Autumn Statement pay restraint to affect teachers

The Statement also set out plans to limit pay rises in the public sector, a move that has angered the teaching profession after what the Times Educational Supplement has described as "four years of pay freezes and marginal one per cent salary increases since the coalition came into power."

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT said: “Now teachers and other public service workers face pay restraint to the end of the decade, representing even deeper cuts to pay to those who work day in day out to deliver essential services.”

Russell Hobby of head teacher union the NAHT said that the government's failure to offer teachers a more generous deal has harmed recruitment, saying: “We are really starting to see the effect of that policy on recruitment. It’s insidious in that when people come to consider teaching, they see that teacher salaries are becoming less and less competitive and we know you can’t raise standards without attracting the best people into teaching.”

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