School support staff pension raid to fund teachers' pay 'deeply unfair'

GMB Union, a recognised union for support staff, has today reacted to news that a 3.5 per cent pay rise for teachers will be funded by cutting employer contributions for school support staff.

The government will fully fund the teachers' pay increase using £500 million in savings from a 4.9 per cent reduction in the employer contribution rate to the Local Government Pension Scheme.

Lisa Bangs, GMB Senior Organiser, said:

"As a union, we want all school staff to receive fully funded pay increases, but raiding support staff pension contributions to pay teachers is deeply unfair.

"Due to term time only contracts which run for 39 weeks a year, support staff already face a shortfall in their pensions. 

"It is frankly unbelievable that money allocated for these underpaid and undervalued workers is not being used to improve their pay, but diverted to higher paid teachers instead.

"Let’s not forget teaching assistants are on the low paid occupation list and £500 million could have made a big difference to thousands of low paid women workers.

"The government needs to have a sustainable, long term investment plan for the school workforce. What will happen next year?

"We are deeply disappointed that other unions, including the NEU which claims to want to improve the working lives of support staff, have claimed and celebrated this decision as a win."