Teachers get three-year pay offer

Teachers are to be offered a bumper three-year pay deal in a bid to head off trade union unrest. Education Secretary Estelle Morris will share out some of the extra billions she won from Chancellor Gordon Brown in this month's spending review.

The deal, ordered by No 10, would fix salaries until 2006 - - putting off any further clash over pay until after the next general election. The value of the offer will be revealed within the next week in a letter from Ms Morris to the School Teachers Review Body, which makes recommendations on teachers' pay.

In her letter, Ms Morris is also expected to ask for ways to building more local flexibility into the pay structure. This year's pay deal gave teachers a 3.5 per cent increase across the board and shortened the pay scale, allowing young teachers to reach higher salaries more quickly.

But it added virtually nothing to the £3,000 London allowance, prompting the National Union of Teachers to call the first industrial action over pay in 30 years - a one-day strike in March closing more than half the capital's schools.

Teachers in Scotland received a 23 per cent pay rise last year, staged over three years and accompanied by a move to a 35-hour week.

A source at the Department for Education and Skills said: "This deal will bring stability and financial security and could have an important effect on recruitment and retention if teachers see how their earnings will grow over the years."

Teaching unions gave the idea a lukewarm welcome and said any deal must be linked with moves to reduce workloads and tackle bad behaviour by pupils.

John Bangs of the National Union of Teachers said: "A straightforward threeyear pay deal has to take account of economic circumstances as well as the need to recruit and retain teachers.

"We do not reject the concept, but a longterm solution to the current shortages cannot be as simple as just saying, 'This is what we are going to offer over three years'."

Other Government departments are expected to propose their own three-year deals. Council workers could be offered a

settlement to break the deadlock in their pay talks and head off their second national one-day strike scheduled for 14 August.

But the Tories have warned against allowing higher public-sector pay to eat away at the big increase in public spending.