year. We recognise that there have been cost pressures on schools, and we are giving them a range of help and advice on how to deal with those pressures. For instance, there are national schemes for buying energy, computers and other equipment to help schools to manage their budgets at a time when they are having to do so.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

How does the Secretary of State expect local authorities to retain special services for vulnerable children, let alone share them, when they have faced—on average— 40% cuts in total funding in the last eight years?