The Scottish Government has been given a deadline to make a new pay offer to teachers or face the threat of industrial action, The Herald can reveal.
The EIS teaching union has confirmed that if an offer is not made by 12 noon on Monday 2 September, then teachers will declare a formal dispute.
Teacher pay in Scotland is agreed through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), which describes itself as a “tripartite body comprising members from teaching organisations, Local Authorities, and the Scottish Government.” Teachers in Scotland are employed by councils, but the Scottish Government ultimately funds public sector pay deals.
In a statement, the EIS says that the teachers’ side in the negotiations submitted a pay claim for 2024/2025 back in January of this year, but that to date only one offer has been received and it was “completely lacking in credibility.” Teachers “unanimously rejected” that proposal at the beginning of June.
Since then, an implementation date for salary increases – previously agreed as being August 1 2024 – has passed with no further offers being made.
The statement references “the meeting of COSLA Leaders on 30th August 2024” and says that, in light of this, further delays are “completely unacceptable.”
As a result, the Teachers’ Panel of the negotiating committee has now decided to set the deadline for a new offer and announce that it will declare a dispute if this demand is not met.
Such a move would be a first step towards possible industrial action, raising the prospect of another round of teacher strikes across the country. Teachers went on strike over pay for the first time in a generation during the 2022/2023 school year.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said:
“The Scottish Government values the hard work of our teaching workforce and we are absolutely committed to ensuring they receive a fair pay deal.
“While it is only COSLA who can make a formal pay offer to teaching unions as the employer, the Scottish Government will continue to engage with all parties through the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) to ensure that we come to a fair resolution.”
COSLA have been approached for comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel