Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 5 September 2018 to Question 168037 on Teachers: Pay, which specific forecasts have been scrutinised to allow the Department to centrally meet the cost Teachers’ Pay Grant; what those forecasts and assumptions originally were; and how those forecasts and assumptions have changed.

The Teachers’ Pay Grant uses funding which has been released from the core schools budget, specifically the Schools Block of the Dedicated Schools Grant and the Pupil Premium.

The amount originally set aside for these budgets in July 2017 was based on the projected number of pupils in schools and the projected number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium, in 2018/19 and 2019/20. These numbers are lower than forecast, and updated projections for 2019/20 suggest slower than previously expected pupil number growth.

Using the funding this difference creates, the Department is providing schools with £187 million in 2018-19 and £321 million in 2019-20, to help them implement the announced pay award.