Evaluation of Teachers’ Pay Reform

The Government has introduced substantial reforms to teachers’ pay, to give schools greater freedom to decide how much they pay teachers and how quickly pay progresses. Schools now have more flexibility to attract and retain the best teachers, and recognise and reward high performance. The reforms came into force in September 2013. A central feature of the reforms is the abolition of automatic progression on the main pay range for classroom teachers, and the introduction of performance-related pay for teachers on this pay range. Schools have considerable freedom to decide how they implement performance related pay – for example, schools decide the performance criteria that they use in awarding pay progression, and have the option to progress teachers at different rates according to their performance. Schools also now have more flexibility to decide starting salaries when recruiting teachers, and are no longer required to match teachers’ previous salaries. The first progression pay decisions for teachers under the new framework will be made in September 2014, and so this presents the first opportunity to robustly evaluate how schools are using their new pay freedoms. So far, the reforms have applied to classroom teachers, but further reforms will come into force in September 2014 which extend the same principle of greater autonomy at school level to the pay of school leaders (head teachers, deputy heads and assistant heads). Schools will have more freedom to set leadership pay reflecting school size, context and challenge. Schools will be required to follow these new arrangements when setting the pay of new appointees, but they have discretion on whether to apply the new arrangements to existing leadership appointments.

Each school has its own pay policy, agreed with its governing body. Schools have revised their pay policies to implement the new arrangements. The statutory requirements are set out in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document, commonly known as the STPCD. The Department has also produced non-statutory advice to support schools as they make decisions on their pay policies.

These reforms are statutory for maintained schools only; academies and Free Schools have autonomy to set their own pay policies and are not required to follow the national pay framework.

This evaluation aims to: • track schools’ progress with implementing pay reforms and identify areas of best practice; • understand resulting changes in schools’ behaviour in relation to pay award and progression; • explore perceptions of the reforms amongst teachers and school leaders; and, • explore whether the reforms are influencing behaviour in relation to pay award and progression amongst academies and free schools.