TWO major teaching unions have reacted angrily to a new pay deal, under which Lancashire’s top teachers could get up to two per cent rises.

The department for education has published recommendations for the settlement in England, within the one per cent pay limit agreed by ministers in 2012.

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The deal means East Lancashire schools will be able to award the best teachers more, but only out of existing budgets.

However, the move has been criticised by unions who say that as there was no extra money, many teachers would not get the standard one per cent rise at all.

In a report to the government the School Teachers Review Body (STRB) said evidence confirms the need for a pay rise to support the competitiveness of the teaching profession.

The body said the recommendations were made amid a ‘challenging climate for schools, with tight budgets, demographics driving up pupil numbers and an increasingly competitive graduate labour market’.

Simon Jones, Lancashire’s NUT representative, said: “The STRB has acknowledged the NUT’s concerns about teacher supply.

“The STRB also sent a clear signal that it would have increased teachers’ pay by more, if the government were willing to fund it.

“The government’s decision to freeze school funding means that even a one per cent pay increase this year will lead to cuts elsewhere in schools.

“But its decision to allow schools to decide whether teachers get any increase means that many teachers may not even get one per cent.”

Christine Keates, head of the NASUWT teaching union, said: “Whilst the review body may be acting with the best of intentions in seeking to introduce the opportunity for some teachers to receive up to two per cent, unfortunately, this is still within the treasury pay cap and takes no account of the fact that, thanks to the coalition government’s changes to the pay structure, schools can use their pay flexibilities to seek to avoid paying teachers any award at all.”

The pay of teachers in the maintained sector is set by schools but within nationally agreed levels.

Teachers received a one per cent rise last year, in line with the two-year pay cap across the public sector introduced in 2012.