The government is set for a clash with trade unions after ministers recommended a 2.8% pay rise for teachers, NHS staff and other public sector workers next year.
Government departments said they were budgeting for the rise, but unions argued the recommended rise would be insufficient considering increases in the cost of living.
Pay review bodies will make the final recommendations but, in written evidence, the government said it believed 2.8% was enough to set aside.
The National Education Union said it was “putting the government on notice” that it was not enough, while Unite, one of Labour’s biggest donors, called the offer to NHS staff “an insult”.
The anger from unions came after the government settled some long-running public sector pay disputes that had led to strikes under the previous Conservative governments.
In written evidence to the NHS pay review body, the Department of Health said the 2.8% for nurses, doctors and other NHS next year was viewed as “a reasonable amount to have set aside based on the macroeconomic data and forecasts and taking into account the fiscal and labour market context”.
The Royal College of Nursing denounced the proposal as a “deeply offensive” sum that offered nurses an increase in their pay worth “as little as £2 extra a day, less than the price of a cup of coffee”.
Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN’s general secretary and chief executive, warned that nurses may once again go on strike in pursuit of a better deal, as they did in late 2022 and early 2023. “Let’s open direct talks now and avoid further escalation to disputes and ballots. I have said that directly to government today,” she said.
The leading measure of inflation, the consumer prices index, is forecast to be about 2.3% next year, but the RCN highlighted that the retail prices index, which includes housing costs, is predicted to be 3.5%.
Unite criticised the offer as “an insult to dedicated NHS staff” and further proof that the NHS Pay Review Body – which health unions claim is too close to the government – was unfit for purpose.
Significantly, NHS Employers, which represents health trusts in England in pay negotiations, warned that lingering frustration among staff at their pay, and doctors receiving bigger rises this year than other staff, may trigger a fresh wave of strikes.
It told the pay review body and its equivalent that helps set doctors’ and dentists’ pay that: “Employers … are concerned that ongoing dissatisfaction and differing pay settlements could lead to further industrial action, hindering progress in rebuilding relationships, financial stability and reducing waiting lists.”
The British Medical Association said the government showed a “poor grasp” of unresolved issues from two years of industrial action and urged the pay review body to show it was now “truly independent”.
Chair of the council Prof Philip Banfield said: “It is far below the current rate of inflation experienced by doctors in their daily lives and does not move significantly closer to restoring the relative value of doctors’ pay lost over the past 15 years.”
In her submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB), the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said the proposed award for 2025-6 would “maintain the competitiveness of teachers’ pay, despite the challenging financial backdrop the government is facing”.
But Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), whose members went on strike to fight for better pay under the last government, said it fell “well short” of what was required.
“NEU members fought to win the pay increases of 2023 and 2024. We are putting the government on notice. Our members care deeply about education and feel the depth of the crisis. This won’t do.”
Unions are particularly aggrieved at the government’s assumption that schools will foot the bill for the pay rise from already overstretched budgets. In its evidence to the STRB, the Department for Education acknowledged most schools would need to make efficiency savings to cover the 2.8% award.
Kebede said: “Teacher pay has been cut by over a fifth in real terms since 2010, hitting teacher living standards and damaging the competitive position of teaching against other graduate professions.
“Along with sky-high workload, the pay cuts have resulted in a devastating recruitment and retention crisis. Teacher shortages across the school system hit pupils and parents too. A 2.8% increase is likely to be below inflation and behind wage increases in the wider economy. This will only deepen the crisis in education.”
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The inadequacy of the proposed pay award is compounded by the government’s intention that schools should foot the bill out of their existing allocations.
“Given that per-pupil funding will increase on average by less than 1% next year, and the government’s proposal is for an unfunded 2.8% pay award, it is obvious that this is in fact an announcement of further school cuts.”
