College staff should have pay ‘matched’ with school teachers – Jacqui Smith

The skills minister has said she would like to see college staff pay matched with school teachers.

Baroness Jacqui Smith, universities, skills and apprenticeship minister, apologised that the Government had not been able to fund the same 5.5% pay increase for further education (FE) lecturers as school staff this year.

Addressing college leaders on Tuesday in Birmingham, the education minister said FE staff and students have too often been “sidelined”.

She acknowledged that college staff “felt rightly very disappointed” as they were not awarded the same, fully-funded, pay award as their peers in schools.

Baroness Smith told the annual conference of Association of Colleges (AoC): “We have a different situation in FE in terms of the Government’s role in pay, and that was the reason why we weren’t at that point able to fund the same pay increase.

“I know it will have felt like a lack of recognition of the FE workforce, but genuinely we understand the crucial role that the FE workforce plays in both the skills development I was talking about in colleges, and for your students and learners.”

In a question and answer session at the event, the skills minister added: “We will continue to make that case strongly and I think we need to think about the architecture around FE teachers pay for the future.

“And I undertake that that is what we are doing at the moment, and I’m sorry that we weren’t able to do it in the way that people hoped we would be able to this year.”

Her comments came after the AoC recommended last month that college staff pay should rise by 2.5% for the 2024/25 academic year.

The AoC had said it was “forced” to make a recommendation below what was needed as colleges could not afford to pay more due to funding pressures.

In July, the Government announced a fully-funded 5.5% pay rise for school teachers and leaders in England from the start of this academic year.

When asked whether she would personally like to see the pay matched, Baroness Smith said: “Yes, I would, and I think it’s probably not too much of a secret that it was an argument that was made across Government.”

Last month, the AoC called on the Government to put right the “injustices” of colleges having to pay VAT as they said college students have fewer resources spent on them than their peers in schools due to the existing policy.

Baroness Smith acknowledged that it was a “discrepancy” and she added that the Government will try to make sure there is a “level playing field”.

During her speech, she said: “This Government will treat colleges, teachers, technicians and the people that support our students with respect.”

Baroness Smith announced on Tuesday that FE colleges will be given “a crown guarantee” for the local government pension scheme (LGPS) – which academies have been able to benefit from since 2013.

She said: “We estimate that the overall value of that guarantee to the sector is up to £30 million, freeing up much needed funding to support your work.”

The LGPS guarantee is a Government commitment to fund pension deficits in the event of an FE college closure – and where the provider’s reserves are insufficient to fund their own LGPS deficit upon closure.

The skills minister also confirmed that colleges will receive funding to support them with additional costs from employer national insurance (NI) hikes from April, which were set out in last month’s Budget.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said: “Colleges are rightly frustrated about the pay gap between schools and colleges, as am I.

“It is encouraging to hear the minister recognise that this gap needs to close and to share our frustration, as well as the discrepancy on VAT rules which is not fair on college students.

“We will work hard to make the case on this ahead of the spending review in the spring.”

He added: “I welcome her announcement on both the LGPS guarantee and national insurance contributions, both of which show that this Government wants to support colleges more.

“This will make a huge financial difference to colleges; we estimate that the LGPS guarantee alone will save colleges around £30 million a year, with a lifetime saving of more than half a billion and the NIC funding will be over £100m per year.”

Paul Bridge, head of further education at the University and College Union (UCU), said: “We welcome Jacqui Smith’s recognition of how unjust the pay gap between school and college teachers is, but we now need to see urgent action to close it.

“College staff have suffered the worst real terms pay cuts in education and their mistreatment has led to a severe recruitment and retention crisis which threatens the government’s programme for a decade of national renewal.

“We are eager to work with the Labour government to institute new, binding pay bargaining structures for further education which ensure that college staff in England are never again left out in the cold while millions of their public sector peers get a pay-rise.”