Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has taken recent steps to help ensure that (a) teaching assistants and (b) support staff in schools are paid at a level which aids the (i) recruitment and (ii) retention of those staff.

The Government knows the valuable contribution teaching assistants make to pupils’ education, helping to raise attainment and reduce teachers’ workload.

Schools have the freedom to set pay for teaching assistants and all support staff. All schools have different characteristics and should make decisions that meet their needs. Many mirror local government pay scales, which are agreed between the National Joint Council and trade unions. Support staff in schools that follow these pay scales will receive a pay rise of 10% on average, which will be backdated to April 2022.

The 2022 Autumn Statement underlines the priority the Government attaches to schools, delivering a significant uplift in funding in this Spending Review period. Core schools funding will increase by £2.3 billion in both the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years.

After adjusting the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 budgets down to account for the removal of the compensation for employer costs of the Health and Social Care Levy, this brings the core schools budget to a total of £58.8 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, £2 billion more than published in 2021.