Relations between teachers’ leaders and Gillian Keegan are now so poor that more school strikes seem certain, according to union chiefs who claim the Education Secretary has shown she lacks a “basic” understanding of inflation.
They point to what they say Ms Keegan told them at a recent meeting, in an account strongly denied by government.
According to the unions, the Education Secretary indicated she believed that falling inflation would mean that prices would also fall and thereby alleviate the pressure on teachers’ salaries. They say this is evidence that she does not understand the profession’s financial plight.
The Government has dismissed the unions’ claims as “pure fabrication”. But in a television interview earlier this year Ms Keegan seemed to make a very similar argument.
Whoever is correct about what was said at the private meeting, the fact that its contents were briefed out and the fierce row that has followed, are both indicative of a rapid deterioration in relations between public sector unions and ministers over pay.
On Tuesday NHS consultants voted to strike against real-terms salary cuts, with the British Medical Association saying the vote showed that senior doctors were “furious” about being repeatedly devalued by government.
There is rising anger among teaching and health unions about the prospect of the Government ignoring the recommendations of the independent pay review bodies, to keep pay deals down.
Rishi Sunak has given several hints over the past week that he will not accept the advice of the pay bodies, arguing that it will only further fuel sky high inflation.
Teaching leaders have said such a move would spark coordinated strikes leading to wholesale closures of schools across England next term, prompting fears of a fresh autumn of discontent.
According to union representatives who were present at a recent meeting with Ms Keegan on the issue of teachers’ pay, she illustrated a basic misconception of inflation.
A union source told i: “Gillian Keegan showed she didn’t understand what inflation is, she said that inflation could come down to 3 per cent by the end of the year, so prices would drop and therefore teachers would be spending less.”
The claim was corroborated by a second source from a different union, who was also present in the meeting.
“In our second meeting, she gave us a lecture on how inflation had spiked, due to oil prices and the war in Ukraine. She said the Government was committed to halving inflation by the end of the year and it could even be down to 3 per cent,” the source said.
The source added: “She seemed to think that because inflation would be 3 per cent either by the end of this year or next year, it didn’t matter that we had inflation of 10.1 per cent at the start of the year.
“We said their offer of 4.5 per cent, plus a one-off payment, would still be well below inflation. We asked if she was suggesting there would be deflation and prices would start to fall and she just did this waving gesture saying ‘inflation goes up and inflation goes down’.”
Speaking on Sky News in March the Education Secretary also pointed to a forecast fall in inflation for September 2023-24 when discussing the Government’s pay offer to teachers for the same period.
“If you look at the 4.5 per cent that we’ve offered for next year, inflation during that period, September to September is expected to be way below 2 per cent,” Ms Keegan said. “So that will start to be above inflation.”
But she failed to acknowledge the lasting impact that much higher inflation during 2022/23 will have on teachers and appeared to overlook the fact that even with inflation drastically reduced, prices would still be far higher than the year before.
Ms Keegan pointed to forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility which has predicted that CPI inflation will drop below 3 per cent between October to December this year and to less than 2 per cent between January to September 2024.
However teachers, who received a 5 per cent rise during 2022/23 – plus a one-off £1,000 payment that will not carry forward into 2023/24 – are currently having their spending power eaten away with more inflation predicted until the end of 2024 and beyond. CPI inflation was at least 10.1 per cent between September 2022 and March, and has only dropped to 8.7 per cent since.
Teaching unions say that relations with Ms Keegan, a successful businesswoman before entering politics, have reached rock bottom.
“She is terrible,” the first union source added. “She bluffs her way through meetings and you can see the civil servants rolling their eyes.”
The second source said: “Gavin Williamson was a grade A shit, but he wasn’t stupid. It is very disappointing that the Secretary of State of one of the most important offices of state is someone who is so intellectually feeble.”
While relations remain cordial with Department for Education officials, the unions are increasingly seeing Ms Keegan as the barrier for a pay offer that would bring heads and teachers’ leaders back to the table and suspend further strikes.
The pay review bodies are due to publish their recommendations next month, with teachers widely expecting a 6.5 per cent salary increase for 2023/24 and around 6 per cent predicted for the NHS.
Unions say that given the weight ministers had placed on the advice provided by the independent pay review bodies during talks to date – using them to justify real-terms pay cuts – any attempt to ignore their recommendations now would spark “fury”.
Teachers’ leaders are increasingly confident that they will meet the ballot threshold to enable them to hold another round of industrial action.
It raises the unprecedented, prospect of two of the country’s headteacher unions voting to go on strike, mirroring the action of senior doctors, in another blow for the Government.
A source inside one of the headteacher unions said: “This will have a massive impact on recruitment and retention; 8 per cent of headteachers left the profession last year. It is against that backdrop that the profession is saying patience has run out.”
Union bosses have repeatedly pointed out that if a reasonable pay offer is made then proposed strikes next week on Wednesday and Friday could be suspended, and a deal could be sold to the profession. But with both sides seemingly miles apart, and the National Education Union due to hand over its leadership to the more militant Daniel Kebede, the dispute and disruption to parents and children look set to drag on.
In response to the allegations about Ms Keegan, a government spokesman said: “This is pure fabrication.”
